Ampeg VL-502

[slayer]

Dude! You didn't check the speaker cable? Seriously?

I'm glad your amp is okay bro!

I suck donkey balls sometimes

[holycross1]

Congratulations.
I love Lee Jackson designs, I have owned a couple. My main amp is a Lee Jackson XLS1000 100 watt head.
That VL was a good amp. Especially with 6550 or 6CA7 power tubes.
I have loved my amp for years. I am sure you will guard yours well. Just something musical about his circuitry.

[slayer]

yes, it has all the original tubes. 6550`s and they are called Hot Rod tubes. Old tubes and still breathing fire. The tubes were made in the USA to. As for the musical. It`s funny how powerfull this amp is for a 50 watter and still sound so beautifull while burning the hair on your arms!! I am normally an EL34 british crunch/thrashing kind of guy, but these 6550`s sound better than any 6L6 amp I have ever played thru.

[Chief_CrazyTalk]

I'm glad you got it working. Those are very good sounding amps that you hardly see anymore. And yea you'd be hard pressed to hear the difference in perceived volume between most 50W and 100W tube amps.

[slayer]

OK guys. Sounded great at first, but now I am getting volume drops, rises and swells. Sometimes it is balls to the walls and then all of a sudden the volume goes down, then up then down. Do you guys think it is tubes or can it be a tranny? The tubes are original and they must be well used as you can barely read the writing on them so they were hot a lot. Thanks.

[Chief_CrazyTalk]

I had that problem with my JCM800...hell it's over 30 years old. It turned out to be a preamp tube socket. Use something to protect your fingers, and try wiggling the preamp tubes one by one to see if you can induce the problem. It could be a bad socket or bad solder connection. It could be a bad solder connection anywhere, for that matter.

I hope you get it fixed bro. Nice amp.

[holycross1]

Als check to see if the molex connector is not melting. They had an issue with a part that Ampeg slipped in for cutting manufacturing cost. Lee Jackson has a fix that he demonstrates on a maintenance DVD he made for these amps. Worth checking out. And worth paying a tech to do, if you have never worked on one before. Those caps store enough punch to kill you and bring you back and kill you again. Without being plugged in.
The original tubes tell me it could easily be them to, like Chief said.
If the tranny is damaged from the molex crashing, Murcury has a drop in replacement. Just call them if its confirmed to be going out.
Still a great amp. Even 20+ years later.

[slayer]

Thanks for all of the advice fellas!! I will be taking it to a tech very soon. I know it isn`t the power tubes, I tried others in there. I will try switching out the pre-amp tubes with newer ones as well. Hopefully that does the trick. If not, off to the tech!! Thanks.