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Amp longevity

#21
All amps, both tube and solid state require some maintenance to keep them performing up to spec. As long as parts are available, an amp can have an indefinite service life. My 59 year old 1963 Ampeg B-15N is better than new. A Hammond organ that I have dates back to 1937. Both these amps can be serviced from the chassis up, like a vintage car.

Some amps have obsolete parts. They are more difficult to repair if you can’t source what you need.
 
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#22
Cory rich40 said:
It’s funny. I have that amp and you are right. It sounds awesome and it was influenced by fender’s mustang guitar amp. But the mustang couldn’t quite get it right from everything I have read. Now, the tone master series is a different story. It’s digital too, but it’s only designed to sound like one amp which is the reverb series. That rumble stage is awesome but it would be nice if they came out with a tone master bass amp that could do the all tube bassman amps and super bassman amp. I know, there is the bassman 500 and 800 hybrid heads, with the pre amp tubes, and they sound awesome too, but do one without the tubes that’s digital like the tone master. Give it the look of the bassman. Ampeg did something similar with their not so popular SVT 450 and SVT 1000 series. It looked just like the SVT classic. It didn’t quite get the sound of the classic though, but now with the tone master, we know fender has the technology to pull it off
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My dad has the tone master deluxe reverb and it sounds better than his Princeton
 
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#23
I have some pretty "old" amp gear that is working great with no issues whatsoever:
Alembic F-2B (1976)
Kern IP-777 preamp (1998)
Euphonic Audio VL-210 cabinet (1998)
SWR Mo' Bass (2001)

That's all stuff that is well built to begin with, which I'm sure helps. I've been told the preamps shouldn't sit idle for too long or the capacitors could fail. Not sure that's true or if it's an urban myth, but I fire them up pretty often anyway. I do have doubts about some of my newer gear having the same longevity - it just doesn't seem as solid or well made.
 
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#24
Cory rich40 said:
My dad has the tone master deluxe reverb and it sounds better than his Princeton
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beans-on-toast said:
All amps, both tube and solid state require some maintenance to keep them performing up to spec. As long as parts are available, an amp can have an indefinite service life. My 59 year old 1963 Ampeg B-15N is better then new. A Hammond organ that I have dates back to 1937. Both these amps can be serviced from the chassis up, like a vintage car.

Some amps have obsolete parts. They are more difficult to repair if you can’t source what you need.
Click to expand...
And tubes are supposedly outdated technology but they are still manufactured and highly sought after. I have heard today’s tubes aren’t of the same quality and world events are slowing down the manufacturing process, but the technology could get there to pull off the tube sound 100 percent one day.
 
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#26
Cory rich40 said:
With the solid state and digital amps
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I will add that I love the sound on my traynor YBA200 tube head. The weight with that is manageable. 90 Lbs on an ampeg SVT is not though. I’m sure the ampeg sounds incredible but I would be loading it by myself and it’s just not feasible to do. Then would come the fun part of putting it on top of an 810 cab. I would hurt myself and the head in the process
 
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#27
Cory rich40 said:
I will add that I love the sound on my traynor YBA200 tube head. The weight with that is manageable. 90 Lbs on an ampeg SVT is not though. I’m sure the ampeg sounds incredible but I would be loading it by myself and it’s just not feasible to do. Then would come the fun part of putting it on top of an 810 cab. I would hurt myself and the head in the process
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#28
I will ultimately say though, my advice to my own topic would be to buy a good amp and when it breaks, buy another one. But remember, there is nothing wrong with having another one on backup if your head goes out on a gig.
 
#29
ad9000 said:
I have some pretty "old" amp gear that is working great with no issues whatsoever:
Alembic F-2B (1976)
Kern IP-777 preamp (1998)
Euphonic Audio VL-210 cabinet (1998)
SWR Mo' Bass (2001)

That's all stuff that is well built to begin with, which I'm sure helps. I've been told the preamps shouldn't sit idle for too long or the capacitors could fail. Not sure that's true or if it's an urban myth, but I fire them up pretty often anyway.
Click to expand...

Mostly urban myth, fortunately.

Cory rich40 said:
And tubes are supposedly outdated technology but they are still manufactured and highly sought after. I have heard today’s tubes aren’t of the same quality and world events are slowing down the manufacturing process, but the technology could get there to pull off the tube sound 100 percent one day.
Click to expand...

Sure they are still manufactured, by essentially 3 primary manufacturers, and all 3 manufacturers have been struggling for some time.

Now, the major Chinese manufacturer is operating at low capacity after being moved out of their former manufacturing factory because a higher profit product displaced them. The Russian facility (or group of factories) has slowed way down, and Slovakia has also slowed way down because some of their parts come from Russia.

A big part of this is of course COVID, but nobody knows for sure how the Russian tube manufacturing outlook might turn out.

There are several complications to adding capacity to tube manufacturing, first there is a lot of fine tolerance, highly specialized semi-automated machinery that would be costly to build from scratch (most of the machines used today are quite old), and second there is still a LOT of manual labor that goes into the assembly of tubes. The cost is either expensive machinery/tooling or labor, either way it's a daunting proposition. I would love to see tube manufacturing (in volume) come back to the US or western Europe, but that would take a company with substantial financial and technical resources (in my opinion). It's a huge challenge.
 
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#30
agedhorse said:
Mostly urban myth, fortunately.
And I’m sure there is a market for boutique hand made tube amps like there are boutique hand built basses. That could be the future of tube amps and possibly the only way to get one several years from now.


Sure they are still manufactured, by essentially 3 primary manufacturers, and all 3 manufacturers have been struggling for some time.

Now, the major Chinese manufacturer is operating at low capacity after being moved out of their former manufacturing factory because a higher profit product displaced them. The Russian facility (or group of factories) has slowed way down, and Slovakia has also slowed way down because some of their parts come from Russia.

A big part of this is of course COVID, but nobody knows for sure how the Russian tube manufacturing outlook might turn out.

There are several complications to adding capacity to tube manufacturing, first there is a lot of fine tolerance, highly specialized semi-automated machinery that would be costly to build from scratch (most of the machines used today are quite old), and second there is still a LOT of manual labor that goes into the assembly of tubes. The cost is either expensive machinery/tooling or labor, either way it's a daunting proposition. I would love to see tube manufacturing (in volume) come back to the US or western Europe, but that would take a company with substantial financial and technical resources (in my opinion). It's a huge challenge.
Click to expand...
 
#31
Cory rich40 said:
And tubes are supposedly outdated technology but they are still manufactured and highly sought after. I have heard today’s tubes aren’t of the same quality and world events are slowing down the manufacturing process, but the technology could get there to pull off the tube sound 100 percent one day.
Click to expand...

The supply issues will eventually turn around. Hopefully sooner rather than later.
 
#35
IMG_3112.jpg

On the right is my Carvin Bassmaster 125W head, with 1X15 JBL cabinet.

Bought both, in 1981, from the old Escondido shop. Still using them. :thumbsup:
 
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#36
If an electronic product is well designed and built with quality parts, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t last at least 20 years if it isn’t abused. Dust, moisture and rough handling are the enemies of any piece of electronics. Some would argue that the best gear from 30+ years ago was built heavier duty than nearly any newer gear is, but some of that is simply related to design improvements and cost shaving. I own a few old speakers from the 80s that still work perfectly and all my old SWR amps that are 30+ years old still work and sound great.
 
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#37
JimChjones said:
A manifestation of the 'bathtub curve' perhaps?
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The bathtub curve describes the failure rate versus time, very early in a product's life we will see a higher than average failure rate due to infant mortality of components and possibly defective assembly, then in mid life there is a fairly predictable low rate of failure and at the end of a product's life we will see the failure rate increase again. This occurs in virtually all products, the basic shape of the curve is similar but the levels and the slopes may differ.
 
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#40
Most amps with ROHS certification most likely won't survive since soldering without lead degrades over the years (or at least WAS faulty few years ago - maybe they've managed that problem).
Just like most Class-D since they are mostly not serviceable - or at least not serviceable on the level of older amps.

I still can repair my old SWR and Ampeg SVT III in almost any service shop - they are repairing older radios, TVs, wasching machines, Every part of those amps - including power mosfets - are still available "off the shelf" and can be soldered off and resoldered. Something you mostly can't do with modern amps.
 
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