JeffB Posted October 29, 2020 Author Posted October 29, 2020 13 hours ago, Millennium Maestro said: Perfect topic for my little project! Had to clean the 20+ years of dust, spunk and whatever... off this beast. I think she is going to beat up on my power brake! [img]https://i.imgur.com/3d3E2KO.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/0Cjq3du.jpg[/img] Thats a cool project. Great amp!
JeffB Posted November 10, 2020 Author Posted November 10, 2020 So, had the amp serviced, cleaned it all up and made it look nice, sounds nice looks good. Sounded like a happy ending. Fired it up this morning to bask in glorious clean 3d tone and off kilter playing and was met with a loud hum, smell and bright light flickering from out the back. The bright light flickering out the back was cool but the hum and smell bothered me. Back to the repair guy. Never had a problem with this amp in 35yrs. Pretty clear I should never have cleaned it up.
loudtubeamps Posted November 10, 2020 Posted November 10, 2020 So....your repair guy didn't bench test it after the repairs? Curious to hear what was refreshed/replaced. Keep us posted please.
TalismanRich Posted November 11, 2020 Posted November 11, 2020 You didn't let the smoke out of the filter caps, did you? It won't work right without the smoke inside those capacitors and resistors!
JeffB Posted November 11, 2020 Author Posted November 11, 2020 9 hours ago, loudtubeamps said: So....your repair guy didn't bench test it after the repairs? Curious to hear what was refreshed/replaced. Keep us posted please. Im sure he did. Lots of variables at play with this, including the way I was running it after not using it for nearly three years. 6 hours ago, TalismanRich said: You didn't let the smoke out of the filter caps, did you? It won't work right without the smoke inside those capacitors and resistors! I did! All the smoke has gone. An amp with out smoke is no fun. 2 hours ago, Gitfiddler said: Did you check your 6L6 tubes? I swapped them for another set, still big hum. The bright lights were coming from one of the 6L6's. Swapped each 12ax7 for a known good one also but this is powers stage problem. I bought another cheap tube amp to get by with, a fender excelsior, its a pretty good little box for the money. No sense in breaking momentum at this stage.
loudtubeamps Posted November 11, 2020 Posted November 11, 2020 JeffB Are you going to attempt the repair or RU sending it out?
JeffB Posted November 11, 2020 Author Posted November 11, 2020 5 minutes ago, loudtubeamps said: JeffB Are you going to attempt the repair or RU sending it out? No, I will take it to a repair guy.
tbonesullivan Posted November 11, 2020 Posted November 11, 2020 Ooof. I wonder if the tube went, or maybe the filament had some type of issue?
Gitfiddler Posted November 11, 2020 Posted November 11, 2020 Rivera-era Concert amps are complex beasts with channel switching, push-pull knobs and more. Lots of little things can go wrong, but nothing a good amp tech can't handle. If you get it right, they are great sounding amps. I went through two that were just OK, before my last one (pictured above) that was one of the best amps I've ever played. Good luck. Here's the schematic: https://www.thetubestore.com/lib/thetubestore/schematics/Fender/Fender-Concert-II-83-Schematic.pdf
tsp17 Posted November 11, 2020 Posted November 11, 2020 On 10/29/2020 at 1:06 AM, rockabilly69 said: this should help you in your quest... https://www.vintagesoundamps.com/product/vintage-15-princeton-style/ http://www.allenamps.com/sweetspot.html http://3rdpower.com/products/amps/wooly-coats-spanky-mkii/#1466056694371-2ce81ba2-beb9a6ec-7aa0 (no trem, but sounds great) +1 on all three. I have the Vintage Sound 20. Improved Princeton circuit based. Beefier transformer, 12" speaker, mid, presence and dwell controls, standby switch.
loudtubeamps Posted November 11, 2020 Posted November 11, 2020 4 hours ago, tbonesullivan said: Ooof. I wonder if the tube went, or maybe the filament had some type of issue? I love a good mystery....Bias supply and possibly associated cap connections and good chance of carbon arching on the red plating tube socket base between pins 3 & 4.
tsp17 Posted November 12, 2020 Posted November 12, 2020 7 hours ago, loudtubeamps said: I love a good mystery....Bias supply and possibly associated cap connections and good chance of carbon arching on the red plating tube socket base between pins 3 & 4. So over my head
tbonesullivan Posted November 12, 2020 Posted November 12, 2020 20 hours ago, Gitfiddler said: Rivera-era Concert amps are complex beasts with channel switching, push-pull knobs and more. Lots of little things can go wrong, but nothing a good amp tech can't handle. If you get it right, they are great sounding amps. I went through two that were just OK, before my last one (pictured above) that was one of the best amps I've ever played. Good luck. Here's the schematic: https://www.thetubestore.com/lib/thetubestore/schematics/Fender/Fender-Concert-II-83-Schematic.pdf Paul Rivera STILL loves push-pull knobs. I don't think any of his amps are free of them. Still I'm not sure anything can compete with the Push-Pull insanity that is the Mesa Boogie Mark IV. 7 of the 18 controls on the front pull to do something.
Gitfiddler Posted November 12, 2020 Posted November 12, 2020 50 minutes ago, tbonesullivan said: Paul Rivera STILL loves push-pull knobs. I don't think any of his amps are free of them. Still I'm not sure anything can compete with the Push-Pull insanity that is the Mesa Boogie Mark IV. 7 of the 18 controls on the front pull to do something. Very true about Rivera and Mesa Mk IV push-pull madness. Great amps, but both brands have very interesting tone stack configurations.
kbp810 Posted November 12, 2020 Posted November 12, 2020 19 hours ago, loudtubeamps said: I love a good mystery....Bias supply and possibly associated cap connections and good chance of carbon arching on the red plating tube socket base between pins 3 & 4. +1 Or a screen resistor might have popped
DetroitBlues Posted November 12, 2020 Posted November 12, 2020 On 10/29/2020 at 12:56 AM, Millennium Maestro said: Perfect topic for my little project! Had to clean the 20+ years of dust, spunk and whatever... off this beast. I think she is going to beat up on my power brake! [img]https://i.imgur.com/3d3E2KO.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/0Cjq3du.jpg[/img] Knowing you've had that amp for long, it should probably be checked for STD's.
loudtubeamps Posted November 12, 2020 Posted November 12, 2020 3 hours ago, kbp810 said: +1 Or a screen resistor might have popped I'm surprised the overdraw did not take out the fuse, like they are designed to do (or should be).
JeffB Posted December 2, 2020 Author Posted December 2, 2020 Some kind of update. I was meant to send the amp out to one guy a few weeks ago but the courier failed to show up one day and the next delivery the tech wasnt there to receive it, and honestly, I just moved on to other things. So it just sat here. A few days ago I decided to get back onto it and decided to look around for another tech. There is one guy I have never used but I have always been curious about him, he builds amps and has always seemed to have a good rep. I called him and organised to drop the amp off. I wanted to meet him so I took it myself. We got talking about mods to the 2nd channel. Im not sure yet, It is kind of a useless channel and Ive yet to hear a mod done to it that cant be better achieved by sticking an od pedal in front of the clean channel. But there are 6 controls out of 11 on the front panel that I dont use and Ive often thought that it would be cool if they did something useful. He was talking something dumble'ish and I was just thinking something useful and pleasant. I hope he comes up with something cool and can explain it to me in a meaningful way (meaningful to me) before he starts. Just some useable low to mid gain would be nice. Turned out, after awhile, we do know each other reasonably well but time, a decade, Completely different haircuts and change of dress style on both our behalves kinda defeated immediate recognition. I mentioned where I had worked and he asked "oh! do you know what happened to Tully? He just dropped off the face of the planet! I laughed! "Im Tully and yeah, I dropped off the face of that planet" Just a funny moment for both of us, we actually had good memories of each other but didnt recognise each other out side of a certain environment and with a bit of time gone by. Other than that I just left it with him so I still dont know what the actual problem is.
Gitfiddler Posted December 2, 2020 Posted December 2, 2020 Your suggestion to mod the second channel on your Concert is a great idea. To me that amp is a Dumble wanna-be already. It has lots of potential to increase or decrease its drive. Also, some Concert II's have too strong a midrange in channel 2. That's great for single coil guitars, but not so much for humbucker gits. They get muddy with too much midrange. Having more control over that one frequency would benefit your amp. Finally, smoothing out the drive in channel two so you could gradually bring on the drive from very low to medium overdrive etc. I always found the overdrive came on too soon and too strong, but would really be more useful if that beast could be better controlled. Finally, maximizing the cleans is another thought. Fortunately Concerts are great clean platforms. Your tech might check the bias on your amp. I don't know the best bias for maximizing tone, so your tech will need to discuss that adjustment with you. Caveat: Since I have never heard your specific amp, and I'm not an amp tech, my comments are based on the three Concert II amps I've owned over the years.
rockabilly69 Posted December 3, 2020 Posted December 3, 2020 So you're saying you pissed away a day, and have no idea of what he's going to do to your amp Ah reminiscing, did he have a hot sister?
JeffB Posted December 3, 2020 Author Posted December 3, 2020 3 hours ago, rockabilly69 said: So you're saying you pissed away a day, and have no idea of what he's going to do to your amp Ah reminiscing, did he have a hot sister? Im retired. That was like a major business transaction. It was full on! I had to tell him every detail about the journey there, how the roads and shops have all changed since I was out that way 25yrs ago and how many mpg I get on the freeway. We just ran right out of time, it was already past my afternoon nap time and I had a 45minute trip home. I think I covered all the important things, we can get to the mods later on the landline. Ive heard his mods and his dumble style builds. I kinda gave him free reign, with a few caveats. I'll either like it or I wont.
rockabilly69 Posted December 3, 2020 Posted December 3, 2020 11 hours ago, JeffB said: Im retired. That was like a major business transaction. It was full on! I had to tell him every detail about the journey there, how the roads and shops have all changed since I was out that way 25yrs ago and how many mpg I get on the freeway. We just ran right out of time, it was already past my afternoon nap time and I had a 45minute trip home. I think I covered all the important things, we can get to the mods later on the landline. Ive heard his mods and his dumble style builds. I kinda gave him free reign, with a few caveats. I'll either like it or I wont. Ahh, the pace of the retired, hahahahaha
JeffB Posted December 4, 2020 Author Posted December 4, 2020 Recapped, some new tubes, repaired the blown grid and screen resistors etc and a few other general repairs and a couple of simple mods like installing an adjustable bias circuit. I put adjustable bias kits in all my mesa's I figured I might as well do the same here even though its never been an issue like it was with Mesa amps. We bailed on anything really serious. The more I thought about it the less interested I was in any of the suggested mods. As I mentioned in a previous post, Ive never heard a mod to this amp that achieved any better result than simply sticking a decent pedal in front of this amp. As well as that running a different decent preamps through the fx loop has yielded some great results that has also killed amp gas and modding ideas. I will pick it tomorrow and get back into playing through it and fixating on rhythm, melody, composition and technique.
tbonesullivan Posted December 4, 2020 Posted December 4, 2020 1 hour ago, JeffB said: Recapped, some new tubes, repaired the blown grid and screen resistors etc and a few other general repairs and a couple of simple mods like installing an adjustable bias circuit. I put adjustable bias kits in all my mesa's I figured I might as well do the same here even though its never been an issue like it was with Mesa amps. Was it something the first tech missed, or did a tube just go and take a bunch of things with it? I haven't had it happen to me yet, but I definitely have friends who had a tube go a few days after installation, and fry some components. On 11/12/2020 at 10:55 AM, Gitfiddler said: Very true about Rivera and Mesa Mk IV push-pull madness. Great amps, but both brands have very interesting tone stack configurations. It's definitely interesting how on most of their amps, one channel has TMB, and the other is BMT. Definitely makes dialing in channels a bit interesting at times. My R55 is a pretty "simple" design, but still has 4 push pull voicing pots. It IS nice to be able to turn the "Fender Channel" from Tweed to Blackface with the pull of a knob though.
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