Amp Woes.

[dd12939]

Well, my amp is really beginning to piss me off. It's a Fender Princeton 65 SS amp that I've had for... 3, maybe 4 years. At this point I run my GT6 into its Power In jack only. It sounds better than using the inputs. Anyway, the problems:
The main one is that, especially at higher volumes, it makes this horrendous popping noise. Kind of like when you pull the plug out while it's on, just more muted sounding. The pattern that it typically goes in is thus: *playing* *stop* *pop-pop-pop-pop-pop* *play* *pop pop* *not playing* *pop* or something to that effect.
The other problem is that sometimes my playing goes away and it just hums. Like something loose.
Any ideas on how to fix it?
Thanks much,
Dave

 

[Scott_F]

Re: Amp Woes.

Take it to a tech. Sounds like you've got a bad solder joint somewhere with the popping stuff. NOt sure about the hum without looking at it.

The solder joint heats up and cools down as you play and stop. Expansion and contractions are my guess on this popping. It happens on a lot of amps. considering you've been playing it fo 3-4 years, I'm guessing it's not a quality control issue from Fender, stuff just happens over time. Moving the amp around the in trunk of car to gigs and such, bumps, jars, bruises, eventually a weak solder joint will get a bit weaker.

One of the last things I do to an amp I build, once I get it up and it's playing well, is to go back and put my soldering iron back on every connection and give it a bit more solder if needed. I want to see shiny clean solder joints. It's a tiny bit of preventative maintenance that seems to go a long way.

Do you change preamp tubes a lot? Sometimes, those tube sockets will wear out a bit if you've been popping tubes in and out a lot. It's an easy fix to bend them back, but if you don't know what you are doing, take it to a tech. Don't fry yourself. We'd like to see you around here for years to come.