Amp longevity

[Zak TMD]

A large part of reliability and longevity, is maintenance.
A lot of those old tube amps that are still going 50 years later have had a LOT of work to keep them going, with an often simplistic design. Todays better amps, when properly maintained should last pretty well, but in todays market of consumerism, I would think specialised parts like chips, motherboards etc. may become harder to find in 10 years, let alone 25.

This is absolutely true. My guitarist has 2 JCM 800s from between 84-86, so heading towards 40 years old. He's had them both in and out of the shop a few times over the years, and that's pretty much the name of the game with tube amps. The transformer blows? You get a new one, etc.

My current head is a tube head with point to point construction, so pretty easy to fix whatever goes wrong. Newer, solid state stuff is a lot more complex on the inside with a lot more components and circuit boards that, if they fry, you might be SOL in terms of repair.

By way of example,

Meatsmoke: You (or your amp guy) can easily track down problems and replace them. Pot goes? No prob.

Rumble: Here you can barely see the pots are mounted directly on another circuit board... what do you do if something goes wrong? That's a whole lot of circuit boards.

Dark Glass Microtubes 500: This thing looks like a computer. I'd bet each bit of this is interdependent on other bits... I wouldn't have a single idea on how to track down an issue when something goes wrong here. These to me look like they are intended to be replaced, not repaired - just a uninformed take, but what does that indicate about reliability and longevity?

 

[steveinohio]

If you buy junk you will have issues. I think today's quality in general is better than in years past. For the most part bass amp design has gotten better.

 

[Liam Wald]

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

So true. Some amps are built like a WWII Zippo lighter. Some are built like a Bic.

 

[groooooove]

just checked, my markbass SD800 was made in 2007.

it needed one service about 6 years ago when the DI was not really working properly. Keep in mind this thing was the only amp i ever relied on the whole time i've had it for full time professional use. hours a day, many many gigs and rehearsals.

it's just now making some odd noises and is due for a service.

i don't see why i can't use this amp forever. It'll need an occasional service. that's fine. it sounds awesome and i love it.

there will sometimes be the issue of "the service cost $300, and a lightly used one that was made recently goes for $400." but, i prefer to just maintain this one because i love it.

 

[JimmyM]

This is absolutely true. My guitarist has 2 JCM 800s from between 84-86, so heading towards 40 years old. He's had them both in and out of the shop a few times over the years, and that's pretty much the name of the game with tube amps. The transformer blows? You get a new one, etc.

My current head is a tube head with point to point construction, so pretty easy to fix whatever goes wrong. Newer, solid state stuff is a lot more complex on the inside with a lot more components and circuit boards that, if they fry, you might be SOL in terms of repair.

By way of example,

Meatsmoke: You (or your amp guy) can easily track down problems and replace them. Pot goes? No prob.
View attachment 4658933

Rumble: Here you can barely see the pots are mounted directly on another circuit board... what do you do if something goes wrong? That's a whole lot of circuit boards.
View attachment 4658934

Dark Glass Microtubes 500: This thing looks like a computer. I'd bet each bit of this is interdependent on other bits... I wouldn't have a single idea on how to track down an issue when something goes wrong here. These to me look like they are intended to be replaced, not repaired - just a uninformed take, but what does that indicate about reliability and longevity?
View attachment 4658935

It's very possible to repair surface mounted components at the component level. It's done the same way as regular components, only much smaller and you may need specialized tools to work on it. But it can be done...the only difference is that sometimes it's cheaper to toss the old board and put a new one in.

 

[Zak TMD]

It's very possible to repair surface mounted components at the component level. It's done the same way as regular components, only much smaller and you may need specialized tools to work on it. But it can be done...the only difference is that sometimes it's cheaper to toss the old board and put a new one in.

I knew you'd know more than me about this, but yea - specialized tools, etc. I just did a cursory search for replacement parts for the above darkglass and I found zero hits, so that's another issue, I suppose. I suspect, though, for a $800 head, the repair cost threshold over time is going to be a lot lower for the average player.

 

[Ric Vice]

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.

Most of what we attribute to amp longevity has to do with some simple things. I have a Walter Woods Electroacoustic Ultra built in 1997. It's 25 years old. The only repair ever done on that amp was a circuit board cleaning when

condensation dropped through the top cooling vents and blocked a circuit on the power section. So, why do Walter's amps have great longevity. The answer is pretty simple, the chassis is aluminum, there's a massive heat sink that

runs the entire length of the back side of the amp and extends beyond the top, the top itself is vented with a entire row of oblong ports. So heat rises out into the, heat wicks of the amp and into the heat sink where it dissipates, and

and aluminum is less prone to rust and corrosion. All the pots on the Woods are open so you can clean them with Deoxit. So, if you keep a Woods amp clean and don't set anything on top of it, the amp will last a long time. Just my take of course.

 

[Jefenator]

This is absolutely true. My guitarist has 2 JCM 800s from between 84-86, so heading towards 40 years old. He's had them both in and out of the shop a few times over the years, and that's pretty much the name of the game with tube amps. The transformer blows? You get a new one, etc.

My current head is a tube head with point to point construction, so pretty easy to fix whatever goes wrong. Newer, solid state stuff is a lot more complex on the inside with a lot more components and circuit boards that, if they fry, you might be SOL in terms of repair.

By way of example,

Meatsmoke: You (or your amp guy) can easily track down problems and replace them. Pot goes? No prob.
View attachment 4658933

Rumble: Here you can barely see the pots are mounted directly on another circuit board... what do you do if something goes wrong? That's a whole lot of circuit boards.
View attachment 4658934

Dark Glass Microtubes 500: This thing looks like a computer. I'd bet each bit of this is interdependent on other bits... I wouldn't have a single idea on how to track down an issue when something goes wrong here. These to me look like they are intended to be replaced, not repaired - just a uninformed take, but what does that indicate about reliability and longevity?
View attachment 4658935

I think of this as Zippo vs Bic lighters. (Sorry, another goofy analogy...)
Zippos are cool - I still use one - but you do have to mess around with frequent refilling & the occasional wick or flint. A lot of folks go the Bic route, for good reason; you get your money's worth of hassle-free functionality and then you chuck it and get another one for cheap.
"Heirloom" construction is great to have in an amp, but it does add bulk & expense - and some maintenance will probably be required over the long haul. It's a small price to pay for the joy I receive from using my old-school tube heads. But I have to admit, I also appreciate the simplicity of running a micro-head for 10 years without a single shop visit. (Then selling it for close to what I paid & getting a new, better one...)

 

[Zak TMD]

I think of this as Zippo vs Bic lighters. (Sorry, another goofy analogy...)
Zippos are cool - I still use one - but you do have to mess around with frequent refilling & the occasional wick or flint. A lot of folks go the Bic route, for good reason; you get your money's worth of hassle-free functionality and then you chuck it and get another one for cheap.
"Heirloom" construction is great to have in an amp, but it does add bulk & expense - and some maintenance will probably be required over the long haul. It's a small price to pay for the joy I receive from using my old-school tube heads. But I have to admit, I also appreciate the simplicity of running a micro-head for 10 years without a single shop visit. (Then selling it for close to what I paid & getting a new, better one...)

Totally... but thinking about buying something essentially disposable for $600+ hurts a little. Definitely true, not having to pay for maintenance is great, but based on my experience and talking to other friends, when something goes on those little class Ds, it's often more expensive to fix than the thing is worth.

But I guess the trick is to get the micro heads used if you can. I Bought a first run Terror Bass 1000 for a good price in 2016, and it has had zero problems... it's even dropped a couple of times and the tubes from the pre are fine, so I've kept it as my backup or lazy day head. If I wanted to sell it, I'd easily make what I spent back on it.

 

[Jefenator]

It's very possible to repair surface mounted components at the component level. It's done the same way as regular components, only much smaller and you may need specialized tools to work on it. But it can be done...the only difference is that sometimes it's cheaper to toss the old board and put a new one in.

I've encountered this a few times already with my tech. It gets awkward when a new board can't be easily sourced. (But I'm okay with that when I've gotten my money's worth many times over, as was the case with an old G/K MB150. On the Mackie powered speaker just out of warranty, that was pretty lame...)

 

[Jefenator]

Totally... but thinking about buying something essentially disposable for $600+ hurts a little. Definitely true, not having to pay for maintenance is great, but based on my experience and talking to other friends, when something goes on those little class Ds, it's often more expensive to fix than the thing is worth.

But I guess the trick is to get the micro heads used if you can. I Bought a first run Terror Bass 1000 for a good price in 2016, and it has had zero problems... it's even dropped a couple of times and the tubes from the pre are fine, so I've kept it as my backup or lazy day head. If I wanted to sell it, I'd easily make what I spent back on it.

I paid $600 for my LMII and used it pretty heavily for 10 years. I would have been okay with recycling it by then if I'd had to, but was all the more happy to be able to sell it for $400! That very good scenario & others like it make up for a few other times I've been burned.

 

[deff]

It's very possible to repair surface mounted components at the component level. It's done the same way as regular components, only much smaller and you may need specialized tools to work on it. But it can be done...the only difference is that sometimes it's cheaper to toss the old board and put a new one in.

I would add that modularity with different boards is actually a benefit. It has nothing at all to do with whether or not it is a quality built board.

 

[agedhorse]

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.

Good post, this type of design depends on setting up good design rules and then following them.

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.

Good post, this type of design depends on setting up good design rules and then following them.

This is absolutely true. My guitarist has 2 JCM 800s from between 84-86, so heading towards 40 years old. He's had them both in and out of the shop a few times over the years, and that's pretty much the name of the game with tube amps. The transformer blows? You get a new one, etc.

My current head is a tube head with point to point construction, so pretty easy to fix whatever goes wrong. Newer, solid state stuff is a lot more complex on the inside with a lot more components and circuit boards that, if they fry, you might be SOL in terms of repair.

By way of example,

Meatsmoke: You (or your amp guy) can easily track down problems and replace them. Pot goes? No prob.
View attachment 4658933

Rumble: Here you can barely see the pots are mounted directly on another circuit board... what do you do if something goes wrong? That's a whole lot of circuit boards.
View attachment 4658934

Dark Glass Microtubes 500: This thing looks like a computer. I'd bet each bit of this is interdependent on other bits... I wouldn't have a single idea on how to track down an issue when something goes wrong here. These to me look like they are intended to be replaced, not repaired - just a uninformed take, but what does that indicate about reliability and longevity?
View attachment 4658935

IMO, neither the Rumble nor the Darkglass are that difficult to repair, and the pits aren’t a problem for a QUALIFIED tech to replace.

Most of what we attribute to amp longevity has to do with some simple things. I have a Walter Woods Electroacoustic Ultra built in 1997. It's 25 years old. The only repair ever done on that amp was a circuit board cleaning when

condensation dropped through the top cooling vents and blocked a circuit on the power section. So, why do Walter's amps have great longevity. The answer is pretty simple, the chassis is aluminum, there's a massive heat sink that

runs the entire length of the back side of the amp and extends beyond the top, the top itself is vented with a entire row of oblong ports. So heat rises out into the, heat wicks of the amp and into the heat sink where it dissipates, and

and aluminum is a poor conductor of heat. All the pots on the Woods are open so you can clean them with Deoxit. So, if you keep a Woods amp clean and don't set anything on top of it, the amp will last a long time. Just my take of course.

Aluminum is an excellent conductor of heat.

 

[deff]

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.

The use of SAC solders and establishing proper waveforms or reflow and chemistry has been solved for a long period of time. It's usually only a problem if you're working with a CM who isn't familiar with the challenges of the process.

 

[JimmyM]

I knew you'd know more than me about this, but yea - specialized tools, etc. I just did a cursory search for replacement parts for the above darkglass and I found zero hits, so that's another issue, I suppose. I suspect, though, for a $800 head, the repair cost threshold over time is going to be a lot lower for the average player.

Could be right about that, don't know. And I'm not familiar with Darkglass and how Douglas handles warranty and repair issues, so I can't comment on that.

I've encountered this a few times already with my tech. It gets awkward when a new board can't be easily sourced. (But I'm okay with that when I've gotten my money's worth many times over, as was the case with an old G/K MB150. On the Mackie powered speaker just out of warranty, that was pretty lame...)

LOUD used to supply boards for Ampegs when they owned it. I don't know if it's different for Mackie or what, or if supply issues are causing it. But board swaps aren't the only way to repair boards with surface mounted components.

 

[Benj-jammin]

In this case I do not agree, and I don't think I would categorize the Rumble amps (at least the 350 and 500) as cheap or junk. They are a more value based product but towards the top of their price range for this type of product and I think their reliability is pretty well established.

I bought my Rumble 500 last year, and I really love it, especially at the low to mid volume levels. One thing I did, was to put it on a small dolly that fits it perfectly - about 2-3" off the ground. For some reason, it sounds better like that, and I have no earthly idea why, it just does.

 

[Gilmourisgod]

IME (limited as it is) soldering pots directly to a PCB isn't great mechanically, in that a hard knock to a pot (pretty common thing, I'd expect), that force is applied to the PCB too, yet I see it on a lot of high-end devices built that way. Some amps have the protection bars or rack handles mounted on the fron to minimze that, but most don't. What are the mechanical features that separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak? Still waiting for somebody to name some "Junk" amp brands...........

 

[Gilmourisgod]

I bought my Rumble 500 last year, and I really love it, especially at the low to mid volume levels. One thing I did, was to put it on a small dolly that fits it perfectly - about 2-3" off the ground. For some reason, it sounds better like that, and I have no earthly idea why, it just does.

Is it because the % of energy the amp expends trying to vibrate the ground it sits on goes into the speaker cone instead? Something to do with the resonance of the cab? I've heard of this before, never knew why.

 

[Zak TMD]

Could be right about that, don't know. And I'm not familiar with Darkglass and how Douglas handles warranty and repair issues, so I can't comment on that.

I mean, general warranty stuff is going to be less of an issue than wear and tear repairs over time, since we're talking longevity.

 

[Ric5]

I had an old Peavey bass head that was 40 years old ... it sounded crappy but it still worked ... I got rid of it

I had a cheap combo amp that died in 2 years