Hi. New to the forum and I hope I'm not breaking any rules. I searched and didn't find an answer to my question.
Anyway, here goes. I've been playing through a solid state Crate combo for years and I've always wanted a Peavey 5150 but only recently was I able to seriously start looking for one, so I found one on Craigslist that had a low enough price that my wife gave me the go-ahead. I went and plugged into it and it played fine, except the guy had a guitar cable with one of the plugs kind of damaged. At one point during the demo the amp signal dropped and came up with a weird swelling static noise, but when we switched the instrument cable around it cleared up, so I didn't think anything of it. I bought the amp. ($800 for the head and an Ampeg cabinet). The guy says it's got brand new tubes in it, but who knows if that's true? I certainly don't know what to look for, except for the little I've read online, and the four power tubes are all fresh and clean-looking and glowing the proper yellowish orange color.
So I took it home and started jamming and it was great... at first. Then it did the thing again. A big chunk of the signal dropped out, mostly low-end, and it started wooshing and swelling. At times it almost sounded like I playing through reverb, almost like what I was playing affected the noise, but if I stopped playing altogether, it would continue. Up and down swelling wooshing sound that sounds kind of like the ocean. The first time it happened, I light clap with my hand on the top of the amp cut it out immediately, but then it started again a little while later and no amount of bopping it upside the head made any difference. Naturally I started to panic and got online and checked a couple of websites and (mind you, this my first tube amp and I know NOTHING) found that it was more likely a problem with my preamp tubes than my power tubes and that you can sometimes troubleshoot by rearranging the order of the preamp tubes. So I did that... switched the first and fifth preamp tubes and that solved the problem for about a day. It played great for a long time, but then the next day it came back, only this time instead of losing the low-end part of the signal, it seemed to lose a whole lot of gain and volume... plus the wooshing sound was back. So I turned it off and registered here. But then just before typing this, I went out to try it out again and it sounds fine again.
So that's where I'm at right now. I left a voicemail with the guy I bought it from but I'd honestly be surprised if I heard back from him. He's free and clear and I can't imagine I can pursue any kind of action toward getting my money back. I guess my big question here is whether or not I should fork out the cash for a new set of tubes or just take it right to the shop. The tubes LOOK new to me. There don't seem to be any blackened or charred parts and they all look like they're glowing the right color, but then again rearranging them did have an immediate, albeit temporary, effect.
Has anyone seen this problem before? Does anyone have any idea what it could be? Am I looking at just needing to replace the tubes or is the amp just garbage?
Anyway, here goes. I've been playing through a solid state Crate combo for years and I've always wanted a Peavey 5150 but only recently was I able to seriously start looking for one, so I found one on Craigslist that had a low enough price that my wife gave me the go-ahead. I went and plugged into it and it played fine, except the guy had a guitar cable with one of the plugs kind of damaged. At one point during the demo the amp signal dropped and came up with a weird swelling static noise, but when we switched the instrument cable around it cleared up, so I didn't think anything of it. I bought the amp. ($800 for the head and an Ampeg cabinet). The guy says it's got brand new tubes in it, but who knows if that's true? I certainly don't know what to look for, except for the little I've read online, and the four power tubes are all fresh and clean-looking and glowing the proper yellowish orange color.
So I took it home and started jamming and it was great... at first. Then it did the thing again. A big chunk of the signal dropped out, mostly low-end, and it started wooshing and swelling. At times it almost sounded like I playing through reverb, almost like what I was playing affected the noise, but if I stopped playing altogether, it would continue. Up and down swelling wooshing sound that sounds kind of like the ocean. The first time it happened, I light clap with my hand on the top of the amp cut it out immediately, but then it started again a little while later and no amount of bopping it upside the head made any difference. Naturally I started to panic and got online and checked a couple of websites and (mind you, this my first tube amp and I know NOTHING) found that it was more likely a problem with my preamp tubes than my power tubes and that you can sometimes troubleshoot by rearranging the order of the preamp tubes. So I did that... switched the first and fifth preamp tubes and that solved the problem for about a day. It played great for a long time, but then the next day it came back, only this time instead of losing the low-end part of the signal, it seemed to lose a whole lot of gain and volume... plus the wooshing sound was back. So I turned it off and registered here. But then just before typing this, I went out to try it out again and it sounds fine again.
So that's where I'm at right now. I left a voicemail with the guy I bought it from but I'd honestly be surprised if I heard back from him. He's free and clear and I can't imagine I can pursue any kind of action toward getting my money back. I guess my big question here is whether or not I should fork out the cash for a new set of tubes or just take it right to the shop. The tubes LOOK new to me. There don't seem to be any blackened or charred parts and they all look like they're glowing the right color, but then again rearranging them did have an immediate, albeit temporary, effect.
Has anyone seen this problem before? Does anyone have any idea what it could be? Am I looking at just needing to replace the tubes or is the amp just garbage?
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