Marshall bass amp gone south too

Travisthedog

During "one of those" gigs last night our bass players Marshall head packed up too.

We think it's because our singer lobbed his rucksack down behind it and inadvertently knocked the cable out of the cab so the head was running unloaded for about an hour as we set up.

If you turn it up fully you get a little bit of output but it's very faint. He thought it was supposed to have a fuse to protect the head in this sort of situation though

@icbm and @ecc83 have either guys got any idea as to what may have happened before we head off to our tech with it as well as my supersonic!!!

martinw

Travisthedog said:

...... inadvertently knocked the cable out of the cab so the head was running unloaded for about an hour as we set up.

If you turn it up fully you get a little bit of output but it's very faint.

Oh dear. It could be other things, but that does immediately make me think "output transformer".

ecc83

martinw said:

Travisthedog said:

...... inadvertently knocked the cable out of the cab so the head was running unloaded for about an hour as we set up.

If you turn it up fully you get a little bit of output but it's very faint.

Oh dear. It could be other things, but that does immediately make me think "output transformer".

Sadly must agree.

Straw clutch. The rucksack MIGHT have bashed the jack plug and caused a short. Test it with a meter or try another one. A guitar lead will do for a short, minimum beans, test. Not a lot of hope since running an amp into a shorted load should blow an HT fuse.

And BTW, you can't protect an amp from "no load" with a fuse...Sorry!

Dave.

Travisthedog

Cheers Dave

The bag actually broke the jack on the cable that goes into the cab, snapped the pin off the base of the jack

Any ideas on cost for an OPT?

ICBM

An output transformer for a valve bass amp (400W? Not sure they make any others) is going to be expensive.

Don't panic yet though, if the plug was bashed hard enough to shear off the pin, it could easily have damaged the socket.

In any case, 'running' with no load if the amp is not producing a signal will not damage the OT - unless the amp is actually unstable with no load. Even if it is it's more likely to have blown a fuse... although with a modern Marshall I wouldn't like to bet on it.

Drew_TNBD

Your singer is a douche.

fretmeister

The VBA head?

That's a mighty amp. If I had arms like popeye I'd have one.

I feel your mate's pain.

Travisthedog

Yeah it's a 400w vba and yeah it's farkin' heavy!!