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AMPEG QC

#43
Mark Reccord said:
That's an extremely conservative table :D. I mean 15A for 10AWG? Wow... Look at household wiring; 20A circuits are wired with 14AWG. I thought I was being conservative with 6A for 20AWG, lots of tables list it as being able to carry 10 or 11A...:p

You can very safely pass continuous current at about 15% of the fusing current. That's 9A for 20AWG.

I'd say that Bill is dead on here. Engineering probably wanted to use heavier wire but the bean counters wanted the absolute minimum acceptable sized wire....
Click to expand...

I'd agree with you there. When I opened my 810 and saw 18 guage wire!! :confused: that's what did it for me. Bill is dead on. If you can't see the cuts, you'll never know. :rollno:
 
#45
The funny thing is, Hartke, which is less expensive uses 16 guage on their 810's. And tons of internal padding. I'm going back. I liked the tone and power of the Hartke gear....although I have used Ampeg off and on for 20+ years, I have never had so much trouble with so many different Ampeg products. It is disapointing....... :hmm:
 
#50
I started using Ampeg gear about 10 years ago after using Peavey stuff for a very long time. I have a friend who was a dealer so it made sense to use the stuff they sold through their store. Anyway, the first piece of gear was an SVP-Pro preamp. I took it home, plugged it in and it crackled and made terrrible noises till I took it apart and fixed the cold solder joint in the unit(didn't want to wait to have a replacement shipped). It worked fine for about a year after that before blowing up at a gig one night and going to wide open full volume in the middle of a song.

Took it back, got a replacement unit that was much better and I used that one for about 6 years and only had to fix about 3 cold solder joints, one to fix the input jack, one to fix the XLR direct out, one to fix the volume pot.

Had an Ampeg SVP-1500 power amp that I bought used. Always ran it bridged into an 8 ohm load. It blew up on me at a gig when the rectifier burned off of the board, again a poor solder joint problem.

Had an Ampeg Pro Series 4x10 "batmobile" cabinet that was fine, I had to clean the L pad for the horn a few times, no big deal..

I have since sold all of my Ampeg stuff and switched to a Sansamp RBI, Crown Macro 1200 and a Euphonic Audio NL210 cabinet. I couldn't be happier and I really liked the sound of my Ampeg stuff too. This rig is smaller and lighter and I can get the same sounds.

I really wish SLM would get their act together esspecially with their soldering setup because I liked the sound of the gear and I never had a problem with the electronics, just the assembly. And that's a bad deal when you're on stage, it's 11:30 on a Saturday night and your rig sounds like a freight train is coming through the speaker!
 
#51
I'm just wondering here, if you guys in the states have the same problem?

A few years ago - the local greenies got together and forced the govt. to ban all things related to LEAD poisoning. Lead Petrol, lead solder etc etc all went out the door.
Lead free solder is CRAP! It's just not the same, and cracks far more easily, and is more likely to produce a dry joint.

So is Lead-free solder an ingredient in current (US made) amplifiers?
Could this be the problem all along?
:confused:
 
#52
smo said:
I'm just wondering here, if you guys in the states have the same problem?

A few years ago - the local greenies got together and forced the govt. to ban all things related to LEAD poisoning. Lead Petrol, lead solder etc etc all went out the door.
Lead free solder is CRAP! It's just not the same, and cracks far more easily, and is more likely to produce a dry joint.

So is Lead-free solder an ingredient in current (US made) amplifiers?
Could this be the problem all along?
:confused:
Click to expand...


Not in North America yet. Although anything exported to the EU must be lead free by June 2006, so it's probably beginning to work its way in. We're slowly moving to all lead free stuff to comply with the EU directive. So I guess it's the same for Australia too, then.


I totally agree. Lead free solder bites. Though the fumes are considerably less oppressive...
 
#55
Well since I started this thread about Ampeg QC, I am surprised to see how other people have/have not had problems. So....what did I do yesterday? I sold my svt cl and ordered the new Ampeg svt - 6 pro....From the specs...It's what I want...a powerfull mosfet output with all kinds of tubes in the pre and voltage adjustable driver tubes......parametric eq....should give me ALL the bottom I could ever wish for. I am giving Ampeg one more chance here....... :eek:
 
#59
Mark Reccord said:
I totally agree. Lead free solder bites. Though the fumes are considerably less oppressive...
Click to expand...



I like the way soldering smells, the solder, a slightly overheated phenolic board, the immense wisps of smoke from flux...ah, good times.

Yes, I know it's bad for me, and yes, I use proper ventilation equipment, I'm just saying that lead-free solder will annoy me much more if it doesn't smell the same.


I'm having problems currently with the back covers falling off of the pots on my Ampeg B2 combo, and the crimp connectors falling off the speakers in my 810. Both of them are ca. 20 years old, though, and both problems are completely fixable. No problems with Ampeg QC here.
 
#60
specplyrz said:
Well since I started this thread about Ampeg QC, I am surprised to see how other people have/have not had problems. So....what did I do yesterday? I sold my svt cl and ordered the new Ampeg svt - 6 pro....From the specs...It's what I want...a powerfull mosfet output with all kinds of tubes in the pre and voltage adjustable driver tubes......parametric eq....should give me ALL the bottom I could ever wish for. I am giving Ampeg one more chance here....... :eek:
Click to expand...


Ummm...you've been bitten what, 5 or 6 times?


Why buy another. You keep replacing bad Ampeg with more bad Ampeg.
 

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