Another Red Flag On The Ampeg PF-500.....

[bobcruz]

My bad.....your probably right.
I was distracted cause I was loading up some .223 for my range time!

If and when this happens, please post the video! Or make a music video out of the target session! I remember a country singer did that when United Airlines broke his valuable guitar (baggage handlers played catch with it on the tarmac, seen by witnesses) then denied responsibility. His "United Breaks Guitars" music video went viral, and United came crawling with apologies, new guitars, etc. If your video goes viral, maybe Ampeg will step up and announce an extended warranty/replacement program.

 

[Downunderwonder]

Gotta be country, thinking of a ballad about some cowboy putting down a no good dog, turns out to be the amp.

 

[B-string]

B,

You think you don't get no love, ya ought to be in my line of day work!


A few weeks back, (last time I was on T.B.) weren't you and someother TBer's trying to figure out what was going on with the PF series heads?
What thread was that in?

Professional curiosity is indeed a disease I am often guilty of
I've been in a couple no-win positions.

Does the PF800 suffer from any of these issues or did Ampeg finally get it right with the increased wattage?

No reports yet on PF-800 failures. They could be a much different design.

 

[hodgy]

Since it appears you haven't tried to get a replacement main board so don't pass judgement on the lack of serviceability - the tech (obviously not an Ampeg rep based on the responses) may be right about the cost of repair being too high and since there is no clean way to 'up-rev' the board so rebuilding it would be a bad idea.

There are Zero reasons that you can't 'up-rev' a PF-500. Find someone to sell you a rev J board and put it in yourself. Takes a screwdriver and about 10 minutes.

 

[will33]

I think he means individual parts replacement to the existing board.

Are different circuit paths, layouts, traces, etc. part of any revisions?

 

[P Town]

There are Zero reasons that you can't 'up-rev' a PF-500. Find someone to sell you a rev J board and put it in yourself. Takes a screwdriver and about 10 minutes.

I bet a new main board for a PF-500 would not be cheap. I like mine a lot, but if it failed, and I could not troubleshoot, and repair it myself, I would think about replacing it with a new PF=800.

 

[P-oddz]

No reports yet on PF-800 failures. They could be a much different design.

Good news for now. I just purchased one today, and am now second guessing my purchase. I gave it a good rundown at practice last night, bought it today and am playing it live tonight.

Fingers crossed(?)

 

[JimmyM]

I haven't seen a single report of PF800 failure yet, and I watch pretty closely on here.

But I'll tell you what...I'm going to stick up for my friends. Yes, LOUD is a pretty large corporation. Yes, LOUD made mistakes in the past. The vast majority of them, however, were fixed when they fired the head idiot of LOUD in 2008. But while I sympathize with those who had out-of-warranty problems, that is the deal with amps that are out of warranty that you don't get a free repair. The people who had warranty problems and contacted Ampeg were all taken care of that I've seen, often with replacement units being sent out before the broken amp was sent back. Believe it or not, behind that corporate facade is a bunch of people who care a great deal about Ampeg's reputation with customers and do their best to help out.

I've bought used stuff out of warranty that broke, too, and it sucks. Don't hear me blaming the company, though. It was a chance I took to save money. That's how it go.

 

[P-oddz]

I did go for the 800 because I hadn't seen anything negative about it either. I agree with Jimmy, that if things go down out of warranty it really is tough luck. The only reason I'm concerned at this point is because of all the horror stories I've seen in the 500s just crapping out. I bought this amp as a (hopefully) more reliable backup to my (proving to be) somewhat problematic Orange tube head. I don't like the idea of purchasing an unreliable amp to support another unreliable amp. I guess time will tell...

 

[Jeff Scott]

My wife said this about my continued want of the PF500; "if you had order the PF500 before you discovered all the failure issues, it would have been ignorance, but ordering one now would be considered stupidity".

Sig worthy!

 

[Pimmsley]

@jimmy and p-oodz; I understand a company is under no legal obligation with a product no longer covered under warranty, but don't you guys feel a product should have an acceptable working lifespan ?

If I buy a product like a mobile phone, I appreciate it has a limited life span in a working environment, no biggie if it fails in 2-3 years..
But, if I buy a new or used bass amp or hifi amp etc.. I kinda expect it to be designed well enough to be working for a minimum of 5 years from new in a gigging environment... Most of us are cautious and delicate with our gear, right...
Is that too much to expect ?
Where do you draw the line on expectation vs actuality ?

 

[JimmyM]

Yes I do. However, that lifespan is never predictable from unit to unit anyway. I know lots of folks with older PF500's that never had a day's worth of trouble, for example.

 

[Pimmsley]

Yes I do. However, that lifespan is never predictable from unit to unit anyway. I know lots of folks with older PF500's that never had a day's worth of trouble, for example.

Ok, fair enough...
It's a complicated situation at best by all accounts. I'm not into bashing companies, I just wish they would all take a breath and slow down their design to release schedules, and do more rigorous torture testing. For all our sakes...

Edit: sorry OP for the side-step, hope you get your amp going or the situation resolved.

 

[vin*tone]

There are Zero reasons that you can't 'up-rev' a PF-500. Find someone to sell you a rev J board and put it in yourself. Takes a screwdriver and about 10 minutes.

Who sells a Rev J board, Hodgy?

 

[bobcruz]

Gotta be country, thinking of a ballad about some cowboy putting down a no good dog, turns out to be the amp.

It's too good not to post a link--here's the first of THREE videos about the incident. Check the links at the right side of the page for more. 13.5 million views!!!

 

[P Town]

DWG 2034544=XX
REV C03
9/30/2010

ECOWD12993 B00 Correct silkscreen; safety caps; add shrink 7-19-2010
ECOWD13132 B01 R96 WAS 4.32K, R129 WAS 10K 9-1-2010
ECOWD13206 C00 ADD D34 9/30/2010
ECOWD13580 C01 Change drawing of power switch to DPST. 1-13-2011
ECOWD13508 C02 Change Insulator 3-7-2011
ECOWD13994 C03 Q20 WAS 2SC4793 6-20-11

 

[P Town]

Not sure how that previous post got there, but it would be interesting to see all changes up to the current revision.

 

[Woodstockz]

Who sells a Rev J board, Hodgy?

Ampeg does...for about $310.

 

[Bowe]

I've been trying to buy a PF 500 and get the latest rev. available. I figured that purchasing from the highest volume dealers like MF or GC would be the way to get the latest version of the amp, so I started looking at Musician's Friend & Guitar Center web site this morning.

I noticed for the first time that MF had a "restock" unit on their web site. I had never noticed a restock at MF, so I called them and asked if the restock unit carried the same manufacturer's warranty as a new unit. After some period of time on hold, the rep came back on line and said the restock carried NO manufacturer's warranty at all, and proceeded to try to sell me the MF extended warranty which would have made the final price of the restock unit $20 HIGHER than the new unit. ("Restock" started off $20 cheaper than the "new" unit).

So, I went to the GC web site, engaged in a chat session, and asked the same question; does the PF500 restock unit come with a full manufacturer's warranty. Again, some delay, but the answer came back as "yes", the restock has full 2 year mfg. warranty. GC's price was identical to MF.

Both MF and GC describe the restock units as "Manufacturer Refurbished". I don't see Ampeg providing warranty for units returned to one dealer and not providing warranty for units returned to a different dealer.

My wife said this about my continued want of the PF500; "if you had order the PF500 before you discovered all the failure issues, it would have been ignorance, but ordering one now would be considered stupidity". Difficult to keep arguing I want one of these, but I think an amp going on top of an Ampeg flip top cab should be an Ampeg amp, however, I am starting to give a little on that thought....

if there was a $20 diff from a restock to new it is a 'no brainer' get the NEW one! Full warrantee and it should be the current rev, 'refurbs' usually have a real short (90 day) warrantee and unless the diff is more like 30% it isn't worth it IMHO.

To answer your wife's quote, that would be true if they did nothing but the mod list posted by p-town above ends a few short of the important ones (snubbers and buffers added by Feb. 2012 aka rev. D and rev. E respectively). There is a discussion of the rev levels on the mega-thread.

Hodgy, I did mean doing the component mods to the rev. C board would be a bad idea, but a swap out is easy.

What would be an interesting statistic on the PF500 would be to see the production numbers on the various rev levels. It sounds like the rev. C was produced in great numbers in anticipation of it being a hot seller (they were right) and the later revs had lower production runs (but I could be wrong).

if the $310 price is correct and a new one is on the south side of $400 it sounds like the old one just became a pre-amp or door stop. I really like my PF500 and still think that getting a new one is safe, with one caveat, be wary of getting one from a smaller local retailer because they don't turn stock well enough and it could be a rev. C that they have on the floor (as others have found).

(I didn't get the PF800 because it wasn't worth the price difference to me, the 500 is about $1.25/watt and the 800 is about $1.33/watt, and I don't see me pushing it that hard.)

 

[arai]

But while I sympathize with those who had out-of-warranty problems, that is the deal with amps that are out of warranty that you don't get a free repair.

I have heard you repeat this on here a number of times but it is no secret that this particular line of amp has a failure rate on major scale.
And please don't give us the the whole "well I have had my pf350 past it's warranty and it has no problems". I have played close attention and you have quite a few Ampeg (endorser) amps and from your posts on here you usually either use one of your bigger rigs or the little combo.

Who sells a Rev J board, Hodgy?

Ampeg does...for about $310.

Well that seem like a great board room idea on a way to make a bad situation work in the share holders favor. Lets make some extra money out of a faulty product.