Critical thinking... Or lack there of

[Enzo]

yeah but we all snicker behind your back...


I have to talk to myself too. "Do it anyway. DO it anyway. DO it anyway."

[Chuck H]

yeah but we all snicker behind your back...

That's OK... My amps sound good. Great really. Maybe someday, if I ever get my head into this century, I'll post clips.

Chuck

PS, as for "Do it anyway" I can agree that it's easy to become cavalier if you think you know what your doing. Certain standards and practices can help insure results and safety. It's important to remain vigalant.

[Enzo]

I agree. Actually my inner dialog is more like: "Oh I don't wanna work on this. DO it anyway. But I really don;t want to work onthis. DO it anyway." (repeat as necessary)

[Chuck H]

Had to link this here. Everything is about to $h!t the bed with greekie at the helm to post #6 where Tom Phillips saves the day.

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t21288/

[BackwardsBoB]

I think you guys blew right past the kind of "what's wrong with my amp" post that cracks me up the most. Something like:

"I put new toobs in my amp a few weeks ago, and it sounded real good. Kind of like Purple Zombies. Last night I was jamming with friends, and my amp started making horrible noises/squeals/loud humming/fading in and out/hissing. I changed channels, and it still happened so I turned it down, but it still happened, so I turned it up but it still happened, so I turned up the reverb but it still happened so I tried a different cord but it still happened so I tried another pick but it still happened. Then I went home.

"I tried it again this morning..."

[Chuck H]

BwaaHaaHaaahaha (holding ribs, milk shooting from nose (wait, I wasn't drinking milk???)

Love those. Had one of my customers call me with what could be your post in quotation marks. Except it wasn't new toobs, but it was his first time gigging out with the amp. He was mad as hell about the embarrassment I caused him and all the trouble and delay on stage getting into the backup amp, etc... Turned out to be a low battery in one of his pedals.

[J M Fahey]

"I put new toobs in my amp a few weeks ago, and it sounded real good. ........ my amp started making horrible noises/squeals/loud humming/fading in and out/hissing.

I think you are all missing the point here, which should be painfully obvious:
the guy did change tubes .... but nowhere says he rebiased !!!!!!!!!!
Bias is everything !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Just kidding !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BackwardsBoB]

You're obviously born to troubleshoot. You're even fixing mythical problems. My point is that if you get someone to tell you the whole story, and you need to to troubleshoot over the Net, You typically find out that they have an amp that's broken, have no idea how it works, have nothing to aid in diagnostics, AND THEY KEEP PLAYING IT.

[olddawg]

Yeah well, add that old "plug a cord from FX send to FX return" thing to your repertoire and you will cover an amazing number of problems.

That and run a signal into the effects/main in or take a signal from the effects/pre out to another working amp. Many do not understand meaning of divide and conquer. Again, basic obvious reasoning skills.

[Enzo]

And I have had this guy a couple times:
My amp works OK for a minute or two and then it fuzzez out and gets weak...

Works OK for me, you got active pickups?


Yes, I have EMGXYZ.

Did you check the battery in the guitar?

Battery?

[Enzo]

I don't know if this is a critical thinking story or a cranky tech story...

Guy has some old Epi 4x10 combo amp. Sounds bad, crummy tone, and needs mainitenance. Oh, and he brought in just the amp chassis so he wouldn;t have to pay any additional labor for us to pull the chassis out of the cab. I guess he thought that would save $10 or something.

SO we clean and lube the controls and take care of whatever little issues, and maybe some tubes, whatever. Amp works fine now. Customer comes for it.

HAlf an hour later, he's on the phone, his amp still sounds crummy. I worked on it myself, I know it works. Bring it back then. Plug it in, works fine. Here, listen, the amp works fine. Goes home, call in, still sounds crummy, why can;t we fix it right, and I don;t want to pay any more than I already paid just because you can;t fix it. Tell him to bring the WHOLE amp in, cab and all. But I know the problem is in the amp, I checked all the speakers. PLEEEEEASE bring in the whole thing.

There, Pete, y'see how the lower speakers are wired out of phase with the upper ones? Here, (pull pull push push - wiring corrected) now listen.

"Oh....."

Good thing you saved all that disassembly labor, you needed it for gas money.

[Enzo]

Oh, and the guy with an SVT. "It squeals."

AMp works OK for me, but did maintenance, tightened up everything, checked bias, looked for microphonic tubes, loose grounding on jacks, etc etc. No squeal for me. Try it. Still squeals. Brings it back. We look further, no problem in evidence, but looking for anything that might be out of sorts. Demo to customer, takes it... still squeals. For him. He is getting steamed, I really need this, it has to be reliable, I can't, I won't, you better... There is nothing wrong with this amp, nothing I do to it makes it remotely squeal. Not running on wrong output impedance, not using any settings etc. He is steamed at us, telling me I don;t know what I am doing, I am ripping him off, he's pissed off. He storms off.


Bless his little heart, at least he did come back the next day to tell us, "It was my guitar, the ground was off inside."

[soundmasterg]

*Caution, sattire*

Go easy, it's not easy to keep up with all of America's wars!

We end up fighting so many wars because the europeans are lazy and would rather drink wine and sit on the veranda and let today's Hitler's overrun them.

Besides, you Brits joined us in Korea and the Iraq and Afghanistan engagements. You must be gluttons for punishment too.

Greg

[J M Fahey]

Just to keep it within History, and not dabble into Politics, which is not forbidden per se, but best avoided to keep this Forum polite, let me humbly tell that History disagrees with the above statement.
To write only fact and not opinion, and referring only to "the original" Hitler and not later wannabes:
Timeline:
September 3, 1939 - Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany.
September 5, 1939 - United States proclaims its neutrality; German troops cross the Vistula River in Poland.
September 10, 1939 - Canada declares war on Germany; Battle of the Atlantic begins.
May 10, 1940 - Nazis invade France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
December 8, 1941 - United States and Britain declare war on Japan.
December 11, 1941 - Hitler declares war on the United States.
Er ... I see a gap of two years and three months where the brave British fought alone ...
Anyway, don't take me seriously, I'm just a History nut

[nashvillebill]

Back on topic: Over on the audio forums, I'm constantly amazed at the threads where folks want to upgrade the components in their gear. Usually titled "which poly cap sounds the best" or something similar. Obviously the more a component costs, the better it must sound right?

And spending more money on "audio grade" components that aren't even in the signal path, like DC power supply filter caps or op-amp decoupling caps, MUST "make the soundstage more detailed, it's like lifting a veil off the speakers!!"