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Ampeg SVT-II appreciation thread

#1,181
I was having this crackle issue from time to time, so I went ahead and ordered new power tubes, a matched sextet of Tung-Sol 6550 reissues from tctubes.com, all tubes tested between 29.1 and 30.7mA via tctubes. It's biasing really good.

This problem is still persistent. It comes and goes. I've swapped all preamp tubes between vintage RCA's and modern sovteks, and I've swapped out the rear 12ax7 behind the power tubes, the only tubes I haven't touched are the 12au7's in the rear of the amp, as I don't have an extra two 12au7's to try.

and as I said, it comes and goes. Sometimes at low volumes, low gain, high master, high gain, low master is it less noticeable from tube breakup.



 
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#1,182
Check the line out jacks, I just had a issue with CL that I bought and retubed, on the second time I used it, it was crackling, come to find out, the XLR jack had been broke loose from the board. This was caused by a supposed responsible tech whom has been in biz for a long time.
Since your amp took a nasty spill in shipping, there probably something loose that you don't see, or are unaware of, it will need to go back to the bench.
angrychair said:
I was having this crackle issue from time to time, so I went ahead and ordered new power tubes, a matched sextet of Tung-Sol 6550 reissues from tctubes.com, all tubes tested between 29.1 and 30.7mA via tctubes. It's biasing really good.

This problem is still persistent. It comes and goes. I've swapped all preamp tubes between vintage RCA's and modern sovteks, and I've swapped out the rear 12ax7 behind the power tubes, the only tubes I haven't touched are the 12au7's in the rear of the amp, as I don't have an extra two 12au7's to try.

and as I said, it comes and goes. Sometimes at low volumes, low gain, high master, high gain, low master is it less noticeable from tube breakup.



Click to expand...
 
#1,183
@angrychair Take a wood pencil or dowel rod and lightly tap the preamp tubes when it crackles to see if there is any change. Also, check that all your jacks and tubes sockets had been cleaned by your tech. Could possibly be a bad resistor, cap or possibly a loose solder joint. But the amp would have to come apart again for that. Like 99Z3 stated, it had a bad trip it could be any number of things.
 
#1,184
I did tap all the tubes already.
The jacks and tube sockets were all supposed to have been cleaned. I'm going to fiddle with it more this weekend but come Monday it's going back to Dave if I didn't fix it my self.

I'm going to try wiggling the speakon and see if it makes any crackle. If I KNEW it was a loose solder joint somewhre and actually knew where, it takes 3 seconds to reflow one, and I have a nice Hakko soldering station, but the problem is, needle in a hay stack. Hopefully since Dave said he checked all of this stuff already, I won't have to pay another full hour of labor at $80 hr...........
 
#1,185
Wow..
angrychair said:
I did tap all the tubes already.
The jacks and tube sockets were all supposed to have been cleaned. I'm going to fiddle with it more this weekend but come Monday it's going back to Dave if I didn't fix it my self.

I'm going to try wiggling the speakon and see if it makes any crackle. If I KNEW it was a loose solder joint somewhre and actually knew where, it takes 3 seconds to reflow one, and I have a nice Hakko soldering station, but the problem is, needle in a hay stack. Hopefully since Dave said he checked all of this stuff already, I won't have to pay another full hour of labor at $80 hr...........
Click to expand...
 
#1,187
I've never owned a II or II PRO, but having worked there for 10 years, I've played a ton of them in the test booths. They are really sweet-sounding amps.

That reminds me of a story:
I almost had one back in the early '00s. The drummer I was playing with back then worked at a local outdoor amphitheater as a driver; he drove artists back and forth between the venue and their hotel. Yes played this venue one summer, and he took me backstage during the show. We walked through a door marked "DO NOT OPEN!" ended up on the side of the stage just as Chris Squire was starting his bass solo. That was a cool moment. I watched the remainder of the show from a spot just to the side of his rig. I was also still working for St. Louis Music then. Chris was playing through a brand new rig we had given him that night; 2 SVT-II PROs and 2 SVT-810s. The owner's son walked up to me during the show and started talking about the old rig, which was sitting just off to the side behind us. He asked me if I wanted one of the old heads. Now, as cool as that sounded, at the time I already had about half a dozen different rigs, and really didn't need another one. I still found it tough to turn down Chris Squire's amp, though. I instead suggested we use it for a giveaway. After the show, we talked to him about it backstage. He was apprehensive about giving up his old rig, afraid he might not like the new one as much. We assured him we'd hold onto it for awhile, and if he didn't like the new gear, we'd just give him back his old rig. He signed the grill cloth of one of the old cabinets and went on his way. A few weeks later, Chris called and said he loved the new rig, and that we could do whatever we wanted with the old stuff. It was given away by Bass Player magazine a couple months later.

I still sometimes think I should have taken it just for the nostalgia, but ... it is what it is.
 
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#1,189
I could have just bought a brand new SVT-CL by now just about.
Dave W said:
I'm not sure that's a good idea. If it happens to pull the load off of the amp you may have a replace the fried transformer too.

Mind you, I'm not an amp tech...
Click to expand...
true it is 100% definitely bad to put a signal through the amp without cabs hooked up. I've red tons of stories where guys run their amp for a few seconds with no speakers accidentally and causing no damage,
I'm just going to wigglea little to see if it is the cause of the crackle, not much other way to test it.

But first I have decided I will test the preamp out to audio interface, and also the DI out to my audio interface, to see if the crackle is present there, that will narrow down where the noise is coming from!!!
 
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#1,190
angrychair said:
I could have just bought a brand new SVT-CL by now just about.

true it is 100% definitely bad to put a signal through the amp without cabs hooked up. I've red tons of stories where guys run their amp for a few seconds with no speakers accidentally and causing no damage,
I'm just going to wigglea little to see if it is the cause of the crackle, not much other way to test it.

But first I have decided I will test the preamp out to audio interface, and also the DI out to my audio interface, to see if the crackle is present there, that will narrow down where the noise is coming from!!!
Click to expand...

Why didn't/don't you file a claim against FedEx for damaging the amp in shipping?
 
#1,191
neckdive said:
Why didn't/don't you file a claim against FedEx for damaging the amp in shipping?
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What do you think fedex would even do?

The seller shipped via FEDEX, and had them do the packaging
I supplied the SELLER with:
photos of the damaged package
photos of the cosmetic damage
invoices from the repair shop

I've done everything I can on my end. I haven't heard back from him. I've only emailed him like 10 times with info's, he has basically just said "ok I'll file a claim"

Can't prove or disprove any of this happened from being dropped in shipping, and you know fedex knows that. Aside from the cosmetic damage which I already fixed my self(new handles, straghtened face plate in a vice.)
 
#1,192
angrychair said:
What do you think fedex would even do?

The seller shipped via FEDEX, and had them do the packaging
I supplied the SELLER with:
photos of the damaged package
photos of the cosmetic damage
invoices from the repair shop

I've done everything I can on my end. I haven't heard back from him. I've only emailed him like 10 times with info's, he has basically just said "ok I'll file a claim"

Can't prove or disprove any of this happened from being dropped in shipping, and you know fedex knows that. Aside from the cosmetic damage which I already fixed my self(new handles, straghtened face plate in a vice.)
Click to expand...

Did you buy it on eBay, Reverb, or from someone here on TB? If need be, I think I would have brought the amp to the nearest FedEx store and demanded action in person, then ramped it up from there.

It's one thing that you thought it was only superficial damage of the handle but now it looks like you're finding other issues that could have conceivably be from shipping. Stuff gets damaged in shipping all the time and FedEx, UPS should have procedures for handling it.

The person who packed the underestimated how heavy these amps are relative to their dimensions. From the looks of the scratch on the handle, it appears that the amp slipped out of the box on to the pavement.
 
#1,194
You should blame the seller not for damaging the amp but for not following up on his word to file a claim.

Looks like @ZachSmith tried to get info from TB but no one responded.
Proof of value for insurance purposes for AMPEG SVT 2 PRO

I wouldn't just let this go if I were you. You guys need to get together and make this right. Small claims court is your friend on this deal and FedEx likely wouldn't want to bother going to court. Good luck.
 
#1,195
in the last rehearsal my ampeg just dropped out and when i turned around there was ALOT of smoke coming out of the amp. I immediately thought "if this is even reparable this is going to be very expensiv".

brought it to my trusty tech and it turned out one of the plugs of the wires that provides current (<10A!) to heat the valves became loose and finally came off. So the plug got heated until it burned. Luckily, the output transformer was not damaged at all so it was a relatively easy fix according to my tech.

here are some photos:

ampeg1.jpg


ampeg2.jpg
 
#1,199
I put pressure on FedEx again today. They apologized for taking so long to process the claim. They gave a standard line to me, "We will send out a letter with the decision on the claim in the next 2 days." So once again, we must wait on the powers that be. I am going through this with you @angrychair
 
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