Tweet
I acquired this amp in a trade with some monitors a while back. Until this weekend I've used it very sparingly as a 'bedroom' practice amp with a DMA (low hours, low volume). It worked fine.
Friday night, I took it to a weekend jam, but didn't use it beyond powering it up. Yesterday I returned and discovered that it wouldn't power up, and that that had been noticed in the morning.
After verifying it was plugged in (to a working strip), I popped the hood and found nothing obviously amiss. It's got one internal fuse; no other apparent overcurrent protection. The fuse was fine. I fiddled with it for a while and it started working, though through no obvious action of mine.
I then used it for about ten minutes, at rather healthy volume, and it quit. I pulled the cover, and while it was rather warm inside, it was not 'hot' by electronic standards. The fuse was still good; we dug up a meter and found AC on the power socket, but not on the power switch, so whatever is 'broken' is upstream of the switch.
This is kind of a weird design (for solid state), in that it has an impedance matching transformer - it's rated at 100WPC into 4, or 200W into 8 bridged...but there's a button that engages a small transformer that kicks the impedance up to 8 per channel or 16 bridged, same power. I was running it into 8 ohms per side, and the transformer was the warmest part, FWIW.
Carvin doesn't publish schematics for active products, and if my history with them is any indication, all I'll get from a request is an offer to trade it for a new one at 70% of new price.
Anyone have any experience with these, and/or a schematic?
Friday night, I took it to a weekend jam, but didn't use it beyond powering it up. Yesterday I returned and discovered that it wouldn't power up, and that that had been noticed in the morning.
After verifying it was plugged in (to a working strip), I popped the hood and found nothing obviously amiss. It's got one internal fuse; no other apparent overcurrent protection. The fuse was fine. I fiddled with it for a while and it started working, though through no obvious action of mine.
I then used it for about ten minutes, at rather healthy volume, and it quit. I pulled the cover, and while it was rather warm inside, it was not 'hot' by electronic standards. The fuse was still good; we dug up a meter and found AC on the power socket, but not on the power switch, so whatever is 'broken' is upstream of the switch.
This is kind of a weird design (for solid state), in that it has an impedance matching transformer - it's rated at 100WPC into 4, or 200W into 8 bridged...but there's a button that engages a small transformer that kicks the impedance up to 8 per channel or 16 bridged, same power. I was running it into 8 ohms per side, and the transformer was the warmest part, FWIW.
Carvin doesn't publish schematics for active products, and if my history with them is any indication, all I'll get from a request is an offer to trade it for a new one at 70% of new price.
Anyone have any experience with these, and/or a schematic?
Comment