What the actual fuck is wrong with my amp?

[Jwar]

Soooooooooo my fucking amp is making kind of a crackling noise again. I've had my Mesa Bass Prodigy repaired twice now. Fucking twice. I don't understand what the actual fuck is going on. It was fine, then it started crackling, so I changed the preamp tubes. Was fine again, now it's doing it again. I haven't changed the power tubes because I fucked that up last time.

I just don't understand what the actual fuck is going on here.

This last year I've had three amps go bad on me. Three. I've gone through my entire goddamn house with outlet testers and haven't found shit. I replaced one bad outlet, that's it. This is the first time (this year) that I've ever had issues.

I'm almost about to give up here.

Do I need to hire an electrician?? Is it just my Mesa is a piece of shit?? Do you think Mesa really fixed it or just rigged it up to be fixed for a bit?? Or is that even possible???

FUCK! If I had the extra dough, I'd buy a new amp/cab or at least a fucking combo amp so I could see if it's the amp or my cabs or both...I don't know anything about this shit and I'm so fucking fed up with spending money on it.

I have a GK amp, but of fucking course it has some kind of issues too. UGH!

So what would you guys do? Hammer smash???

[JonnyAngle]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCslC3ykX-U[/youtube]

Def bring it to ilfmw. We'll have tons of smart peeps and lots of outlets to try

[braaandooon]

I own a few old amps that have had issues with crackling at times, even after a thorough makeover. Most of the time it's just tube sockets that need retensioned or replaced. Wouldn't seem like somthing that would need attention on a recent production amp, but somthing else to maybe look at.

[The Eristic]

Tube sockets are good call. Also, trying cleaning your FX loop jacks and the 800 other jacks on the back panel. They get a little dust in them and they can make all kinds of crackling and popping. Also, do you know your cabling is all good?

[jrfox92]

Clean jacks/sockets/pots/switches, reflow solder joints.

[crochambeau]

What everyone else said.

You were shipping this amp back and forth to Mesa? It's possible that the vibrations in transit temporarily resolved the issue so troubleshooting was hindered their end for about as long as the "fix" remained on yours. Delayed or intermittent problems are tough to pinpoint in a production shop, you've got to live with it a while.

[Jwar]

I'm just going to spray contact cleaner everywhere and see what happens. Then I'll check to see there are any loose parts anywhere. If it was the tube sockets, you'd think Mesa would have caught that, but they were not nearly as helpful on this fix as the previous. In fact, they made it kind of hard and I almost sold my amp once I got it back. If I didn't love the way it sounded, I'd would have.

I'll report back. I'll also definitely bring it to ILFMW. I can't really lug a cab along though.


As far as cables, I mean, I've tried all the ones I have. Maybe I need to break down and just buy all new to give it a shot. Who knows. I have four fucking speakon cables and I just cannot believe those would go bad, but who knows. My guitar cable is a few years old, but fuck, it was not cheap...fuck it. Best place to start I guess.



Re-in transit. Yes that's possible but the local tech check it after it arrived as well, still they could have missed something, who knows. The problem is Mesa won't cover shit in their warranty if you have anyone local work on the amps unless they are authorized. However, if they are authorized, Mesa will only pay for 30 minutes worth of work before they want it just sent straight to them. So, it kind of makes it hard to determine what a good solution is, unless I just pony up the money and say fuck the warranty. It's really annoying. The did replace some resistors and a few other components. Wish they would have given me a list of what they fixed, they were pretty vague, but I'm assuming it's because most folks wouldn't understand what they are talking about.

[Jwar]

Something else interesting to note. The sound doesn't start or occur unless I hit on a couple of pedals that have higher output. Like my DSM Noisemaker Drive Maker. That thing will instantly start the crackling. Or my Darkglass B7K and my Depth Charge. Those are the three I noticed last night that cause the issue to occur.

[insubordination]

First thought is that between your active pickups (which you use, correct?) and the hotter signals you specified, perhaps you are just overloading the front end of the amp?

Second thought--this is from the manual:

NOTE: COLD START PROCEDURE: When powering up your PRODIGY from cold, ALWAYS follow this Start Up Procedure: We
have found the currently available KT88s require substantially more time than 6L6s or EL34s to warm up to full operating temperature.
If you hit them with high voltage with the STANDBY sooner than three minutes, you may hear some crackling as well as a slow volume
increase as they get up to full temperature. This subsides once they are fully warm, and while it might not hurt the tubes per se, it is
better to warm them up for at least three minutes (or longer) whenever you can.

[The Eristic]

Yeah, that sounds more like you're overloading something that doesn't want to be. Also, if your cab has a crossover, some of them aren't designed to deal with big dirty signals. In my bass rig w/ 3-way cabs, the tweeters flip out and sound gross if you hit them with a load of dirt at high volume.

[Jwar]

This is all Mesa gear. They have no issues with hot signals. Plus I've owned this amp for almost 4 years now. This problem just started in the past year and I've slammed it with a metric fuck ton of hot fuzzed out signals. Just doesn't make sense.

[waltdogg]

dirty fx loops jacks.
tubes warming up.
or preamp overload and shutdown.

all already covered but those all came to mind before i even finished reading the thread.

[tremolo3]

Go Peavey Kvlt.

half jk...

It can be everything really, even a cold joint. But it might need a re-cap job, every problem gets solved by that and a brand new set of tubes.

[Jwar]

Happy to report that after spraying contact cleaner fucking everywhere, it's fine now. No noise unless I turn the amp all the way up, which is just tube noise. So normal again!! What the fuck! I don't get it. I have used contact cleaner before on this, but I sprayed it everywhere. LOL. Maybe it just needed some TLC. I guess I'll see in a week or so. Oh and I let it warm up for 10 minutes. I always do 5 but I figured what would it hurt?

[01010111]

Maybe the tubes need longer to warm up the more they're used?