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Anyone have an amp die on them?

jamzilla

jamzilla

Guest
Mar 28, 2012
114
3
#1
I've had one amp quit on me in the past 20 years, hundreds of gigs, thousands of practices.

It was a well used/abused Ampeg BA115 and it happened during practice. Output transformer gave up the ghost and left this world.

I'm curious about who else has had an amp quit on them, gig, rehearsal, practice, or otherwise.
 
#4
A long time ago. But it was 100% my fault.Bass -> flexed wah -> distortion -> EQ -> Delay and I was doing a Star Spangled Banner solo with a 15" Crate combo. It was awesome until *click*, the speaker separated from the driver.
 
#5
Never one of my own, in over 30 years of gigging as both a guitarist and bassist... I *have* had provided backline rigs crap out on me, though - but they usually looked pretty abused to begin with...


- georgestrings
 
#9
I had an RB800 die about 5 minutes before we started one night. It had worked ok in soundcheck but crapped out. Turned out to be something with the effect loop or something that made it close. If I had known I would have put a cable from the send to return and it would have worked but I figured it was something different since it kinda just, died...

BnB
 
#10
Twice:

A Mesa Basis M2000

An Eden Road Runner

The Mesa I bought new. It caused me to reassess how much one really needs to fork out for a great amp. Great amp, too much money, and it ended up on this list of dubious distinction. It gave out at a party. No money was at stake except repair money. I learned how to use a PA head for a bass amp that night. Sounded pretty good.

The Road Runner I bought used, tested the ever-loving shiggity out of it for almost two weeks, and took it to a gig, where it failed on the very first song of the night. (See "sinking feeling".) Fortunately, the store took it back after I told them I didn't care if they fixed it at no cost to me. I wanted no part of it anymore.

An amp that fails at a gig will not be mine much longer. I'm just funny that way.
 
#12
had an swr sm500 that would go into thermal shutdown on occasion during gigs - very disconcerting...

mesa m6 went dead after a soundcheck before gig statred- opened it up and discovered power supply connector had gotten jostled loose from the circuit board. Easy fix, but that was a close call...whew
 
#15
2 - a brand new Fender Bassman when I was playing guitar stopped 2 minutes into the first song of the set; Had a GenzBenz Head that stopped working with a cabinet during rehearsal. Replaced the cabinet and everything was fine so it wasn't really the GB Head's problem.
 
#16
I had a brand new GK MB212 combo die on me at a rehearsal, was 20 minutes into the session and the red ring around the on/off switch came on and that was it, the amp was not even being driven hard, very disappointed, got a refund, have had two amps since with no problems .
 
#20
Last amp that took a poop on me was over 30 years ago.

Had a Yamaha B100 amp that went down during the first song of the set in a battle of the bands.

Luckily, a buddy of mine from another band jumped into action, and exchanged my head for his and had me back up and running before the end of the song.
 

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