Amp longevity

[LordRyan]

I have a late 70s V-4B that I bought used around 1981. I was going to start playing bass in the band I was in but they decided to keep me on guitar and keys. It had some use for a very short period in the early 80s and then not used again until some rehearsals about 6 years ago. Ideally it should have been serviced at some point but never happened since I wasn't using it. I did a thorough test on it a couple weeks ago due to an impending sale. It has all the original Magnavox tubes as well as capacitors. I used Deoxit on the switches, pots, and tube sockets. Turned it on and it still works fine. There was some hum and a slight turn of the Hum Balance control quieted it down.

I also have a couple of Music Man guitar amps from the early 80s that never saw much use and they both still work fine. This old gear was really well built but even so I would expect caps to go bad from age but there is no excessive hum or noticeable deterioration in sound.

 

[agedhorse]

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.

Lead free, RoHS solder is not a problem with longevity. I started using it over 20 years ago and almost never run into defective solder joint issues in these amps.

The output transistors for your SWR haven’t been manufactured for years. There are however plenty of counterfeit parts in the market that are in no way equivalent to the original Sanken parts.

 

[Johnny Fingers]

Good quality gear will last, junk probably won’t.

How you treat it makes a difference. There’s not an amp made that a sledgehammer can’t destroy.
If it will stand up to typical road use it will last. Does the maker stand behind the product? That’s what I want to know.

 

[pepj]

I have 30yr plus amp..been stellar. Fell off a stage, repaired by old guy, and was perfect again.
It said it was very well made with quality parts, OTT even. Recently serviced as one pot was noisy. I put that mostly down to retiring it for Class D.
That class D amp has studio pre amp origins and the power switch needs looking at. I dont want it to fail on a gig so booked it it.
I'll use it a lot when serviced.
2 yr old class D, top end amp. had it a few months.
I fully expect these amps to last and be repairably by qualified local tech.

As said above, junk is junk so you get what you paid for. All amps made in U.S.

 

[frankie5string]

20 years is really not that long. That's just gear made in 2000, right now... ;-)
We've certainly proven that gear folks claimed wouldn't last, did in fact last and that gear is still going.

 

[frankie5string]

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 remember folks saying that a long time ago - myths started claiming gear would self destruct in 10 years or less because of it. There's those disposal hieroglyphics that appear on a lot of electronics now that became the butt of many jokes to do with longevity.

I now have a number of products that were made post ROHS and there's no evidence of crystallization or tin-whiskers causing equipment failure - and everything is still working. If it's done right, it will last.

 

[mazdah]

Lead free, RoHS solder is not a problem with longevity. I started using it over 20 years ago and almost never run into defective solder joint issues in these amps.

The output transistors for your SWR haven’t been manufactured for years. There are however plenty of counterfeit parts in the market that are in no way equivalent to the original Sanken parts.

Of course you won't get The Original Sanken transistor, but off the shelf you can get equivalents for no more than 2,5 $ each in Poland.
It's only about the parameters, and tolerance (so - quality issues) that can be easily verified.

Behringer started to produce Boss CE-1 clones using their own counterfeit circuit. It is not the same, but it works.


As for lead free soldering - I hope the "tin whiskers" causing short circuits problem is long solved by now

 

[chris_b]

I treat my gear with care and the only "wear and tear" failures in 50 years have been with leads, tubes and speaker cones. All predictable issues. I had 1 component failure, in 1967, a transformer caught fire in my new Vox AC50 amp. That was repaired under warranty.

I have 3 amps, 1 D class and 1 SS which are about 10 years old and 1 D class which is about 5 years old. I'll keep playing them until I get something better or they fail. I wouldn't have any interest in worrying about their reliability. I carry a backup, and no matter what happens they have all paid for themselves many time over.

 

[Cory rich40]

Why wouldn’t they last over 20 years? I’ve been hearing this nonsense about how the new generation of gear isn’t going to last like the old generation all my life, and yet I see lots of gear that has lasted and not lasted in every single one of them.

 

[Cory rich40]

And let’s not forget that a lot of the lightweight class D heads either come with a padded bag, or either make one you can purchase for it. Either that, or gator makes one that it will fit in

 

[bucephylus]

My experience kind of crosses what I consider to be 3 generations of bass amplification.

My early years were spent gigging tube amps. I had several Fender Bassman heads, finally settling on a brown face version, which was modified by the addition of two extra power tubes to take the output up to 100W RMS. That was a wonderful and practical amp for club gigging at the time with enough clean headroom to do most club dates. I also gigged a Sunn Model T for a while; which was a great amp, but more of a schlep than made sense. The tubes would routinely fail, becoming microphonic; but that mainly required spending money on a periodic basis.

Then, during the 90’s into the 00’s, I went through a handful of the hybrid amps; Hartke, Eden, GK (the infamous 2000RB mentioned by @Wasnex ), Seymour Duncan etc. Those ALL bit the dust. On the gig. Causing me to distrust the solid state technology.

Then, in the 00’s, I went with an increasing variety of Class D amps: Walter Woods, Genz Benz, Demeter, Bergantino, and most recently Mesa. I have not had a single failure with any of those amps in all that time, knock on wood.

In fact, I really just go do gigs these days, and don’t give the amps much thought anymore; other than appreciating the outstanding sound they produce. My two current favs are a Demeter 400 with the dove cage and a Broughton always on HPF bolted on the back of the dove cage; and the Mesa TT800. The Demeter is like a street punk that just walks up and smashes you in the face. It’s a tiny jewel. The Mesa is a sophisticated and svelte design, incorporating years of bass amp goodness.

From my POV, bass amp life is great. I do think that @agedhorse ‘s statement that quality stuff will last is accurate. Much of mine is in it’s second decade of gigging without a hiccup. That’s all I could hope or ask for.

 

[deff]

I have to ask some opinions on today’s amps. Do you think what we buy today will still be working in say, 20 years. I brought a peavey 115 combo in 2002 and when I sold it last year, it was still in fairly good condition. I’ve got an ampeg SVT 1000 that still sounds good and those were released in 2004. Same thing with my Traynor YBA200 with the exception of a dirty input jack and that’s an easy fix. My dad has a fender guitar amp he got in 1995 that is still his go to amp. He got a Princeton reverb a couple of years ago brand new and he already replaced two fuses in it. I do remember him having his peavey mega bass head worked on several times. He always swore that heads had more problems than combo’s. I also know that the more you buy, the more lemons you will run into. I’m just asking, how do you think the new stuff like darkglass will hold up being that this new stuff is mostly digital these days? And quality control has gone downhill in everything today due to a variety of reasons, and I know it’s something we have to deal with for the time being.

No one will know until a certain amount of time is past. I do know that the ICE power modules were developed outside of the music industry and meant to be in things that will hold up and last. My DG MT900v1 never had a single problem. The thing seemed pretty bullet proof.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

So which brands, in the current marketplace, qualify as the "Junk" that should be avoided? Beyond the obvious high-end offerings by Mesa, Ampeg, Darkglass, etc, what constitutes top of the line? No snark intended, but if we are going to bandy about the Junk label, lets name names! We tend to read glowing reports of amps when they are the Minty Fresh New Toy. I've seen that confirmation bias applied to a lot of stuff, and it often sours long-term. For instance the Bugera amps were considered "crap" on TB for a while, now I see them come up with positive reviews. Is all this "eye of the beholder" or real-time critique from people with the technical expertise (not me!) to accurately assess the quality of the parts, construction, etc? A further wrinkle seems to be the plethora of models within a particular brand, some of which might be "junk", while others are excellent, depending on the price point for that particular model. I've been in the market for a small Class D amp for a while now, but feel kind of "vapor locked" with indecision based on conflicting opinions and review.

 

[deff]

So which brands, in the current marketplace, qualify as the "Junk" that should be avoided? Beyond the obvious top of line offerings by Mesa, Ampeg, Darkglass, etc, what constitutes top of the line? No snark intended, but if we are going to bandy about the Junk label, lets name it!

I think sometimes that depends on timing. Frequently a company will try and pack in a "value" amp into a price point where corners had to be cut. I know people had issues with some of the little Orange amps and Peavey minimegas. For the most part I think the caveat, that you get what you pay for still applies in modern technology.

 

[Killing Floor]

I’ve had many types of bass amps, guitar amps and rack and PA type gear, power amps. I’ve never had an amp failure in 40+ years and by now the Class D stuff has a pretty long run. I’ll just say I’ve never been timid about putting a drink on my amp and I’ve never been gentle with my gear.
Any reputable brand of gear employs engineers or product managers who understand the expectation of their customers.

 

[agedhorse]

Of course you won't get The Original Sanken transistor, but off the shelf you can get equivalents for no more than 2,5 $ each in Poland.
It's only about the parameters, and tolerance (so - quality issues) that can be easily verified.

Behringer started to produce Boss CE-1 clones using their own counterfeit circuit. It is not the same, but it works.


As for lead free soldering - I hope the "tin whiskers" causing short circuits problem is long solved by now

The problem with counterfeit or knock-off parts is that you have no idea what you are really getting. In almost all cases, they are much inferior to the real part. The original Sanken parts were very, very good, they were also fairly expensive, but the package was a great design for SOA management. All the “replacements” I tested years back were pretty poor by comparison.

Problems with lead free solder didn’t really exist for folks who knew what they were doing and designed their PCBs to the new chemistry. I started with this process very early on and had no issues whatsoever.

 

[pepj]

Junk is whereby the repair costs close to buying a new one.
I'd offer Chinese stuff myself, typically.
Every amp or cab I am interested I search where its built and with what bits.

I'm willing to pay good dollar for kit made in the west, and expect a lot of the cost to go in western manufacturing costs. I'm not liking to pay good money for off shore product which goes mostly to shareholders.

I like the small companies who employ local first and foremost.

Berg and EBS are my starters to check out as well as Mesa.

 

[groovaholic]

Good quality gear will last, junk probably won’t.

I think the difference is that for the old gear to still be kicking today means it was overbuilt way back when.
I imagine that before all of the companies had MTBF (mean time between failure) data to analyze, it was an engineer trying to anticipate and design around ways that they had seen amps fail. Amps that didn't incorporate this thinking have found their way into dumpsters and landfills in the decades since...

I'm basing this guess on my time in the office furniture industry.
The company I worked for was known in the 1970's for building desks and filing cabinets that were essentially indestructible. Those filing cabinets were built out of 14 gauge steel, and their ads back in the day called out that durability by featuring people standing in the drawers.

Fast forward to the mid 2010's, and the steel we used was 18 or 20 gauge - and our engineers were on the hook every quarter to deliver cost savings by way of decreased material usage, lowered part count, etc.

So I'd imagine that same pressure shows up in the musical instrument industry - and amp companies use material modeling and stress analysis to figure out where they can use the thinner metal or wood, where a switch or jack needs to be rated for 100,000 cycles, and where they can get away with one rated for 10,000...

Because they can conserve resources and reduce costs, and make an amp that *on paper* perfectly serves its purpose and performs well in the store.

Unfortunately, how amps get used is a real-world "Murphy's Law" laboratory - and the companies who build consideration for that "X-Factor" into their gear are the ones who still have a reputation for reliability.

Personally, my "red flag" is gear with jacks or pots that lack strain relief. That approach was reinforced a couple weeks ago when I repaired my guitarist's Blues Junior:
Two of the pots had cracked solder joints, and I was amazed that it was only 2 since there is no nut on the potentiometer shafts to transfer the mechanical load to the amp chassis when the knob is bumped...or just turned. Any motion directly stresses the solder joints.
It's a weak design, and to me it indicates an amp whose design clearly prioritized price over reliability.

 

[Jefenator]

Amps seem a bit like cars to me. You could get an old classic & keep it running indefinitely. It would be relatively clunky & impractical, but maybe worth it if you deep down love the personality.
Newer stuff is generally a lot easier to use. 20 years is not an unreasonable expectation from something brand new, unless it's extra cheap, gets a lot of use, or if you get unlucky & wind up with a lemon.
I sold my Markbass LMII after only 10 years. It never gave me any problems and I still trusted it. I just found that the newly acquired Quilter BB800 runs circles around it (smaller & lighter w/ a lot more sonic wallop).
Because they are evolving so quickly, are relatively affordable and I use them heavily, I update my newer amp heads more often than I update my car. (Got to get my 20 years out of that Toyota...)

 

[portpc]

In supplying components to many high end amp outfits over the years the tendency with many of them has been to spec in Caps/Resistors that are beefier in voltage/wattage then is required. This type of fail-safe is standard for Military components and of course enhances reliability.