Hi! Back after a long hiatus, here to ask some more dumb questions.
Anyways, I've been fixing up an Ampeg B25 for the last 6-8 months now. Don't laugh, an engineering degree has been taking most of my time. Anyways, I finally finished troubleshooting everything that could be wrong with it, and instead of producing a massive grounding hum and running 450V to chassis, it's finally started producing sound. I dropped a new set of 7027, GZ34, 12AX7, and 7199 tubes in it and fired it up.
It's been producing sound, but unfortunately, that sound is very compressed and distorted. It sounds like the amp is struggling to get 5 watts out, even at 3-5 on the volume dial. The sound will jump in volume, it sounds like a hard clipping compression and a harsh noise gate. It'll be normal volume but distorted when picking, and sharply drop off almost immediately afterwards. I have a couple theories.
First off, I haven't been using and testing it much. The only speaker at my shop is a 8 ohm speaker, and the minimum load is 16 ohms, so I've been just turning it on and briefly playing it to verify that it functions as it's supposed to. Maybe the impedance mismatch is causing the OT to struggle and not produce sound correctly.
Next, these filter caps were wired improperly the first time I ran it (I was out of practice and didn't pay enough attention), and one started sparking. I don't think any damage was caused, but could this compression be caused by a blown filter cap that isn't regulating power properly?
Anyways, I've been fixing up an Ampeg B25 for the last 6-8 months now. Don't laugh, an engineering degree has been taking most of my time. Anyways, I finally finished troubleshooting everything that could be wrong with it, and instead of producing a massive grounding hum and running 450V to chassis, it's finally started producing sound. I dropped a new set of 7027, GZ34, 12AX7, and 7199 tubes in it and fired it up.
It's been producing sound, but unfortunately, that sound is very compressed and distorted. It sounds like the amp is struggling to get 5 watts out, even at 3-5 on the volume dial. The sound will jump in volume, it sounds like a hard clipping compression and a harsh noise gate. It'll be normal volume but distorted when picking, and sharply drop off almost immediately afterwards. I have a couple theories.
First off, I haven't been using and testing it much. The only speaker at my shop is a 8 ohm speaker, and the minimum load is 16 ohms, so I've been just turning it on and briefly playing it to verify that it functions as it's supposed to. Maybe the impedance mismatch is causing the OT to struggle and not produce sound correctly.
Next, these filter caps were wired improperly the first time I ran it (I was out of practice and didn't pay enough attention), and one started sparking. I don't think any damage was caused, but could this compression be caused by a blown filter cap that isn't regulating power properly?
