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Post subject: 2004ish Fender HR Deville 410 Crackly/muddy intermittent
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 11:46 am
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Hi guys,

I've had a 2004 deville 410 since new, it's been mostly rock solid up until the last year or so. Lately, this is what' it's been doing:

Mainly, when I strum hard, particularly playing bassy/low notes/strings, I will often (especially on the clean channel) get a sudden burst of crackly/noisy unwanted distortion. the clean gets super muddy when this happens, and the sound is just generally unpleasant and unpredictable. The problem seems to get worse the longer the amp is on, and the louder i'm playing it. It's definitely worse with my P-90 casino than with my strat with a tom anderson in the bridge, again i assume because it's a bassier sounding instrument.

I've seen a lot of posts here (and elsewhere) mentioning the 5 watt cement resistors - but i'm unclear as to if this would cause this particular problem, or more likely a switching problem, which i definitely don't have. I haven't ruled out tubes, but i'm 90% sure they're ok. my only other thought is cracked solder joints around the tube sockets. besides these things, anything else obvious i should be looking for?

thanks
-tj


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Post subject: Re: 2004ish Fender HR Deville 410 Crackly/muddy intermittent
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 7:40 pm
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Hi apierion,

Sounds like preamp tube/tubes are bad, try a new one in each spot starting with V1. It could also be poor solder joints on the tube socket connections on the circuit board, but I suspect the tubes first. You're correct about the 5 watt resistors and channel switching, doesn't sound like your problem. The 5 watt resistors are in the +/- 16 volts supply for channel switching and reverb, that's all. A lot of people are just parroting about the 5 watt resistors and they have no clue, so they want to blame them for every problem. :idea:

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Post subject: Re: 2004ish Fender HR Deville 410 Crackly/muddy intermittent
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2011 7:44 pm
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aready switched out the preamp tubes, doesn't seem to be the problem, but for good measure i bought an entirely new set just to double check. at any rate it doesn't hurt to have tested spares.

So yeah, i guess i'll touch up all the solder joints on the sockets and see where that gets me.


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Post subject: Re: 2004ish Fender HR Deville 410 Crackly/muddy intermittent
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2011 2:37 pm
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+1 on the bad solder joints. Especially on the power tubes.

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Post subject: Re: 2004ish Fender HR Deville 410 Crackly/muddy intermittent
Posted: Tue Mar 29, 2011 8:48 pm
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...replaced all the tubes with new ones, still problematic. took a peek inside, none of the solder points look unusually bad, anyone have any compelling argument as to why the problem could be the tube solder joints as opposed to some random point anywhere else in any of the 350000 other solder points in this amp? just curious...


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Post subject: Re: 2004ish Fender HR Deville 410 Crackly/muddy intermittent
Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2011 6:11 am
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The same reason that if you car stalls, you check the engine first, cause that's likely where the problem is. You wouldn't check the windshield wipers, or randomly check things with no rhyme or reason that have nothing to do with the problem (at least I wouldn't).

One thing that you can do to try to narrow down the area where the problem is, plug your guitar into the "Power Amp In" instead of the input jack, and play for awhile and see if the noise is still there. This will bypass the preamp section of the amp, so the volumes and tone controls will not work, but reverb and presence will still work (turn both down for testing). If the noise is still present, you can eliminate the whole preamp section as the possible cause. If the noise is NOT present plugged into Power Amp In but is present when plugged into the input jack, then the problem is likely in the preamp section. The preamp section is from the input jacks to the reverb, including V1 and V2 and their associated circuits.

Noises as you've described, are usually associated with the preamp tubes, or sockets, or solder joints around the tube sockets. And you will rarely find anything with a "peek", you should examine the joints with a magnifier, or better yet just retouch every joint around all of the tube sockets, being careful not to burn the ribbon cables or other wires in the area. If it isn't tubes or solder joints, the next thing to try might be to re-tension the tube sockets (link below).

If the tube sockets and solder joints on them, and tubes are eliminated as the cause of the noise, then you can move on to pulling the main circuit board and checking for bad solder joints there also. To pull the main board, you must remove the knobs, pot nuts and jack nuts, remove some of the wiring, to be able to pull the board down and tilt the top back to access the back of the board where the solder joints are. Not a job for the inexperienced. :idea:

http://billmaudio.com/wp/?page_id=171

P.S.
Just in case you aren't aware, the amp should be unplugged from electricity, and the caps discharged before working inside the amp. :)

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.


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