79 Peavey Century problems

[enim]

My amp, which ive had for 6 months or so (and loved), is suddenly giving me issues.

1) With the eq set flat, i get an ungodly loud high pitched squeel. I can roll off the highs, and it goes away for the most part, but, it is still bad.

2) The amp also is a bunch of mud. I play through a 2x10, with a little low mid bump on my effects EQ, and nothing on the amp. It COULD be the bass battery (i havent changed it recently), but, im not sure if it could be a big amp problem.

Ive recently moved, and i tried to be careful with it, but it did get a little jarred (it was also moved here sitting on its face).

Any suggestions?

 

[AckAckAttack]

First off, I would try switching the battery on the bass, and hoping that that is the problem.
Possibly try it out with a different speaker cabinet, just to make sure that the problem is with the amp, although it already sounds like it is.
Unfortunately I don't think this amp is valuable enough to have it looked at by a tech, considering you could probably buy another one with the money that it would be to have anything fixed. If I were you, and you were sure it was the amp not working properly, I would sell it on ebay (state the problem with the amp, sold working but as is), and then with the money from that put it towards just buying another one on ebay, you could probably get one for real cheap considering how low peavey resale value is.

 

[enim]

I was thinking about that, actually.

Could it be something i could diagnose myself?

 

[enim]

Update to the thread:

It turns out that the top speaker jack is the only one that gives off the whine. It was also making it muddy.

 

[fdeck]

Well, you've fixed it.

Possible loose ground on the top speaker jack. If you can get the rear panel off, then a really close look with flashlight and magnifying glass might tell you something. Is the nut loose on the jack?

Of course you know that opening up the case exposes you to high voltage, and to voltage stored for quite some time on the power supply filter capacitors. So you should only proceed if you know how to do it safely. The good news is you should find that the internals of an old Peavey head are pretty straightforward.