Why Does My Fender Blues Deluxe Sounds Bad
Blues deluxe cracking badly...tubes? speaker?
- Thread starter John_O'Brien
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- #1
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Pete
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- #6
I fix amps for a "living" <G>, and I could do it fairly easily, but it wouldn't be what I'd call fun. They are kind of tedious to work on and you have to be especially careful working with the pc-board traces in them and the need to re-engineer some component locations and handle the traces with kid gloves and work around damaged traces and badly support components (large resistors) can get old.
If you're not familiar with working on amps and specifically pc-board based amps, maybe it would be best if you took it to a tech and asked him if you could watch. Some will let you and some won't, worth asking.
- #7
Finally, I decided to contact Fender warranty directly. Their Arizona group is great. They were able to correct the buzz and now the amp is rock-solid. Though they didn't actually say what was wrong with it, they did give me this detailed response as to what was corrected:
[quoting the Fender warranty email guy]:
Our in-house amp tech took the Blues Deluxe to his shop. He was not able to recreate the “kazoo” issue, but, he did a sweep through all components with a fine toothed comb. He did find a few dysfunctional components throughout the board that he replaced. He reset everything he saw that was not correct and replaced all components that appeared to be non-functional or damaged. He then did a thorough test on the amp and ran it through a few tests and was not able to replicate any issues. I’m sitting with the amp today to see if I can get any strange sounds out of it myself, but so far I haven’t heard anything out of the norm. I’ll be repackaging and sending this afternoon to get it back to you, 100% repaired! I’ll let you know if I can replicate any issues as well.
[end of quote]
What did I give them to describe the problem, you ask? Well, here is a cut/paste of my letter which accompanied my amp shipment. I decided that they'd likely seen enough stale, boring warranty claim letters, so I decided to make mine stand out a bit and offer some slight joy in an otherwise normal day (to Jeff Bielke of the Fender Warranty shop):
Hi, Jeff. I finally have my amp back from the warranty shop (Sooner Acoustic Music, Midwest City, OK). I’ve included this email in print form in the box so you can have it at hand while troubleshooting the amp. My BDRI is on her way back to you today, as you suggested. Following is the sordid tale of my Blues Deluxe Reissue amp we affectionately call “Cassie”. As discussed (and as has been attempted to be corrected by two Fender shops here (Dancing Dragon Music, OKC, and Sooner Acoustic Music, MWC, OK)), Cassie has become a real bitch. She was born and raised into a loving family of fellow Fender amps in August of 2010 (see enclosed purchase receipt). Her sisters include a damn-fine ’58 tweed Vibrolux, a June of ’66 Vibrolux Reverb, a late ’66 Bassman head, a Champ 600 (kick-ass little amp, by the way) and a Two Rock Studio Pro 35. All of her sisters love her very much, but she doesn’t return any such love in any form. She just gets nasty when turned on and she stays that way throughout the night. I’ve tried punishing her by sending her off to boarding school (Fender shop in OKC, Dancing Dragon) and behavior-modification camp this summer (Fender shop Sooner Acoustic Music, Midwest City, OK), but no luck. She still came back home bitching and moaning all the way home. I think she may have even spit at me, but I didn’t bother checking because I would have done something regretful, if true. Anyway, her bitching is in the form of a strange electronic buzz in the lower notes/strings. We’ve literally tried to figure this out since May of this year—very strange. It sounds like a kazoo is trapped somewhere in the amp cabinet itself—no kidding. It’s almost like there is a loose screw or some tin foil pinned up somewhere inside. I promise, we’ve tried everything to figure out the issue, but we can’t seem to locate the problem. Cassie just continues to bitch. One of the amp doctors suggested bias-enhancement surgery—that maybe swapping out and/or adjusting the bias pot might just give her an improvement in self-esteem she so obviously lacks. This didn’t work. I thought she recovered nicely from that surgery, but she just came out of the bedroom one morning with the bitchiest look on her face and it has never gone away since (it was there before, too). So, what to do? We took her back to the amp doctor—a different one this time. This new amp doc (Sooner Acoustic) suggested cold-solder liposuction correction. Her mother and I thought about this for a day or so (her mother watches Rachel Ray and Doctor Phil and you know what they say about sending your kids off to enhancement clinics, blah, blah, blah). After much consternation, we gave in and gave the go-ahead (what else does a father do? We all want the best for our children, right?). Unfortunately, the cold-solder correction surgery only cost me time and a little pain on Cassie’s part—there was no improvement in her overall attitude, tone or performance. It really was a disappointing ride home from the clinic, uh, amp shop. She sulked the entire way home. It sucked. Now that she’s been relegated to solitary confinement at home, she continues to bitch and moan. Lately, though, I have noticed that she has been asking to be sent back to her birthplace (well, at least the adoption agency who brings kids like her in from Mexico). I agree. Perhaps you can shake some life back into her, or at least send another new one our way. We hate to see Cassie go back (she really was a great amp for a while). Technically-speaking, the best way to describe what is happening is that the bias appears to be going out of bias as the amp is played for about 10 minutes or less. My amp tech (Marty, Lone Wolf Guitars, OKC) is an expert on all things Fender (especially vintage stuff like my blackface Vibrolux Reverb, Bassman and my ’58 tweed Vibrolux) and he cannot figure out what is wrong. We’ve bypassed the Fender speaker and plugged directly in to a separate cabinet—buzz is still there. We’ve plugged in keyboards and other instruments—still there. We’ve swapped out all of the preamp tubes, one at a time and all at once—still there. We’ve also swapped out all of the power tubes—still there. We’ve bench tested all of the tubes and have had the tube sockets’ cold-solder re-done (by Fender shop Sooner Acoustic)—still there. So, here she is. I love Cassie. There. I said it. I love Cassie. Even after all of the bitching, moaning, pissy attitudes and terrible tones—she’s great. We’d love to welcome her back into our loving, guitar-playing-guitar-addicted home, but only if she agrees to be fixed and behave like all of her other sister amps. Cassie truly was a great amp, but I’d like an outright replacement of her because we just can’t seem to reconcile our differences. You might think she has been corrected and that after adjusting the bias a time or two that her problems have gone away. I promise she hasn’t been corrected, nor can she be corrected. Jeff, if there’s one thing to learn in life today as you peer at this otherwise beautiful specimen of an amp—RUN THE OTHER WAY!!! DON’T BE SUCKED IN BY HER PHYSICAL BEAUTY!!! You will only live to regret the time you tried wooing her and courting her love and affection. She will lather you up and simply spit you out, dust her hands of you and walk away. In short, Cassie will break your heart. Don’t be her next victim, my friend. Plug her in through a quality speaker cabinet with better tubes and you can hear her bitch until the cows come home. She can’t hide it for long. Trust me—we’ve tried to caress Cassie with breakfast in bed, front row tickets to Journey, John Mayer and even Bon Jovi. We’ve bought her very own country club membership and even taken her out to nice dinners repeatedly. We just bought her a new car last month. As you would undoubtedly imagine, we’ve even plugged in a ’53 Tele!!!! Guess what? She still gets pissed at us. I can’t explain why she continues to rebel at us, but she does. I think it’s time for her to visit the Vice Principal’s office for at least a stern talking-to, and at most, send her off to boarding school and replace her with a nice, polite new Blues Deluxe Reissue. Thanks for helping me out, Jeff. I really do appreciate it (as do her sibling amps, who ask me daily when she’s going to shape up).
- #8
Plate load resistors coming open (sounds like what you might have). Most frequent on the phase inverter tube. You'll be able to spot them with the chopstick test. Replace with same size 1/2 watt metal film resistors for a permanent fix.
Also, there is a high watt dropping resistor for the power supply to the switching rail, that creates enough heat to cause its connection to go cold after enough cycles. Solution is to replace resistor and resolder with some space between the new resistor and the PCB.
Hope this helps.
fritz
Source: https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?threads/blues-deluxe-cracking-badly-tubes-speaker.1338923/
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