Oh sheesh, was that my fault?

[Randall]

I got a call from a guy at a Buddy Holly Cabaret gig this evening. Says the amp I just worked on a couple of weeks ago makes no sound and he's kind of screwed. He's in town so I run him over a loaner amp. He says he hadn't played it before now. I get it home and immediately see the speaker wires are not connected at the speaker. Reconnected, problem solved. But, now I wonder if I actually let it go out like that. I normally play an amp after it's put back together, but I'm not 100% sure I did this time. I may have played it out of the cab, and failed to reconnect after, I don't recall. On the other hand, the footwsitch with it's cable wrapped around it is knocking around inside the cab, and I have no idea what it may have been through since it left here. It's possible it knocked the speaker wires off the speaker terminals I suppose.

Anyway, no harm done, he got the gig started on time, and the amp is again working (this time with better crimped connectors). so, let be a lesson kids, ALWAYS play an amp before it goes out the door!

[1ampman]

Easy mistake! Glad all is well... I told a guy his amp is done, he drove for 20 minutes & as we're trying the amp out, it acts up bad. I had to eat crow....Gheesh!

[Chuck H]

That's a mistake no one here would EVER make. In fact no one here but you has EVER made a mistake. Please, everyone, join me now laughing at Randall

[Enzo]

HA HA HA, Randall made a mistake.


Randall, we all make mistakes, and please don't spend time wondering how it happened. I have been about to do some finishing touch to a project and the phone rings. I chat with the caller, and button up my project, neatly forgetting some last detail.

You already know better, you don't do it often, no harm came from it. Join us in laughing about it.

[bob p]

Everyone makes misteaks. But to be fair to Randall, *TWO* people made a mistake, not one. The customer should have tested the amp before gigging with it.

The good news, Randall, is that you took care of your customer in an emergency. You get points for that.

So what can we learn from this?

* Try to avoid distractions in the middle of a task. I let the phone ring.
* Always test an amp before it goes out the door.
* Combo amps get used as storage bins. It's not a good practice. Educate your customer about that.
* Solder is better than spade connectors.
* Don't forget to design OT protection into your amp. You got lucky. In the worst case scenario you'd have to eat the repair if your mistake blew up his amp.

[Chuck H]

Yep, that ^^^^^^^^^^

It happens to me when I experience pretty much anything greater than one distraction at a time. Once I get to two distractions from already having a task at hand I'm much more prone to lose steps in the original goal. And of course I was just ribbing above. That sort of thing happens to me at work all the time, though not often with amp work because I do that as a hobby.