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Post subject: HELP!! DeVille II 410 - Reverb not working - Muddy tone
Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 7:32 pm
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Ok so firstly, sorry if this has been asked before but i need help desperately.

I'm a gigging musician and I need my amp in working order by Saturday.

A few days back I noticed my reverb wasn't working anymore, I figured i'd get it looked at but as I had a gig coming up (saturday past) I could make do for the time being, I have a Boss reverb pedal anyway. The rest of the amp features seemed fine until gig time, typically!!

But when it came to the gig, got everything set up, had it warming up nicely, went to play through it for a sound check and it was so muddy and flat I nearly cried. It was almost distorting under heavy strumming and sounded like I had the strat tone knob rolled back. Checked all connections and nothing helped.

Gone was that beautiful bluesy tone I rely on so heavily. Limped through the gig desperately hoping it would come back to life but if anything it got worse.

Checked all tubes for breakages but all are intact. As it's my first tube amp i'm a bit lost, I read that perhaps one of my pre-amp tubes could be gone. But would this cause the reverb issue??

If so what would you suggest as an upgrade? I was looking at the EH Sovtek 12AX7s?

Thanks for reading!

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Post subject: Re: HELP!! DeVille II 410 - Reverb not working - Muddy tone
Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 7:44 pm
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Try pulling one 12AX7 and changing its position with another 12AX7. See if this changes the distorted tone. Do this tube-by-tube to isolate a potentially bad tube.

Keep track of which tube went where and resultant tonal changes.


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Post subject: Re: HELP!! DeVille II 410 - Reverb not working - Muddy tone
Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 8:39 pm
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Reverb drive/recovery in the Deville 4x10 (Hot Rod or Blues?) is solid state, not tube. Swapping tubes as BMW suggests may help the overall distortion problem, but the reverb is another story. I would shut the reverb down and use your pedal until you can get the amp to a qualified tech for repair.

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Post subject: Re: HELP!! DeVille II 410 - Reverb not working - Muddy tone
Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2012 8:59 pm
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Thanks for the suggestions guys, just seems odd that both issues occured within days of each other. It's a hotrod deville (although it just says Fender - DeVille)

Biggest issue I face is in rural Ireland where I live, getting a qualified technician is rather difficult.

The amp is only a year and a half old and covered with a 3 year warranty from Thomann Cyberstore however returning it to Germany for repair will take weeks and i'm just coming into gigging season again. :(

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Post subject: Re: HELP!! DeVille II 410 - Reverb not working - Muddy tone
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 7:08 am
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Ok so gonna buy 4 new preamp tubes and 2 new power tubes. Any suggestions?!

I'm thinking about sovtek. Is there any difference between 6L6 and 6L6WXT?

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Post subject: Re: HELP!! DeVille II 410 - Reverb not working - Muddy tone
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:12 am
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Schritzer wrote:
Ok so gonna buy 4 new preamp tubes and 2 new power tubes. Any suggestions?!

I'm thinking about sovtek. Is there any difference between 6L6 and 6L6WXT?


I recommend the "Fender HRD full retube kit".

https://ssl.eurotubes.com/cart/index.ph ... gory_id=32

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Post subject: Re: HELP!! DeVille II 410 - Reverb not working - Muddy tone
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2012 9:54 am
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The reverb is driven and recovered by an op amp as bluesky636 pointed out, and the problem is more than likely one of five things.

1) a broken or loose connection of the cables going to the tank, either end, but particularly the RCA connectors on the tank.

2) the tank itself. The tank is loose inside the pouch and can move around during handling, and with enough rough handling the reverb tank insides can even come apart. One amp that I recently worked on had the wires inside the tank actually cut in two, and the springs were broken and pulled from the transducers, all from the force of a tumble, with nothing visibly wrong on the outside of the tank or amp. You can disconnect the RCA plugs from the tank to verify if the tank is causing the problem, noting the color locations to be sure to reconnect to the correct jack.

3) a bad connection, such as poor solder joint or broken circuit trace, in the power supply for the op amps and relays. Although the Devilles don't have the heat related issue with this supply like the Deluxe has, they do suffer from broken connections sometimes. Vibration, and even simply pushing on the power supply resistors when handling the circuit board can lead to broken connections.

4) a faulty op amp, either the reverb op amp or one of the op amps for the relay switching circuits.

5) a sticking relay. Occasionally, one of the small relays will get "stuck" and not switch properly, only switching part of the circuit.

The reason that I mention this is to possibly help the person who will inspect the amp, and to point out that the main circuit board has to be removed for some of the possibilities, while some are easier to correct, or at least easier to check.

I doubt that new tubes will correct the reverb problem, and it's possible that whatever is affecting the reverb is also the cause of the poor sound. Considering that the reverb quit working first, while amp still sounds good, and then you have poor sound, I suspect a problem with the power supply, 3) above.

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