Hosoi wrote:Hi, Nerds,I bought this amp, and I also got another one. This one is great. Best thing that ever happened to me.That one is problematic. Out of all the nerds I know and all the nerds I've paid, none of them can figure it out.Their problem is that they input a sine wave at 50 or 75 watts or whatever, and it doesn't fail after hours and hours, so they all say there's nothing wrong. It's not a heat problem, I guess?By my problem is if I play through it, it fails. Sometimes it works, but not for long. It sounds almost like radio static, and the power, like volume power, fades. Then there's nothing. If I try it again in a few days, sometimes it works and then the same thing happens, and sometimes it doesn't work at all.So maybe it's the speakers' fault? It's the 4x12 combo.I long to be a nerd!"Not For Long..." We talking around fifteen or twenty minutes?

Ok.While the "Peek-A-Boo" sort of problem you are talking about is a headache, I have a Hiwatt that was doing almost exactly what you are describing after fifteen or twenty minutes of play time.A couple of shops said they couldn't find anything wrong. At the third shop, the guy took it home over the weekend after having it seem totally fine at the shop. Sure enough, he got it to do the exact same thing after around fifteen or twenty minutes and got it to repeat after powering it down and starting the pattern all over.Turned out that it was a resistor arcing. They fixed it, and it has been fine every since.

numberthirty wrote:Ok.While the Peek-A-Boo sort of problem you are talking about is a headache, I have a Hiwatt that was doing almost exactly what you are describing after fifteen or twenty minutes of play time.A couple of shops said they couldn't find anything wrong. At the third shop, the guy took it home over the weekend after having it seem totally fine at the shop. Sure enough, he got it to do the exact same thing after around fifteen or twenty minutes and got it to repeat after powering it down and starting the pattern all over.Turned out that it was a resistor arcing. They fixed it, and it has been fine every since.Thanks, numberthirty.But like I said, the nerds can't get it to fail, which makes it hard to find the problem.The biggest nerd sort of told me to have a funeral, which I can maybe accept, but not yet.

I don't know but if the techs are running a sine wave through the amp with a dummy load where are they putting a oscilloscope on it?The problem you are having when the amp heats up from guitar playing and is sitting on a vibrating cab. Not the same conditions as a sine through a head.Perhaps they could test the amp under the same conditions you are getting the problem as number thirty explained about the high watt.Perhaps you can record the amp at home under the non working conditions and play it for the tech, they will try it under rock conditions as it sounds like it happens fairly quickly after you plug in.I don't know where you are located but perhaps you need a different tech with more experience, one that will work a bit harder on the problem. I find that guys that were tech for touring bands more helpful.

I too have had problems with techs not turning up amps and wailing on them to diagnose problems. It seems to be a recurring theme in the tech room. There s another Garnet thread I started that was kind of similar, except the amp sounded ˜broken after playing it in anger for 15 - 20 minutes. Sent to Tony Balls to fix after exhausting my local options. Turned out to be a really weird problem with the tubes!Tyler is also right. Stuff that has historically gone for cheap like Traynors and Garnets weren t as likely to be as well kept as an amp that would go for two or three times the price on the used market.

sounds like a broken solder connection, coupling cap failing, or a resistor going openIn an intermittent problem like that after swapping tubes and doing what you can to try to isolate it to a section of the amp ... if you still can't figure it out I would start with just reflowing every solder joint.Garnet amps being as well made as they were, often never had cap jobs done because jocks in the 80s wanted Marshalls anyway. There's a lot of problematic amps around.