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Repair or Upgrade

Wolfenstein666

Wolfenstein666

Dec 19, 2014
2,326
4,794
#1
I've chronicled several of my amp failures here over the past couple years. It's a Hartke LH500 head. The first time it was not putting any sound out, and Hartke fixed it. The second time it was blowing fuses, and Hartke replaced it.

This time, the sound is cutting out intermittently after about 15 minutes of playtime. At first I thought it was my amp, so I brought it over to my friends house, plugged into his cab with my amp and it worked fine.

So, that would logically lead me to conclude its my cab. Which sucks, for several reasons.

It's a Mesa Boogie 4x10, 1x15. It's a monster of a cab and sounds great. But I don't even know where to begin trouble shooting this thing at. Secondly, in order to get it fixed I'd have to wheel it somewhere, which is going to require a second person and a truck.

So, this is my question. Should I attempt to repair it / have it repaired? Any trouble shooting advice? Or should I just look to upgrade to something else and rid myself of the Beast?
 
#2
Pop the front cover off. Take each speaker out and check all the connections. Literally it would just be looking at the back of each speaker and making sure the connectors are pushed onto the little tabs and are fitting securely. In fact, you could probably just pop the 15" out and work the other speakers from that hole using it as access to the interior of the whole cab. You can even use a phone with the camera in "selfie" mode to look around inside the cab and check other connectors with the 15 out. Also check the wires on the input jacks. At least you'll be able to tell a tech exactly what is wrong if you can't fix it yourself.

If you get in over your head, put the 15 back in and stop. But this really is a simple thing you can do first.
 
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#3
two fingers said:
Pop the front cover off. Take each speaker out and check all the connections. Literally it would just be looking at the back of each speaker and making sure the connectors are pushed onto the little tabs and are fitting securely. In fact, you could probably just pop the 15" out and work the other speakers from that hole using it as access to the interior of the whole cab. You can even use a phone with the camera in "selfie" mode to look around inside the cab and check other connectors with the 15 out. Also check the wires on the input jacks. At least you'll be able to tell a tech exactly what is wrong if you can't fix it yourself.

If you get in over your head, put the 15 back in and stop. But this really is a simple thing you can do first.
Click to expand...

Noob question alert:

If wiring to one speaker is loose / bad, would that cause all sound to cut out?
 
#4
Wolfenstein666 said:
Noob question alert:

If wiring to one speaker is loose / bad, would that cause all sound to cut out?
Click to expand...

It depends on the circuit and how it is wired. That's the short answer without looking up a schematic for the cab. It is likely an input jack issue if the whole thing is cutting out but could still have something to do with a speaker wire especially if it is the one right off of the input jack.
 
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#7
Wolfenstein666 said:
Roger that, thanks!
Click to expand...

Glad to help. If you get too deep in the weeds see if you can snap us a few pics of the connection points and we may be able to walk you through it.

Just be careful with the cone of the 15" when you pop it out. Also, immediately take a pic of the wires connected to the 15" when you get it out. You may have to disconnect them (they likely just push on) to be able to set it aside while you poke around inside the cab. And you want to make sure you put them back how they were. If you put them on backwards that speaker could be out of phase with the rest and throw things off. It's not as complicated as it sounds and will totally make sense once you see it in person. Two little push on connectors like you see in the pic below. Either the wires will be a different color or one will have a stripe like the pic. If you have to disconnect the ones on the 15 put them back like they were. Easy peezy.
speaker_mid_connections.jpg
 
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#8
two fingers said:
Glad to help. If you get too deep in the weeds see if you can snap us a few pics of the connection points and we may be able to walk you through it.

Just be careful with the cone of the 15" when you pop it out. Also, immediately take a pic of the wires connected to the 15" when you get it out. You may have to disconnect them (they likely just push on) to be able to set it aside while you poke around inside the cab. And you want to make sure you put them back how they were. If you put them on backwards that speaker could be out of phase with the rest and throw things off. It's not as complicated as it sounds and will totally make sense once you see it in person. Two little push on connectors like you see in the pic below. Either the wires will be a different color or one will have a stripe like the pic. If you have to disconnect the ones on the 15 put them back like they were. Easy peezy.
View attachment 1032778
Click to expand...

I will probably do that either way and post them here. I'm relatively busy the rest of the week, but I might be able to get down there and open her up tonight or Wednesday.
 
#10
Alrighty.

So I got to poking around last night and grabbed some pictures. Excuse the poor quality, it was hard getting my briefcase of a cell phone around the speaker cone.

These are the input jacks from the jack plate in the back. To my untrained eye, all solders look good. (PS: I had my buddy come over to help last night and he's MUCH better at this stuff than I am, he confirmed the solders look good)

IMG_0135.JPG


Input jack plate as seen from the front, through the 15" speaker cavity:

IMG_0143.JPG


Ok, this is where it gets interesting. First, a wiring diagram we found. This is for a Mesa Powerhouse, but I'm not sure whether or not its the model I have. *DISCLAIMER* All of my theories after this are exactly that, theories. I am probably wrong, but for the sake of argument I'll throw out my hypothesis.

IMG_0139.JPG


All wiring looked good on the speakers, at least from what we could see. Mesa used heavy grade, good quality wires and the none of the solders looked even remotely corroded or weak.

IMG_0144.JPG


This is the good shot. I would assume that the black sphere up there is the crossover. The wire we called into question for a possibly broken solder is below :

IMG_01441.jpg


That's what stuck out to us when we were checking it out. But again, we're not sure.

Vanity Shot with the grill off (this is a TON of speaker)

IMG_0148.JPG


The story gets weirder. We tried to get it to cut out yesterday and it would NOT do it like it had been before. :cautious: We played it for about 20 minutes at low volume with no crackling or cutting out. Then we cranked it and played for another 15 or 20 minutes and it STILL didn't cut out. Normally at practice I can only get about 5 or 10 minutes before it totally craps out.

Sorry for the lengthy post, I hope this will help someone help me.
 
#14
Fishheadjoe said:
Ok, is there any way to disconnect the cross over and hook the 15 directly? Run that for a bit and see if that shows you anything.
Fishheadjoe
Click to expand...

Unfortunately neither myself or my buddy who helped know that much about speakers and the wiring. He MIGHT have an idea how to do it, but I'm technically illiterate at that point. Anything beyond maybe a couple of solders I would have to have a real man look at it :D
 
#15
Looking at the picture, there is a broken lead off of the crossover cap.

I'm going to suggest that before you create an entirely new problem, you contact one of our authorized service centers so that you get this repaired correctly the first time.

An incorrect connection (due to a false assumption) could result in an illegal load to your amp and possibly damage it too.
 
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#16
agedhorse said:
Looking at the picture, there is a broken lead off of the crossover cap.

I'm going to suggest that before you create an entirely new problem, you contact one of our authorized service centers so that you get this repaired correctly the first time.

An incorrect connection (due to a false assumption) could result in an illegal load to your amp and possibly damage it too.
Click to expand...

Woah, was not expecting an actual Mesa dude to chime in.

Where can I find an authorized service center?

PS: Thanks! :D
 

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