Amp-buzzing horror

[beefhat1]

As you can see, I am new to these boards, so a hearty hello to all you fellas. Hopefully you guys can help me.
Now for the question. I own an SWR LA12 bass amp that I purchased from a now out-of-business music store. I've had it for about two years now and it has served well, playing with a few groups of friends (mostly covers and some rockish material) but recently it has been emitting a horrible buzz of doom whenever I play anything at any volume. It pretty much sounds like I have hardcore overdrive running all the time, and it really makes it hard to play anything and make it sound good at all. Is this something Is can fix or is the amp pretty much toast? If the latter is true, what would be a good amp for me in this situation (powerful but relatively portable)?
Thanks for any feedback, mates.

 

[dogbass]

Ok...eliminate the usual suspects....fluorescent lighting, dimmer switches, transformers or other source of electromagentic field. Is the power in your flat "clean" and well grounded ? Is the buzzing with the instrument plugged in or does it buzz on its own ? (You want to elimate pickup noise as a cause; this can be reduced by shielding the control and pickup cavities of the guitar). If its the amp itself, could be ground loop issues. There is a great post on this subject here:

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=271840

I wouldn't get a new amp on account of a hum/buzz until I got it checked out by tech. Good luck with that !

 

[Mickey Shane]

It sounds to me like you might have over extended (basically they over heat) the voice coil in your speaker.

If someone has a bass speaker around, you might want to try the amp through it to see if that is the problem.

 

[enim]

Uh, speakers dont over-extend from over-heating. They are seperate things with seperate causes and seperate consequences.

You COULD have blown the speaker, by either over heating or over-excursion, that would cause a buzz. Or, something happend and now your overdriving the input to the amp.