Crate Palomino noises

[The Dude]

Glad you got it!

Those things run insanely hot, which is a detriment to electrolytics. Many of those amps are too hot to touch a knob after being run a while. I would consider moving and upping the cathode resistor value as Chuck describes in post #11.

[Randall]

I would if it were mine, but I don't think it's in the budget to mod this one.

[SoulFetish]

I've been following this thread along a little bit. Nice work sussing it out, Randall. I noticed that this amp is nearly identical in design to the Crate V30. I also notice that some of the problems which have been described here also plague the V30. I know the V30 very well, as I used to own one.
Anyone know if the physical layout is the same in these two models?
If so, then I would explain to the customer that it's worth it for him to take care of some things now, because there are some problems in the amp that absolutely will fail at some point and cost a lot more money in cleaning up the scorched PCB and damage to residual parts later on. Namely, the components and design of the circuit were chosen with absolutely zero consideration for the ambient temperature caused by the layout and physical construction of the amplifier. That cathode bias resistor will fail miserably at some point. In the V30, the 100Ω screen resistors are mounted under the output board (if I remember correctly) and sat in between the board and the chassis with little space to dissipate the heat. So these will fail as well if used on the clean channel turned up to 7 or higher for very long.
After looking at the board layout, it looks like that may not be an issue with the Palamino, but the others can chime in who have more experience with this amp.