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GK 1001rb amp dead. Any amp tech suggestions

Likely the only place that would have a whole board would be GK, and I doubt they'd let one go to anyone other than a tech repair business or "authorized service center". A tech with the right diagnostic equipment would track down the few bad parts and replace those rather than an entire board. I don't know what GK's warranties are like but 2 years isn't very old. It may have had a lot of hours on it in those 2 years but still, that's not much compared to their usual 20-30+ year servive life. Might be worth a call to GK.


Agreed...


- georgestrings
 
Replacing the entire "power amp board" is absurd.

If your car won't start, do you automatically buy a new engine? Especially if you don't know an engine from a transmission.

GK probably doesn't even sell a complete board, and if so they likely wouldn't sell it to an individual as will33 said. Typically a couple of discrete components will fail that cost only a few bucks total (barring something like a power transformer failure).

This isn't rocket science, but a certain amount of electronic skill is required, along with some test equipment. A good tech with a DMM, sig gen, and scope would likely find the problem in less than 20 minutes --including 5 minutes to drink a cup of coffee.

Bite the bullet, take it to a tech, and be done with it...if you lived close to Nashville, I'd take a look at it and give you a diagnosis for free.
 
I have more details. I 100% postive the semiconductor that mounts to the heatsink is bad. Two of the legs from it have burnt siolder joints and the semi conductor is cracked (barely noticeable, but definitely cracked. Here is a link to the exact same semiconductor, [This invalid link has been removed]

I haven't removed the heatsink/fan to see if there appears to be any other damaged components and wont do this without my friends approval. Since it not my amp I'm going to suggest he get to a GK repair depot. If it was my amp, I'd replace the semiconductor and cross my fingers.
 
I will add that replacing entire CCAs isn't absurd, at least not in my line of work. I was an ATM tech for many years and now I'm the manager. As a tech in the field we never replaced componets. We replaced entire CCAs (there is at least 15 to 20 CCAs in an ATM). We then sent them in to our repair depot. I thought maybe GK might work the same way. Regardless, I'm sure you guys are right in that they wouldn't sell me an entire CCA.
 
I've read somewhere amongst these threads that the first versions of that amp had some design issues. GK was said to replace the boards and bring it up to 1001RB II specs for a reasonable price.

More knowledgable folks will correct me but if your buddy got a really good deal on this one, it might be worth the upgrade...

=wr=
 
That's the integrated amplifier chip for the tweeter in GK's horn biamp system. The problem probably goes beyond just this chip if your friend isn't getting any signal at all.

Ya, that may be one component that's obviously burned/bad but it certainly may not be the only one and we don't know why it failed. If you don't locate the source of the problem, probably just end up frying new chips, and maybe damage some more expensive parts in the process.
 
I've read somewhere amongst these threads that the first versions of that amp had some design issues. GK was said to replace the boards and bring it up to 1001RB II specs for a reasonable price.

More knowledgable folks will correct me but if your buddy got a really good deal on this one, it might be worth the upgrade...

=wr=

They'll do that, or used to for the first versions of these amps, before the II series but that was a long time ago, guy said this one's 2 years old.