Build Quality

[atilla]

Okay, we all hear a lot of stories about someone's amp taking a dump on them and things going wrong. But who are some amp companies (preferably non-boutique) who are getting it right? Who is making stuff that's gig-worthy, reliable and easy to work on if something does go south?

My Laney AOR is kind of old, so it's kind of unfair to hold its frequent illnesses against it too much.

My THD Univalve has been trouble-free since switching to their newer design output transformer.

The guys at my favorite local tech shop insist that Peavey is really easy to work on.

That's all I've got. How 'bout you?

[jgcable]

I have never had any trouble with Mesa, Marshall or Line 6. Actually.. the only amps that I had trouble with in the last 30 years are:

Ampeg SS140C (it cooked up a few times)
an old Hiwatt 100w head (I probably had all kinds of impedance mismatches though!!)
Traynor 100w Head (when we had 2 guitars plugged into it live because we couldn't afford 2 live amps)

[guitarsjb]

Been giggin my Crate BV120 for 2+ years, and it's taken some abuse. Still going strong.

[Racerx2k]

What kinda probs you having with the AOR, Atilla?

[DumpyWumpy]

Both Line 6 Flextone HD heads I had gave me a LOT of problems, even after being serviced at the Line 6 service center... Sucks because they sounded awesome.

My 5150 has proven to be extremely reliable, thumbs up for Peavey.

[MikeStrat]

+1 on the Mesa gear. It's built like a tank.

[Shibs]

Peavey is easy to work on, so is Randall and Crate. I have done repairs on several different amps and the toughest has been Mesa the easiest has been Fender. I play through the Hughes and Kettner Triamp, I love it, but it's tougher to work on! I blew an internal fuse once and it took me about 45 minutes to get it running again. I also have a new EVH III, but I have not had to do anything to it yet! It seems to be very well built and looking at it closely, it doesn't look too tough, but some parts may be difficult to get.

[atilla]

What kinda probs you having with the AOR, Atilla?

Aw, god. The first one was that it was biased so hot that a resistor on the circuit board kept coming loose, and it caused me to fry some power tubes. I took it to a few different techs before I found one who got the thing to behave. I went through a lot of output tubes, and by that time I plunked down for a THD. The Laney is now a backup. I've considered having it modded to run on 6V6s...unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it would need new transformers to get the most out of that mod.

[thetroy]

Being easy to work on sometimes means that you have to work on it often =P Not necessarily an indicator of build quality

[Infernal Death]

Being easy to work on also doesn't mean good build quality. After all a multi-channel high gain pcb-based 100W amp will be harder to work on as say a 1 channel turret-board 5W amp, no matter what. But this doesn't mean the big amp is of lesser build quality than the small amp.

Mesa seems to be of very good quality. My Rectifier is 15 years old and i owned it now for over 8 years and besides tube changes never had to repair anything.
The Marshall experience hasn't been so good. The JVM amp of the guitar player of my band had problems from the beginning. Don't know if he got a bad amp or if they all are not quality builds. However i still think that the JVM is very cheap if you consider it has 4 channels and so many options so i guess they have to save money somewhere when producing those amps.

Flo

[Endrik]

Mesas are like tanks... so are Soldanos and Diezels... I've heard the same about Cornfords

[atilla]

Being easy to work on sometimes means that you have to work on it often =P Not necessarily an indicator of build quality

Okay, so view them as seperate questions.

[markD]

my rivera's have been reliable and gig worthy since 1990. i have used the same heads that whole time, and everytime there has ben a problem, like a bad tube or a part has faulted, the amp shut itself down without further injury. my amp guy doesn't mind working on it, he just says the parts are hard to get from rivera.

[Rupe]

Steering clear of "boutique" amps, I would have to say Mesa (and I've had issues with those as well). I was a Marshall dealer and I was amazed at how many of the JCM 2000 series (DSL and TSL) came back for repair...I would guess one in four. I don't know much about the newer stuff but I've heard that the JVM is poorly built as well (although sounds great).

From a build/component quality standpoint, Crates and Peaveys are garbage but I only ever had a handful come back for repair so they must be doing something right. My amp tech also said that he was shocked at the crappy workmanship and components used in Carvin amps, but I have no first hand experience with those.

[Racerx2k]

Aw, god. The first one was that it was biased so hot that a resistor on the circuit board kept coming loose, and it caused me to fry some power tubes. I took it to a few different techs before I found one who got the thing to behave. I went through a lot of output tubes, and by that time I plunked down for a THD. The Laney is now a backup. I've considered having it modded to run on 6V6s...unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it would need new transformers to get the most out of that mod.

Hmm, interesting, as most fellow AOR users I know over at the 2 Laney forums have expressed their Laneys being COLD biased, mine included. If it was biased that way, and cause those problems, you can hardly blame the amp, blame the person who biased it too hot. Not sure about the 6V6 mod, though. Is it a 6 or 8 knobber? Mine's 8.