Build Quality

[atilla]

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.

Perhaps. Then again, a smarter board layout would probably keep some heat off the resistors. I also had a problem with the input jacks and speaker jacks. The shoddy plastic ones got pushed in, so I had them replaced with metal.

I've got the Octa-knob!

Have you figured out what output tubes yours likes? Mine really loves the Winged C. Not so good on Electro-Harmonix or JJs.

[GodOfRhythm]

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

They are tanks, but I've heard Diezels are notoriously hard to work on.

[TheAmazingBlob]

Never had a problem with my 5150. No worries about my Mesa, either.

[thetroy]

I have a cheapo ValveKing 1x12 and it feels rock solid all around to me.

[UFORocks]

... 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)...

I really liked my DSL, but it cost me almost as much as the amp was worth in repairs in the two years that I had it. Total crap.

-Steve

[jgcable]

I really liked my DSL, but it cost me almost as much as the amp was worth in repairs in the two years that I had it. Total crap.

-Steve

I owned a TSL60 for a while with no problems and my DSL100 has been trouble free.

[Racerx2k]

Perhaps. Then again, a smarter board layout would probably keep some heat off the resistors. I also had a problem with the input jacks and speaker jacks. The shoddy plastic ones got pushed in, so I had them replaced with metal.

I've got the Octa-knob!

Have you figured out what output tubes yours likes? Mine really loves the Winged C. Not so good on Electro-Harmonix or JJs.

Huh...I was told to avoid the Winged Cs for this amp. I'm actually running JJ E34Ls, and it sounds pretty good. Preamp-wise, I have a JJ in V1, an EH in V2, a 3rd gen chinese in V3, and a JAN 5751 in V4. I know what you mean about the plastic jacks, though. So far (knock on wood!) I've never had issues with them. I had a 100 watter, back in the late 80s, so I pretty much knew what I was getting into when I bought this 50 watter. Both of them were made in 87'. Only thing I'm having issue with is keeping the brightness dialed down. May just throw an eq pedal in the loop.

[atilla]

Huh...I was told to avoid the Winged Cs for this amp. I'm actually running JJ E34Ls, and it sounds pretty good.

Like so many things, everybody's got their own set of ears. And a 50 watter has different transformers from the 100, so there are obviously some differences.

My rule on what tubes are good in a certain amp? Try it and decide.

[Robert Burns]

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.

******* Your lucky with the EVH III , Both my brother in law, and
myself have had tubes fail. Not a huge thing...but come on! In the first
3 months...both heads failing? Now the VHT... a tank! (so far) only 5
months with it.

[UFORocks]

I owned a TSL60 for a while with no problems and my DSL100 has been trouble free.

See, and so many people told me that they were rock solid. Maybe I had an earlier model. Things kept coming un-soldered inside because the amp ran so hot, my tech told me it was a common problem.

[Racerx2k]

Like so many things, everybody's got their own set of ears. And a 50 watter has different transformers from the 100, so there are obviously some differences.

My rule on what tubes are good in a certain amp? Try it and decide.

Good point. I agree on the tube selection advice. Only problem is, that can get kinda expensive, unless you luck out, early on.

[jaydog]

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

hey infernal death, my peavey triple xxx is (BUILT LIKE A TANK) dude.:ROTF: :ROTF:

[jtr]

I've had no problems with Fender,Marshall or Fuchs amps. I've played my 76 50 watt JMP since I bought it new I'ld say 2000 + jobs( my 69 Super 100 Tremolo was just to loud for clubs) and never had a problem. I don't really know about the newer amps other than the Fuchs which also have been great.