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Amp techs who seem to hate amps.

#22
Its a little weird in the business, but its true. There are a lot of people who resent their position, the people they work with and the equipment that they work on. Its kind of ********. If you are in the service industry, you should provide service with a smile. As much as sometimes I want to toss a guitar out the window, I know that doing the best possible job that I can will yield happier customers and more business.

Its a sucky attitude really.
 
#24
Relax.

You have simply run into the audio-tech version of the Mighty BOFH!

Be forewarned, he might wire up a couple of antique flashbulbs inside your amp pointing out through the grille cloth
(remember the crackly-sizzly ones with the long dull-red after-glow?)
or install a bungie-cord-tethered tennis ball or, even worse
(and I hate when this happens), loose ping-ping balls:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/

Seriously, it seems that it was on the strength of the recommendation you received that you took the amp there.
Check with some other players and maybe a music store or two, see what they say. Reputations are earned.

The best techs I've hired have been, well... quirky.
I think exposure to damaged electrons screws up circuits in their heads.
A good, clean jolt from a taser when you go to pick up the amp might... on second thought...



~
 
#26
hdracer said:
The thing I don't understand is that you have a 300 Pro. That is a very good amp with a long proven design. I could understand if it was some old beat up POS.
Click to expand...

I'm very proud to own a 300PRO, I saved my money and hunted for the right one and (as sad as it sounds) always smile to myself when I plug it in and play through it. Its therefore hard to not take it a little bit personally when some one reacts like this. Kind of similar to walking into a clothes shop and the assistant saying 'oh! you ugly bas***d, you can try on some of our clothes but your still gonna look rough!'
 
#28
after being an amp tech since the 70's, i've definitely gotten pretty opinionated on what differentiates a great sounding or an excellent amp design from a poor one. i never try to offend anyone that brought their amp to me, but i did always give them my opinion any model that i've serviced or repaired.

everytime i used to repair a marshall JCM2000, i told the owner (and in his best interest), that now that it's fixed and operating at spec, it would be a good time to sell it, since they would meltdown either their power or or output trannys after about three years of normal use. one guy finally threw his in a dumpster after the third power tranny died (9 years of use). he bought a jcm800 and was happy ever since.

man, those JCM2000 amps would go thru trannys as if them had a timer circuit in 'em.
 
#29
kuys said:
I'm curious what exactly is black-faced?
Click to expand...

One of the things that people like to do to 'silverface' era Fender Twins is to mod the circuit design to the earlier 1960's Fender Twin (blackface) amp design. To really do this properly you need to do some pretty hefty things like change out the output transformer. It changes the controls on the amp as well as the tone. I can guarantee that mine did not have the transformers changed out...so really its partially blackfaced. It now has only one volume knob on the lead channel though.

I need to again find an amp tech locally (Central NY) who can give the amp another overhaul. Its in use again and is just as much of a temperamental bitch as it used to be.
 
#31
BurningSkies said:
One of the things that people like to do to 'silverface' era Fender Twins is to mod the circuit design to the earlier 1960's Fender Twin (blackface) amp design. To really do this properly you need to do some pretty hefty things like change out the output transformer. It changes the controls on the amp as well as the tone. I can guarantee that mine did not have the transformers changed out...so really its partially blackfaced. It now has only one volume knob on the lead channel though.
Click to expand...

this is not entirely true. the 85 or 100 watts twins can be blackfaced without changing the trannys. its' the 135 watt twins that can't. but you can you use a zener diode on the B+ supply can get even those twins pretty close w/o changing the power tranny.
 
#33
johnk_10 said:
this is not entirely true. the 85 or 100 watts twins can be blackfaced without changing the trannys. its' the 135 watt twins that can't. but you can you use a zener diode on the B+ supply can get even those twins pretty close w/o changing the power tranny.
Click to expand...

Mine is most likely of the 72-77 range. I've never opened it up, but from all I can tell of the descriptors, it's not a 135w, which is what I'd always assumed.
 
#35
I had the same thing happen to me but not so rudely. I brought in my svt and when i picked it up he laughed at me and asked me why in the world i would play through a tube amp so big and heavy and old fashioned when there are so many hybrids and solid states out there. I just told him to show me one that sounded like this.
 
#37
hdracer said:
I would have turned around and drove home. After telling him what he could do to himself. I know that if someone goes into a job thinking it is a POS he will work on it likes its a POS
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Don't worry about it mate abject rudeness is a traditional British boffin thing!. So you might get to meet the Basil Faulty of the amp repair business in Faversham who only likes old Hiwatt and Matamps.
You have to be insane to repair amplifiers for musicians its the rulz.:bassist::bassist:
 
#39
hdracer said:
The thing I don't understand is that you have a 300 Pro. That is a very good amp with a long proven design. I could understand if it was some old beat up POS.
Click to expand...
i've known bike mechanics like that.....they used to have so much fun showing the bolt on biker crowd that the 400 dollar performance part they just bought was actually reducing horsepower.....but these guys could go into their machine shop and make anything you needed,for way less than the cheapo stamped out crap that harley sold....one guy's favorite line was "the box that this came in is the best part of this pos"....
 

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