SVT 7 Pro Bought the farm

[PopaWoody]

A moment of silence is due. My 4 month old SVT 7 Pro decided to take a dump as soon as I turned it on at rehearsal this afternoon. Nothing but a buzz then zilch....Now when it is turned off, there is a 1 or 2 second long bzzzzzzz.

Fortunately there is a warranty repair location 4 miles away. Went to GC and purchased a SansAmp to use with a spare QSC 850W power amp. This sounded really good at first hook-up. Now I just need to play around with the order of effects.

Ampeg is definitely not what they used to be.

[genstormbringer]

From what I understand that one is made in St Louis in their old plant. Sorry to hear that I like Ampeg but haven't used em in a while. I hope everything goes well brah!


I stand corrected they are made in China my bad!

[JimmyM]

7 pro is a newer product. definitely not us made. hey, sometimes products break. it happens. hardly an indictment of the entire company just because it's yours that broke. doesn't seem to be an ongoing pattern from what i can see.

[livinglow]

I picked one up today (used) and it did the same thing when I got home! Looks like new too, glad I got a 30 warranty!

[Jerrold Tiers]

Originally Posted by genstormbringer

From what I understand that one is made in St Louis in their old plant. Sorry to hear that I like Ampeg but haven't used em in a while. I hope everything goes well brah!

NOT.....

There is a printing plant in the old St Louis factory, and nothing in the Yellville factory yet.

No idea where the 7 PRO is made... Korea or china, presumably.

[Plstrns]

Any time a new, from the ground up, product is released there's gonna be some growing pains. The good news is they sound great, they're warrantied, and Ampeg to this point still has a good repair reputation.

The bad news is, and it's the same for any company's new products, when they fail there's panic and nearly 100% of those failures are publicly reported. After a few laps around the block people tend to loosen up a little and accept a failure for what it is. It happens to the best, every company has failures with every product. Sell 2000 amps and have a problem with 100, it's still only 5%.

You'll rarely hear from the 1900 owners who didn't have a problem. The 100 that did however will chirp and scream.

[JacksonsMen]

"five on friday"

Doesnt matter where it's made, or who its made by. Theres always going to be an amp (in this case) that goes through the line at 5 on a friday... It's not that the company as a whole is cutting corners on QC, but maybe "inspector X" wanted to take off early on the day your amp passed through his station

long story short, you cant write off a whole company over something like this especially if theyre still on top of the game with repairs and warranties.

[nukes_da_bass]

Question just needs to be asked;

Did you try to replace the fuse?

That could actually work!

[genstormbringer]

Originally Posted by Jerrold Tiers

NOT.....

There is a printing plant in the old St Louis factory, and nothing in the Yellville factory yet.

No idea where the 7 PRO is made... Korea or china, presumably.

Sorry for ya but the initial run had the same stamp every other Ampeg had made in St.Louis that is all I know I do really not know where they are made I am just reporting what I saw on the initial run.

[genstormbringer]

Originally Posted by Plstrns

Any time a new, from the ground up, product is released there's gonna be some growing pains. The good news is they sound great, they're warrantied, and Ampeg to this point still has a good repair reputation.

The bad news is, and it's the same for any company's new products, when they fail there's panic and nearly 100% of those failures are publicly reported. After a few laps around the block people tend to loosen up a little and accept a failure for what it is. It happens to the best, every company has failures with every product. Sell 2000 amps and have a problem with 100, it's still only 5%.

You'll rarely hear from the 1900 owners who didn't have a problem. The 100 that did however will chirp and scream.

Ya wanna know what's funny a company can sit around and talk numbers and to them a 15% failure rate is and acceptable rate strange isn't it?

I stand corrected they are made in China I remember when I was looking for lightweight amps this one was one of them and yes they are Chinese made.

[tbird36go]

Sorry guys I've been using an Ampeg 4 pro for years & haven't had 1 thing go wrong or sound weird. & yes it's US made baby!

[greenboy]

Seems like there was some other thread around that indicated a high incidence of problems too. Hopefully someone who posted there will connect up, because it's not fun searching for 3-letter thingies.

EDIT: think this might have been a thread I saw: Ampeg SVT 7 Pro arriving tomorrow !!!!

[greenboy]

Originally Posted by tbird36go

Sorry guys I've been using an Ampeg 4 pro for years & haven't had 1 thing go wrong or sound weird. & yes it's US made baby!

4 == 7 ?

Wow. I did not know.

And since you had no problems of course nobody else should either. Dirty commies!

[PopaWoody]

Greenboy got it right. That thread is full of people with problems with their SVT7's. Seems like a pretty high failure rate.

I was impressed with the sound, it has a LOT of power on tap. I never take it past %50 master volume.

The fuse was not the problem, the unit still powers on and I get a preamp output to the mixer.

Zilch out of the power amp block. My GK Neo works with another source applied to it.

Amp Failure should not happen as frequently as I have read. Ampeg is one of the bass amplifier defacto standards.

[Jerrold Tiers]

it's easy to complain, and there is justification.... The products SHOULD be tested extensively before production...

That said, there are things that happen....

When we made the first 8PRO run, there was one part, a transformer, that was fairly critical... if not made right it had a problem that made the power supply voltage too high at idle. That shut down the amp on overvoltage.

Well, the samples were fine, but when production occurred, the manufacturer of the part cut some corners, or wasn't careful and we had a lot of bad ones, not all of which got caught on the way through test.

The irritating thing is that I could have made a slight change in the design of the part that would have made it easier for them, but found out about their problem too late to do it for that run.... And with the buyout, it gotr much more difficult to do any changes.

Originally Posted by genstormbringer

Sorry for ya but the initial run had the same stamp every other Ampeg had made in St.Louis that is all I know I do really not know where they are made I am just reporting what I saw on the initial run.

Sorry for you, dude.....

I drove by there not long ago..... I KNOW that the St Louis factory is not operating, and what's in there now. In fact it was closed before the Yellville factory.


I see you seem to have corrected the info... OK

[genstormbringer]

Problem is Ampeg was sold their quality went down and now they suffer the wrath of the people who will not buy them because of it. On the other hand however they are inexpensive and mom and dad are not gonna foot an amp the costs over a grand when they can buy one for $799

[genstormbringer]

Originally Posted by Jerrold Tiers

Sorry for you, dude.....

I drove by there not long ago..... I KNOW that the St Louis factory is not operating. In fact it was closed before the Yellville factory.


I see you seem to have corrected the info... OK

I am sorry but there is one amp in the new factory that costs thousands of dollars to buy. Ampeg or US Music or whoever they are owned by now are banking all their stock into it but I do not know what designation it is. I know it was over $2000. I wouldn't buy it given the current status of the company. I buy Hartke and MarkBass and Hartke kicks ass all the time everytime no matter where they are made. The Hartke LH1000 is built like a tank and rocks the socks off of any Ampeg made today!!! Sorry Ampeg guys but the fall from grace isn't an easy one.

[genstormbringer]

Popa take that thing back and get a MarkBass head U did get this from GC I take it get credit from the store and get something better. Especially for that price you paid there you can get a MarkBass LM800 Tube which is a very nice well built amp and although it's not made in the USA it is made in Italy. Very reliable. I have also heard problems w The GK amps too maybe you can get your $ back go over to Sam Ash and get the Hartke LH1000 very very reliable and very versatile. Sorry to flame Ampeg but I am hearing this a lot about the new 7 Pro do a search on the threads here and you will see what I mean.
greenboy posted a link earlier in the thread I think this is the link to the SVT7Pro failures

[BassmanPaul]

Personally if I bought an amp that failed in that short a time I would return it for another. It's what the warranty is for.

[PopaWoody]

Thanks guys, the amp will be repaired under warranty. I am enjoying the sansamp direct into the old QSC raw amp. That Tech 21 preamp is a nice piece.