What can I salvage from this fiasco?

Picked up this Yorkville xm100 last year cheap but never really did anything with it till recently. The thing is it sounds pretty awful and I'm not sure if it is a bad amp or a bad speaker or both. I ran the amp through another 4 ohm speaker and it sounds bad at low levels and gets worse as you turn it up. I hooked the speaker up to my musicmaster and that sounded bad too.


I didn't see anything obviously wrong in the chassis but then I'm no electronics expert and don't know how to test components. The speaker is a 15" Eminence 7347 4 ohm 200W, 67-0310A 0095 I think that means it was built in 2003. Anyway if they are both bad I was thinking I could get a new 8 ohm speaker and use the combo case as a cab. Is that the best way to get something good out of this?

I used the speaker out of this Gemini GX-450

to test the amp out. It turns out that if I run my bass through my little Mackie mixer and into the GX-450 it's a pretty good bass amp. Turn the volumes more than halfway and it is seriously loud. And it doesn't sound crappy. I am actively researching bass amps at the moment but this will get me by for now along with my musicmaster. Feedback?

 

Ha! Flub and mud would have been an improvement over what I heard. But the Eminence speakers now seem to be well spoken of. I'm still leery of 15's and will probably go with a 12 in whatever combo amp I finally get unless I can find a small head.

 

Yeah all you can do is read threads and manufacturer specs and claims and hope for the best.
I hope to keep the price around 100.00 so I got listed Eminence Delta 15 400W 8 ohm
Eminence Legend CB158
Eminence Kappalite 3015
Eminence Basslite 2515

 

OK. Here's an update and a happy ending. I was fortunate to find an amp technician on Craigslist. He resoldered all the front panel components, resiliconed the transistors, resoldered two capacitors and replaced the effects return jack which he called the switching jack and the headphone jack. And the amp now sounds GREAT. Very happy with the outcome.

 

I think not necessarily. Yorkville/Traynors seem to be well spoken of and the amp is probably more than 10 years old and mayby lived a hard life so while I was initially disappointed with the amp I'm glad the tech could breathe some new life into it.

 

I can't disagree with you entirely because the tech himself pointed out the disadvantages of the PC board mounted components of the front panel.