fender blues deville first edition, distorted clean channel

[fester gomez]

hi Folks, my blues deville, that i've owned since new, suddenly started to sound real dirty on the clean channel, which by the way was always pristine sounding, been re-capped, biased, tubes swapped with known good.......v1 plate 277v outs at 515v...any thoughts appreciated

[52 Bill]

hi Folks, my blues deville, that i've owned since new, suddenly started to sound real dirty on the clean channel, which by the way was always pristine sounding, been re-capped, biased, tubes swapped with known good.......v1 plate 277v outs at 515v...any thoughts appreciated

Is the distortion coming from the preamp or is it in the power amp? Try plugging into the power amp in jack. Is the signal distorted now? Can you take a signal from the preamp out and run it into another amp? Is the preamp out signal clean or dirty?

[Enzo]

My standard list:

Look CLOSELY at the solder on the power tube socket pins. ANy small cracks? I just automatically resolder them whenever I go into one of these amps.


Verify you have good B+ on BOTH pins 3 AND 4 on BOTH power tubes.

Look next door at the phase inverter tube. DO you have good plate voltage on BOTH pins 1 AND 6?

Cracked power tube solder and open plate resistors on the phase inverter are the most common repairs I make to the Hot Rod series.

[fester gomez]

i'll be checking your list thanks Enzo

[fester gomez]

i'll be getting to this asap, thanks 52 Bill!

[52 Bill]

Enzo went directly to the problem areas on these amps. I was going to get you there in a few steps.

If the power amp is distorting the first thing I check is the 82K plate resistor on the driver tube.

[Enzo]

Hey, whatever it takes to get you there. The more the merrier.