Blackstar HT-20 shuts down for no reason

ucmband

I have a brand new Blackstar HT-20.  I love the sound.  It gets plenty loud to gig with, for the country & light rock sounds I do.  However, at two gigs now, it has shut down for no reason at all.  I unplug it, wait a few seconds, plug it back in, and am good for a while.

Last night I was practicing with it.  I had a Strat plugged straight into the clean channel with volume at 1/4 on the channel, and maybe 1/3 on the master.  It started cutting off again.  The sound goes, and the power light goes out.  Unplug, wait a few seconds, plug back in and it works again.  However, last night it did this four or five times in a row before I quit using the amp.  It has done this since two weeks after receiving the amp. 

Any ideas what is causing this?  I have authorization to return for repair, but I hate to have to box it up, pay to return it, etc. when it is not my fault.  It's brand new! 

Anyway, comments will be appreciated.

ecc83

It should cost you nothing to get the amplifier repaired. The responsibility is that of the retailer. 

Since the power light (red LED) is going out I can only assume a regulated supply is failing. Can you see if the valves stay alight? 

Dave.

ucmband

I will try it and see.  The retailer says to send it back and they will repair.  UPS is $71 to ship back... for a problem that started right after I bought it.  I'm not too happy with this scenario.

ICBM

@ecc83 will have a better idea than me, but I suspect the answer is to send it back - hassle or not, you shouldn't be having to fix something that's under warranty yourself really.

Before you do though, have you tried different power cables with it? The fault is definitely in the 'power supply' rather than the 'audio' part of the circuit if the light goes out.

If *unplugging* it (rather than just turning the power switch off and back on again) fixes it temporarily, it could be as simple as a loose or faulty fuse in the mains plug.

ecc83

Give Blackstar service a bell on 01604 817815. I think Lee is still the guy in charge of service. 

I may be wrong but I believe the terms of business are that the DEALER ships stuff TO Blackstar and stand the cost and Blackstar pay the return shipping. 

Naturally some firms might wriggle!

Dave.

ucmband

Luckily, I bought it from a good seller.  They're going to pick up the return shipping.  I just got a call telling me that they would do that for me.

ucmband

Yep.  I tried three different power cables.  Just happened to have two brand new ones to try.  Same issue.  I also tried wiggling the power cable, but that didn't make the light blink or anything, so it's not that input connection.  I tried kind of moving the amp back and forth in case it was something loose inside, but that didn't cause any blinking of the power light or any outage.  A few minutes later, the amp shut down again.

One time, and one time only... the amp made a sound we've all heard.  It sounded like an amp with spring reverb that fell over.  A loud pop and reverb sound, then dead.  Of course, the reverb is not a spring reverb... so I'm not sure what caused the sound that time.

ucmband

For the record... I love the amp.  It sounds fantastic!  I think I just lucked up and got a lemon.  I haven't found anything on Google where anyone else had this issue.