Help with amp problem

[Jeremiah]

I've recently been having problems with my Traynor Darkhorse head.

Basically, the sound is much more distorted than it should be at any particular gain setting, but the overall volume is much lower than it should be.

First the obvious things. It's not the guitar, the cables, the speaker, or any pedals in the signal chain. I've played just guitar -> amp with no pedals, and also tried different guitars, cables, speakers and mains cable.

It's also not the tubes: I've replaced all the pre and power amp tubes.

The problem was initially somewhat intermittent - eg the amp would be fine for 5 minutes then go bad again. This makes me suspect a dodgy connection or solder joint somewhere.

I've looked inside the amp and can't see any obvious loose wires, broken connections or burned out components, but due to the arrangement of PCBs it's not really possible to see everything without getting deeper in than my limited knowledge of electronics allows..

Any suggestions, other than the obvious one of taking it to an amp tech?

[SongsForTheDeaf]

Re: Help with amp problem

Weird... Traynor is usually amazing quality. Sounds like something is not right and my first guess was the tubes but you have ruled that out.

I hate to do this but.....Take it to a tech

[gordon_39422]

Re: Help with amp problem

Without looking at it, it could be your screen resistors... They can fail without charring making it difficult to troubleshoot with the eye... Since you mentioned PCB, they probably are not on the tube socket like P2P amps would be... Working on a PCB requires a much lower wattage iron and can still cause more problems than the current one, so take it to a tech...