Buying an amp from Ebay?

Bellycaster

How deep do you dive if you go round to someone's house to try the amp? Plug in and play, test all pots and Jack's? FX Loop? Take off back and remove valves to examine valve sockets? Feels awkward to go so deep, or should it?

Thanks.

thermionic

I recently tried to buy a Marshall combo off facebook marketplace. I had cash waiting and tried to arrange a convenient time to pop over (it was about ten minutes away). I would have been happy with five minutes to eyeball the general condition and plug in a guitar to check that all the knobs and switches worked. It fell through because the seller didn’t want to give me her address!

GavRichList

To some extent, whatever you do is a lottery; I've never once in all my years bought a secondhand valve amp that didn't end up on a techs bench within the first month of my ownership, regardless of the integrity of the seller or whether I tested it or not at the time. There are so many components that can and invariably do fail that it comes with the territory. Thankfully, they're all fixable too. Treat it like buying a secondhand car and prepare yourself for maintenance costs. 

Bellycaster

GavRichList said:

To some extent, whatever you do is a lottery; I've never once in all my years bought a secondhand valve amp that didn't end up on a techs bench within the first month of my ownership, regardless of the integrity of the seller or whether I tested it or not at the time. There are so many components that can and invariably do fail that it comes with the territory. Thankfully, they're all fixable too. Treat it like buying a secondhand car and prepare yourself for maintenance costs. 

Yeah, I understand. The guy is offering returns and appears to have good reviews that I've read. I'm still a bit shaky on it though.

RiftAmps

It is the same as buying a used car privately, give it as much of a check over as you feel comfortable with BUT expect to pay 10% of the purchase price on repairs/servicing afterwards.

snowblind

It is like buying anything online. Unless you get to take a proper look at it first it's a lottery as to what you will actually get.
SiL bought some Ugg slippers off that big place named after a river. Turned out to be fakes. Reviews are frequently worth the loo paper they are sharted out on as anything negative tends to get suppressed. Trustpilot gives you all the assurance of flying Boeing.

The demise of all the little local music stores where you could go to get hands on is a sad thing.

Bellycaster

snowblind said:

It is like buying anything online. Unless you get to take a proper look at it first it's a lottery as to what you will actually get.
SiL bought some Ugg slippers off that big place named after a river. Turned out to be fakes. Reviews are frequently worth the loo paper they are sharted out on as anything negative tends to get suppressed. Trustpilot gives you all the assurance of flying Boeing.

The demise of all the little local music stores where you could go to get hands on is a sad thing.

I ended up trying and buying a used DSL20CR from Richtone. Luck had it that they had recently got one in. I was going to go try the one on Ebay at his house, but didn't need to in the end. Felt a bit sorry for the ebay seller, but I did the most convenient thing for me.

The amp I have seems great, although Richtone will be hearing from me tomorrow as the ad for the amp stated it came with a footswitch, which I didn't properly notice until after I'd got it home. The Salesman in the shop stated to me in passing that there is no footswitch with it.

I spotted the amp for sale at work and went straight there after work in a rush to get there before it closed, so I missed the fier detail of the ad.

TeleMaster

If someone came round and wanted to remove the valves they aren't. 

Bellycaster

TeleMaster said:

If someone came round and wanted to remove the valves they aren't. 

I'm not following you here?

ditchboy

Bellycaster said:

TeleMaster said:

If someone came round and wanted to remove the valves they aren't. 

I'm not following you here?

He’s suggesting he wouldn’t allow a potential buyer of an amp he was selling to come and remove the valves. 

CHRISB50

Bellycaster said:

TeleMaster said:

If someone came round and wanted to remove the valves they aren't. 

I'm not following you here?

You asked earlier in the thread what was ok, and what wasn’t ok, when buying second hand. 

You mentioned removing valves and checking the sockets. 

I assume that’s what he is referring to. 

Bellycaster

CHRISB50 said:

Bellycaster said:

TeleMaster said:

If someone came round and wanted to remove the valves they aren't. 

I'm not following you here?

You asked earlier in the thread what was ok, and what wasn’t ok, when buying second hand. 

You mentioned removing valves and checking the sockets. 

I assume that’s what he is referring to. 

Ah, yes. You'll have to forgive me. It's been a busy weekend, I'm losing track.

As you were @TeleMaster

Danny1969

I brought amp off Ebay once that was supposed to be faulty but actually wasn't. I wanted it to repair an AVT Marshall I had in . I needed quite a few parts so it was worth buying the whole amp at £35 for spares. 

When it turned up I tried it and it worked fine. I left it running for hours till it was hot then prodded it about to check for bad joints and all was good. All pots were good as were sockets. So in the end I just slid out the chassis and slotted it into the customers cab and that was job done. The job never came back and I've often wondered if the seller had a bad lead or didn't know what it was even. 

In general that's a limited amount a quick low volume play through of an amp will tell you. Some faults don't manifest until things get hotter.  Large resistors used to create low voltage rails for example can be fine for 20 minutes, then problems with their joints on the PCB can cause havoc. This type of thing is easily fixable but can be a pain labour wise on some amps. 

Other things are worse. I've seen a couple of amps where the output transformer starts failing once the amps been on and working for 30 mins or so ... like the insulation on the windings is arcing or something. I've also seen the internal connection on filter caps go faulty after 20 minutes or so. The actual connection internally fails and the vibration of the amp makes it go OC and back causing all kinds of noise. 

Whatever you do pick your battles. If it's something very expensive and not common then it's more of a risk so needs a more careful examination and play through before you buy it. 

TeleMaster

Bellycaster said:

CHRISB50 said:

Bellycaster said:

TeleMaster said:

If someone came round and wanted to remove the valves they aren't. 

I'm not following you here?

You asked earlier in the thread what was ok, and what wasn’t ok, when buying second hand. 

You mentioned removing valves and checking the sockets. 

I assume that’s what he is referring to. 

Ah, yes. You'll have to forgive me. It's been a busy weekend, I'm losing track.

As you were @TeleMaster

It's okay.

It's just too much hassle and I don't know what I'm doing with it to know that what you're doing is right. I once had someone ask me to remove the neck so he could look at the heel on a bog standard Mexican Strat and got annoyed when I said no. It's just not reasonable to expect a private seller to let someone who may not buy the thing dismantle your property.

Bellycaster

TeleMaster said:

Bellycaster said:

CHRISB50 said:

Bellycaster said:

TeleMaster said:

If someone came round and wanted to remove the valves they aren't. 

I'm not following you here?

You asked earlier in the thread what was ok, and what wasn’t ok, when buying second hand. 

You mentioned removing valves and checking the sockets. 

I assume that’s what he is referring to. 

Ah, yes. You'll have to forgive me. It's been a busy weekend, I'm losing track.

As you were @TeleMaster

It's okay.

It's just too much hassle and I don't know what I'm doing with it to know that what you're doing is right. I once had someone ask me to remove the neck so he could look at the heel on a bog standard Mexican Strat and got annoyed when I said no. It's just not reasonable to expect a private seller to let someone who may not buy the thing dismantle your property.

I'd say the same, but just wondered if some are that thorough.

Bellycaster

Danny1969 said:

I brought amp off Ebay once that was supposed to be faulty but actually wasn't. I wanted it to repair an AVT Marshall I had in . I needed quite a few parts so it was worth buying the whole amp at £35 for spares. 

When it turned up I tried it and it worked fine. I left it running for hours till it was hot then prodded it about to check for bad joints and all was good. All pots were good as were sockets. So in the end I just slid out the chassis and slotted it into the customers cab and that was job done. The job never came back and I've often wondered if the seller had a bad lead or didn't know what it was even. 

In general that's a limited amount a quick low volume play through of an amp will tell you. Some faults don't manifest until things get hotter.  Large resistors used to create low voltage rails for example can be fine for 20 minutes, then problems with their joints on the PCB can cause havoc. This type of thing is easily fixable but can be a pain labour wise on some amps. 

Other things are worse. I've seen a couple of amps where the output transformer starts failing once the amps been on and working for 30 mins or so ... like the insulation on the windings is arcing or something. I've also seen the internal connection on filter caps go faulty after 20 minutes or so. The actual connection internally fails and the vibration of the amp makes it go OC and back causing all kinds of noise. 

Whatever you do pick your battles. If it's something very expensive and not common then it's more of a risk so needs a more careful examination and play through before you buy it. 

Thanks, Danny. I had a good 2 hours on it yesterday, so I'm hoping things are good.

TeleMaster

Bellycaster said:

TeleMaster said:

Bellycaster said:

CHRISB50 said:

Bellycaster said:

TeleMaster said:

If someone came round and wanted to remove the valves they aren't. 

I'm not following you here?

You asked earlier in the thread what was ok, and what wasn’t ok, when buying second hand. 

You mentioned removing valves and checking the sockets. 

I assume that’s what he is referring to. 

Ah, yes. You'll have to forgive me. It's been a busy weekend, I'm losing track.

As you were @TeleMaster

It's okay.

It's just too much hassle and I don't know what I'm doing with it to know that what you're doing is right. I once had someone ask me to remove the neck so he could look at the heel on a bog standard Mexican Strat and got annoyed when I said no. It's just not reasonable to expect a private seller to let someone who may not buy the thing dismantle your property.

I'd say the same, but just wondered if some are that thorough.

They do try, and I say no.

I sell pretty regularly on eBay and I have all kinds of requests that seem unreasonable to me so I just say no. 

I was selling a Switch game the other day and someone wanted me to take a picture of the tiny serial number on the cartridge. I sell a lot of games and I've never heard this before, and I'd taken about 5 pictures already, all on the listing and I had packaged it up ready to go, so I said sorry no, it's packaged already. The guy went mad, telling me I should be ashamed of myself, calling myself a seller blah blah. Like, what? Lol. 

Th4fonz

Taking the valves out is a bit deep lol

Have a play and turn all the knobs and switches and sorted.  No funky noises all is good.

snowblind

TeleMaster said:

I was selling a Switch game the other day and someone wanted me to take a picture of the tiny serial number on the cartridge. I sell a lot of games and I've never heard this before, and I'd taken about 5 pictures already, all on the listing and I had packaged it up ready to go, so I said sorry no, it's packaged already. The guy went mad, telling me I should be ashamed of myself, calling myself a seller blah blah. Like, what? Lol. 

Indications of a scammer at work. Probably didn't really want the game but did want a serial number. These people tend to get really irate when their potential marks won't play ball. It's like, how dare you have the effrontery not to be a complete sucker?

Dave_Mc

snowblind said:

TeleMaster said:

I was selling a Switch game the other day and someone wanted me to take a picture of the tiny serial number on the cartridge. I sell a lot of games and I've never heard this before, and I'd taken about 5 pictures already, all on the listing and I had packaged it up ready to go, so I said sorry no, it's packaged already. The guy went mad, telling me I should be ashamed of myself, calling myself a seller blah blah. Like, what? Lol. 

Indications of a scammer at work. Probably didn't really want the game but did want a serial number. These people tend to get really irate when their potential marks won't play ball. It's like, how dare you have the effrontery not to be a complete sucker?

It really is bizarre, isn't it? No-one can do "indignant" like someone who's been trying to do something illegal!

midlifecrisis

I've sold stuff on gumtree and Facebook rather than eBay so  that the buyer can come and try it out before buying it. I insist on it as i want to be happy that its at least working when they try it out. It always surprises me when someone turns up to buy a guitar or amp and aren't interested in testing it.