My amp died this morning.

bobblehat

My Laney VC30 died this morning .

Starting cutting in and out ,making a muffled sound and then nothing. Power still on so not blown a fuse . Power valves still glowing ok.

I am suspecting a faulty preamp valve.

Any suggestion much as to the possible cause much appreciated..

ecc83

Still most likely a power valve (or 4!)

The schematic I found quickly shows an HT fuse, probably internal.

If it has blown check the cathode resistor, should be 68 Ohms or more IMHO.

ICBM will surely be a long with more sage advice.

Dave.

bobblehat

Thanks ,

Still has power so I assumed the fuse hasn't blown.

Not sure this helps but ,Just powered it up this morning at home.

No sound until I turn the volume up past 7 or 8 .I get a quick burst at full volume then it cuts out.Turn it down and back up again same thing.The Gain channel behaves exactly the same way.

GuyBoden

First test, swap preamp valve, I don't know that amp, but are all the preamp 12AX7 (ECC83).

***If you use a valve amp, you should always have spare valves.***

bobblehat

GuyBoden said:

First test, swap preamp valve, I don't know that amp, but are all the preamp 12AX7 (ECC83).

***If you use a valve amp, you should always have a spare preamp valve.***

Yes all ECC83.

This is the first valve amp I've had so never really given much thought to carrying spare valves.

meltedbuzzbox

bobblehat said:

Thanks ,

Still has power so I assumed the fuse hasn't blown.

Not sure this helps but ,Just powered it up this morning at home.

No sound until I turn the volume up past 7 or 8 .I get a quick burst at full volume then it cuts out.Turn it down and back up again same thing.The Gain channel behaves exactly the same way.

My fender twin had a very similar issue as you describe. In my case it was the pre amp valve. 

I am not saying this is the case with yours but it may not be as bad as first feared ;-)

bobblehat

meltedbuzzbox said:

bobblehat said:

Thanks ,

Still has power so I assumed the fuse hasn't blown.

Not sure this helps but ,Just powered it up this morning at home.

No sound until I turn the volume up past 7 or 8 .I get a quick burst at full volume then it cuts out.Turn it down and back up again same thing.The Gain channel behaves exactly the same way.

My fender twin had a very similar issue as you describe. In my case it was the pre amp valve. 

I am not saying this is the case with yours but it may not be as bad as first feared ;-)

Thats what I'm hoping.! 

I was hoping to put it up for sale this week so its a bit frustrating..

ICBM

I don't know, I'm on a ship and don't have my schematics .

The fault is quite odd, but if it's a valve it sounds like preamp and not power.

bobblehat

Problem now fixed.

Faulty preamp valve in V3 position.

Now has 3 new JJ ec83s  and sounds better than ever.

There is now a very slight hiss and a tiny amount of bleed through with the volume turned down but you do have to have your ear next to the speaker to hear it.Sounds great though so I can live with that.

Thanks for all help

Bob.

Voxman

My VC30-210's still running very nicely on its original TAD tubes (although I did swap V2 with a Russian Electroharmonix, for a nicer, more defined 'Marshally' type crunch tone that I prefer). 

But when it comes time for a retube, I will very likely go JJ's because I'm delighted with the results in my Laney Cub12R (the stock Ruby's were 'blah') where I went for the JJ's HRX handtested premium versions.  These cost a little more but are well worth it as they are guaranteed low microphonics, low noise, and have been bench tested - the power tubes were a balanced matched set.  The JJ's sound 'rich/rounded' with more sparkle and definition than the Ruby's ever had, plus a little more volume too.  It's now really nice to play 'straight' with no effects other than the onboard reverb - something I was never happy doing when it had the stock Ruby's.

I would thoroughly recommend spending a little more on the premium hand tested HRX JJ's - you should find that your tone is a little sweeter, and gives you a much quieter amp. 

  

TheMarlin

I had one, fantastic amp.

Something to bear in mind, it's worth swapping out the cheap jack sockets for the best quality ones you can find.  Also, the input jack is wired directly to the PCB, so they have a tendency to break over time.  When I replaced my input jacks, I had them connected by a loose, but well shielded cables - so they wouldn't break again. 

It's worth doing that job while you can, as one day, the sockets will give out.

Marlin

bobblehat

Voxman said:

My VC30-210's still running very nicely on its original TAD tubes (although I did swap V2 with a Russian Electroharmonix, for a nicer, more defined 'Marshally' type crunch tone that I prefer). 

But when it comes time for a retube, I will very likely go JJ's because I'm delighted with the results in my Laney Cub12R (the stock Ruby's were 'blah') where I went for the JJ's HRX handtested premium versions.  These cost a little more but are well worth it as they are guaranteed low microphonics, low noise, and have been bench tested - the power tubes were a balanced matched set.  The JJ's sound 'rich/rounded' with more sparkle and definition than the Ruby's ever had, plus a little more volume too.  It's now really nice to play 'straight' with no effects other than the onboard reverb - something I was never happy doing when it had the stock Ruby's.

I would thoroughly recommend spending a little more on the premium hand tested HRX JJ's - you should find that your tone is a little sweeter, and gives you a much quieter amp. 

  

still running on the original TAD power valves to.I had planned to replace these first but will stick with them for now. The gain channel is now much improved with JJ's .Hard to describe but a bit warmer with a little more sustain,a little bit sweeter if that makes sense.The clean channel is as clean and sparkly as ever .

Is the cub loud enough for small gigging? I am looking at getting a the cub head .

Voxman

TheMarlin said:

I had one, fantastic amp.

Something to bear in mind, it's worth swapping out the cheap jack sockets for the best quality ones you can find.  Also, the input jack is wired directly to the PCB, so they have a tendency to break over time.  When I replaced my input jacks, I had them connected by a loose, but well shielded cables - so they wouldn't break again. 

It's worth doing that job while you can, as one day, the sockets will give out.

Marlin

-----------------------------------------------------

Yup, I hear you Marlin - the Hi-input jack-socket went on mine but I had the extended 5yr warranty with them and Laney repaired it.  The Lo-input one is a little looser fit but is OK & as I tend to only use the high-input anyway, I'm less concerned.  But if anything goes when the amps out of warranty I'll ask my amp tech to do those mods.

And you're absolutely right, these are lovely amps and very under-rated with beautiful sparkly cleans and a nice distortion. The speaker switching options are so versatile too, and it has an excellent Accutronic spring reverb (not sure if the newer version come with digital reverb now).  

I found the 2x12 combo physically a little too heavy (bad back!), and tonally just a little bottom heavy and just a tad dark sounding - so I went for the 2x10 version that is smaller and lighter than the 2x12.  Mine came with a pair of excellent Jensen C10Q16 speakers (I think the new VC30's are all fitted with HH speakers now, in both 10" and 12" modes).  I team mine up with a matching Laney GS112VE 1x12" cab (Celestion Seventy Eighty speaker).  The 2x10" gives a gorgeous spankier/snappier more vintage tone that I really like, with the 1x12" cab adding some extra bottom-end, volume and projection. 

Voxman

bobblehat said:

still running on the original TAD power valves to.I had planned to replace these first but will stick with them for now. The gain channel is now much improved with JJ's .Hard to describe but a bit warmer with a little more sustain,a little bit sweeter if that makes sense.The clean channel is as clean and sparkly as ever .

Is the cub loud enough for small gigging? I am looking at getting the cub head .

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I know exactly what you mean re JJ's - I put a full set of HRX premium hand-tested in my Laney Cub 12R.  HUGE tonal quality difference compared to the stock Chinese Ruby tubes.

If by small gigging you mean smaller clubs, then most definitely - its what the amp was designed for.  It's a surprisingly loud amp!   I have the combo, but because it has an 8/16 Ohm extension cab out (which cuts out the onboard speaker when used) it means I can also run it to most 2x12 or 4x12 cabs.  I have a Vox AD212 cab (birch-ply cab, closed-back, 2x 12" Celestion 'Neodog' speakers - essentially Celestion Century Vintage but rated at 80w each instead of 60w) and through this (16 Ohm, mono), it sounded like a much bigger amp than it is!  I also ran it through a Marshall 4x12 cab at a rehearsal (16w mono) and it was unbelievable - huge sound!  I think I had the volume at only half and that was with a loud drummer!  And of course speaker sensitivity can make a big differene in volume - I swapped a 97dB Rocket 50 for a 100dB Vintage 30 and the amp volume went up noticeably!

The only thing to be mindful of with all single channel amps, is clean head-room - but I had no problems with this. A tip for giving you more headroom here is to run an external EQ or clean boost pedal (in the FX loop might be even better) with the amp.  

I just put up a link to a couple of demos I did with my Laney Cub12R in another thread here, where I gave the settings - might help give you an idea of volume level potentials with even a 1x12" combo (albeit with upgraded Vintage 30 speaker but with stock Ruby tubes):

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/22534/laney-cub-12r-or-hayden-lil-mofo-cab-or#latest