The most unreliable amplifier ever….

NicoAdie · September 2023

The only amp I’ve ever had that’s shat the bed on me is a Hiwatt Lead 100, and in fairness it only did it once. Unfortunately this happened during a recording session at Castlesound and scunnered me a bit, thankfully our bassist had an HH VS head which I used in its place (and sounded great).

I bought that amp in Sound Control in Edinburgh and carried it all the way from there to the bus stop outside Waverley station. Ridiculous.

Danny1969 · September 2023

Tex Mexico said:

ICBM said:

ScreamingDave said:

Funny, I’ve had three Marshall DSLs and a TSL over the last 18 years or so and never had any problems. Just the usual valve replacements when it’s gigged and rehearsed hard. Just goes to show, you never can tell ….

You’ve probably been reasonably lucky, but that’s what I meant about proportionate failure rates. If 25% of a particular model fail that would be terrible, but it still means that three-quarters of owners don’t think there’s a problem. To have four of them and not one failure is less likely, but certainly not impossible.

(I’m just guessing about the failure rate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in that ballpark.)

I've been thinking about ICBM's comment here quite a bit lately, because I've been buying a few amps, and as you can imagine if you Google pretty much any amp model it's not long before you come across a forum post or two, sometimes by recognised authorities in audio technology, describing the amp's many design flaws and how they basically guarantee catastrophic, wallet-ruining failure.

And obviously they're not wrong - there's no question that most amps are built to a price point and that the resulting compromises often result in factors that make the amp fragile and difficult to maintain.

However I do always try to keep the mindset of the 75% in ICBM's above comment, for the following reason:

The most common factor I've found in amplifier failures is that the owner doesn't look after their amp. Sometimes it's egregious negligence, but mostly it's just a result of people owning what is a pretty niche electronic device, but who don't really understand how it works and how to use it properly, what its limitations are and so on.

Conversely, of the maybe fifty amps I've owned in my life I've never had a single one fail during my ownership fir any reason other than normal wear of components over time, i.e. caps and valves.

I accept there's a good amount of luck involved in that, but I do believe it's also down to the care I take with them. I don't baby them but I do keep them clean and dry and serviced and safe from damage, and they've all, not uncoincidentally, kept going for as long as I needed them to.

All this to say that it's sometimes tempting to read a thread like this and take it as a list of Amps You Should NEVER Buy, but it's important to bear in mind that in probably all cases the substantial majority of any amp model's production run has more or less kept working okay for the duration of its expected life.

Well it's good advice to look after your stuff but some things are completely beyond the users ability to avoid. Taking care of a amp isn't going to help with things like the HT traces being too close together on the PCB or the valves being pushed beyond their specifications, or cheap pots and shit jack sockets being used.

Also an amp beyond 30 watts or so, an amp designed for stage use rather than home should be able to survive the rigours of life on the road. This means being able to handle the vibration of being loaded in and out of vans, left in loading bays and turned on a warm stage while it's dripping in condensation. It should also be able to survive a 3 hour set in the blazing summer sun and not overheat.

Personally I don't see the Tonemasters being up to this so I have told various friends not to buy them. Or at least be prepared to fork out £200 ish upwards for any fault relating to the power supply or power amp as the things are a nightmare to repair even with the right SM tools. So realistically any failure will require the whole module to be replaced. Likewise the CPU board. The average amp tech who has been repairing Marshalls and AC30's for years is probably not going to want to retool and retrain for this kind of work. Just not worth their while.

Sassafras · September 2023

Tex Mexico said:

I've been thinking about ICBM's comment here quite a bit lately, because I've been buying a few amps, and as you can imagine if you Google pretty much any amp model it's not long before you come across a forum post or two, sometimes by recognised authorities in audio technology, describing the amp's many design flaws and how they basically guarantee catastrophic, wallet-ruining failure.

And obviously they're not wrong - there's no question that most amps are built to a price point and that the resulting compromises often result in factors that make the amp fragile and difficult to maintain.

However I do always try to keep the mindset of the 75% in ICBM's above comment, for the following reason:

The most common factor I've found in amplifier failures is that the owner doesn't look after their amp. Sometimes it's egregious negligence, but mostly it's just a result of people owning what is a pretty niche electronic device, but who don't really understand how it works and how to use it properly, what its limitations are and so on.

Conversely, of the maybe fifty amps I've owned in my life I've never had a single one fail during my ownership fir any reason other than normal wear of components over time, i.e. caps and valves.

I accept there's a good amount of luck involved in that, but I do believe it's also down to the care I take with them. I don't baby them but I do keep them clean and dry and serviced and safe from damage, and they've all, not uncoincidentally, kept going for as long as I needed them to.

All this to say that it's sometimes tempting to read a thread like this and take it as a list of Amps You Should NEVER Buy, but it's important to bear in mind that in probably all cases the substantial majority of any amp model's production run has more or less kept working okay for the duration of its expected life.

Considering you've been through 50 amps, I'm guessing that's not very long.

Tex Mexico · September 2023

Danny1969 said:

Tex Mexico said:

ICBM said:

ScreamingDave said:

Funny, I’ve had three Marshall DSLs and a TSL over the last 18 years or so and never had any problems. Just the usual valve replacements when it’s gigged and rehearsed hard. Just goes to show, you never can tell ….

You’ve probably been reasonably lucky, but that’s what I meant about proportionate failure rates. If 25% of a particular model fail that would be terrible, but it still means that three-quarters of owners don’t think there’s a problem. To have four of them and not one failure is less likely, but certainly not impossible.

(I’m just guessing about the failure rate, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in that ballpark.)

I've been thinking about ICBM's comment here quite a bit lately, because I've been buying a few amps, and as you can imagine if you Google pretty much any amp model it's not long before you come across a forum post or two, sometimes by recognised authorities in audio technology, describing the amp's many design flaws and how they basically guarantee catastrophic, wallet-ruining failure.

And obviously they're not wrong - there's no question that most amps are built to a price point and that the resulting compromises often result in factors that make the amp fragile and difficult to maintain.

However I do always try to keep the mindset of the 75% in ICBM's above comment, for the following reason:

The most common factor I've found in amplifier failures is that the owner doesn't look after their amp. Sometimes it's egregious negligence, but mostly it's just a result of people owning what is a pretty niche electronic device, but who don't really understand how it works and how to use it properly, what its limitations are and so on.

Conversely, of the maybe fifty amps I've owned in my life I've never had a single one fail during my ownership fir any reason other than normal wear of components over time, i.e. caps and valves.

I accept there's a good amount of luck involved in that, but I do believe it's also down to the care I take with them. I don't baby them but I do keep them clean and dry and serviced and safe from damage, and they've all, not uncoincidentally, kept going for as long as I needed them to.

All this to say that it's sometimes tempting to read a thread like this and take it as a list of Amps You Should NEVER Buy, but it's important to bear in mind that in probably all cases the substantial majority of any amp model's production run has more or less kept working okay for the duration of its expected life.

Well it's good advice to look after your stuff but some things are completely beyond the users ability to avoid. Taking care of a amp isn't going to help with things like the HT traces being too close together on the PCB or the valves being pushed beyond their specifications, or cheap pots and shit jack sockets being used.

Also an amp beyond 30 watts or so, an amp designed for stage use rather than home should be able to survive the rigours of life on the road. This means being able to handle the vibration of being loaded in and out of vans, left in loading bays and turned on a warm stage while it's dripping in condensation. It should also be able to survive a 3 hour set in the blazing summer sun and not overheat.

Personally I don't see the Tonemasters being up to this so I have told various friends not to buy them. Or at least be prepared to fork out £200 ish upwards for any fault relating to the power supply or power amp as the things are a nightmare to repair even with the right SM tools. So realistically any failure will require the whole module to be replaced. Likewise the CPU board. The average amp tech who has been repairing Marshalls and AC30's for years is probably not going to want to retool and retrain for this kind of work. Just not worth their while.

These are all very fair comments, and I do think it's right to advise people against models that have a higher risk of failure in their expected use. If I was a touring player it's certain I would be far less casual about an amp's resilience. Similarly I do tend to steer clear of digital stuff where possible, mainly because it's usually more economical to replace than to repair and I HATE that.

On the other hand, again it's worth bearing in mind that a pretty good chunk of total amps sold will sit in the homes of their owners and be operated well within their tolerances for the duration of their product life. Of course that's no evidence they would withstand a touring schedule or even regular jams at volume, but I do think it's important for buyers, when doing their due diligence in advance of an expensive purchase, to bear in mind that just because someone would very reasonably recommend against sending amp X on tour with Anthrax, amp X might still bear up extremely well to the stresses of a quiet weekend noodle in Joe Bloggs' living room.

(Not that the manufacturer deserves any plaudits for that of course, but I'm just talking about what might discourage a potential buyer.)

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The most unreliable amplifier ever….

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