Houston guitar amp repair

We specialize in left-handed acoustic guitar and left-handed electric guitars. Advertise with Us. Website Directions More Info. Website Directions. Poor service, very bad experience. Everything Piano Musical Instruments-Repair. SW Mr. From Business: Musical instrument rentals, service, repair and sales. From Business: Musical instrument rentals, service, repairs and sales.

First we give a visual assessment of condition both inside and out. After initial testing we clean every jack, potentiometer, switch and socket. We then contact the customer with a cost projection and perform the repair. Next we test the amp for correct power output, bias and operation on the bench. Then we finish any extra cleaning that may be performed, reassemble the amp, and do our final play test. Each repair recieves a 90 day warranty on labor. It bridges the gap between high voltage power, tubes, and the loudspeaker.

This HiPot high potential tester is measuring a complete failure of the insulation between the primary plate circuit windings of the output transformer and the secondary loudspeaker windings. Surprisingly, the loudspeaker is fine! Hidden on the back side of the chassis, the output transformer has lived. And Died. In The Dark. Fortunately, The Unbrokenstring Crew has a supply of original parts for boutique Fender amplifiers and clones, from Texas Amplification stock. This nice example of original Fender iron fits perfectly on this chassis.

The purple glow is ionized gas inside the tube, and the blue lights hitting the paper behind the tube are beams of uncontrolled electrons. The red filaments are the only colors that should be there. After these pictures were taken, I had to replace the socket adapter on my TV-7U tester because it melted internally. The rest of the tester is fine and was re-calibrated — with a new socket adapter. After the light show from testing the tubes, each section of the amplifier is tested separately, in order to discover any other collateral damage from either the water or the failed output transformer.

This amp will be Good To Go once the glue dries! AJ played this wonderful MusicMan combo amp, until it quit suddenly. He was aware of the Big Names in the music business that repaired these, but was there anyone local? As you might expect, this combo has one 12 inch loudspeaker and has a fifty watt Class AB push-pull pair of 6L6 tubes.

One vacuum tube serves as a preamp, and the rest of the amp is built with solid state techniques. Leo Fender had sold the Fender company to CBS, but wanted to continue making instruments and amplifiers despite a non-compete agreement that he was required to sign as part of the deal with CBS.

So the MusicMan amps were born. The Mid-shift switch indicates a slightly different tone stack design. The rocker switch for the ground select function and a three wire power cord is evidence that the older design of Fender amps was changing to meet modern regulatory requirements. Of course, model numbers were entirely new, and serial numbers had little resemblance to the old way of doing things. Another change from the Old Fender was this pilot light, which consists of a neon bulb and a limiting resistor.

The package is held in with a push nut. The wire harness dress is excellent as is the workmanship. The black switch is the Tone Shift switch seen earlier on the front panel.

The dual-section 12AX7 lives here. This amp has been re-capped, including cathode bypass capacitors and all electrolytics. The red paint on the solder joints is an interesting way to indicate that they passed QC. The fuse holder held a too-high value 32v automotive fuse. The correct vac 3A part is installed.

Most of the preamp duties are done with operational amplifiers. Those connectors in a square configuration are for the reverb tank and pedals. Can you see the problem? The pair of transistors on the pink heat sink form a phase inverter that drives the output tubes. Leo Fender knew his TV stuff, and applied that technique in his new line of amps. These high powered resistors are part of the phase inverter circuit. They must be matched closely for good performance.

Obviously, these are no longer matched. The devices on the heat sink are 75 watt 15 ampere 80 volt power transistors. They should be closely matched for best sonic performance.

Also, transistors will drive the next tube stage with a bigger voltage swing than two sections of a vacuum tube, because they are inherently lower impedance. In the late s, circuit board design was performed on computers. Thus, graphical images could be added to the artwork. Also, this circuit board is electrochemically plated tin, which is a fresh new technology not previously seen in Fender products.

The heat sink is removed and the old resistors are desoldered. These two parts were sourced from new stock and selected because their value matches better than 0. These transistors were sourced from new stock and were matched on the curve tracer.

See the new resistors above and to the left? At first look, it was pretty rough. But could the Unbrokenstring Crew work some magic to undo the damage caused by UPS and previous amp techs? Danelectro built these amps for mail order distribution.

In the s, Amazon was a river in Brazil and the Internet was a military thing. But the Sears Catalog brought you nearly anything you wanted. The Sears catalog number was the URL of merchandise.

With that number, the world was your oyster. The split splined shaft on the reverb was broken, and the original knob was long gone. The control does work electrically, but the reverb function was not functioning.

Or something like that. This could be repaired. However, the rest of the tubes were in fine shape and were kept in service. By the looks of the power transformer, I believe that this amp was dropped on its end, because the transformer is leaning to the right. The chassis is hand-wired. We are starting at the preamp section. Those brown capacitors are mica capacitors. Wherever two of them are next to each other, they are taped to each other using black electrical tape.

The pilot light is good. The red and blue wires to the right are all shielded signal cables. Power wiring is on the left. The transformer on the left is an interstage coupling transformer.

Masonite, a pressed fiber board material, is used extensively in this unit. Here a big chunk runs right down the center of the amp chassis, and many terminal strips are riveted to the Masonite for mounting components. The red cylinders are the filter capacitors, and the small silver cylinders are the power rectifiers. Amazingly, the filter capacitors required almost no reforming.

Normally, capacitors this old are replaced out-of-hand, but the owner preferred to keep it as original as possible. Each and every capacitor was screened for leakage at working voltage and capacitance value. Do you see the scorch mark? At this end, we can barely see the output transformer, which has been replaced with a service spare part. Apparently the output transformer failed at some point, leaving some scorched areas behind.

These wires come from the other end of the reverb tank. So we can guess that the reverb tank failed, and some Jake Leg tech just cut it out of the circuit rather than fix it. We find more Masonite under the tape. Each end of the spring in the reverb tank is stretched between the end clips. A second point of contact intersects the spring about an inch away from the end.

Note that this contact is bent. This is another indication that the amp was dropped on its end. So we bend the bent contact so that it pokes into the spring where it belongs. A very high voltage signal, over one hundred volts, is applied to the contacts at one end. The insulating cardboard on each contact keeps the current from flowing through the spring. However, the high electric field induces a mechanical motion into the spring, which is carried through the spring and wiggles the two contacts at the other end.

The wiggling contacts act as a variable capacitor. The change in capacitance causes a varying voltage to be produced, which is amplified and sent to the amp.

A moving ribbon microphone or condenser microphone works the same way. Simple enough, huh? Speaking of simple, we have Upgraded this reverb tank from duct tape to wire ties.

Which is kind of a big deal, if you ask me. A rag is soaked with a combination of solder flux remover and furniture polish, which is tough enough to cut through six decades of crud. A replacement control has arrived. These stamped sheet metal nuts are used to keep the controls in place. The controls are all recessed behind a trim panel. The recessed trim panel makes it a challenge to find knobs that will work on this amp, as we will find out later.

Next, we will replace this two wire line cord with a three wire cord, so no one will be electrocuted if the power transformer insulation fails. Two of the line cord wires go to this convenience outlet. The outlet will remain in place, but will be removed from the circuit. The neutral and ground wires will not be switched, per UL requirements.

You will find that important if you are holding the guitar at that moment…. These blue twisted wires are snaked through the chassis and will be attached to the terminal strip in this picture. Here is another good look at a pair of mica capacitors taped together. The little terminal strip in the middle of the picture has the remnants of the original blue reverb tank wires left from where the previous tech disconnected the reverb tank. So now we know right where to reattach them.

Another reason to love eBay is that, from time to time, the Correct knobs can be located. These were surprisingly affordable. Some of the original knobs were repaired with Super Glue and reinstalled.

Finally, the Correct knobs really improve the cosmetics of this fine old amp head. The owner wanted to leave the film of rust on the front of the unit, for that Vintage Mojo look. This head sounds fantastic, but the piezo electric reverb tank sounds like something from a Star Trek special effects soundtrack, which, might be just the sound you want! The original neck on this MIM Black Strat was made from wood that tended to twist when the string tension varied, either because of temperature changes or when employing different string gauges.

This instrument was built in , which happened to be the 60th anniversary of the founding of Fender Corporation. With light strings, this guitar will feel like a nylon-stringed classical guitar. This is necessary on this instrument because of the very light gauge strings we will be using. The break in the wire is literally in the very last turn! We had an MC that was in Desperate need of a face lift and refresh, searched a few shops in the Texas area that did Mcintosh repair, and unfortunately wasn't thrilled about shipping it anywhere or driving hours away to get it serviced.

Bammel TV does great work! Polite, Responsive, takes there time, and is in constant communication during the process. Keep in mind when you have a unit like this repaired its not a quick process, but They made it worth the wait! We will definitely use them again, and glad we found some new friends we can send our Clients too! I was a bit hesitant to drop off my equipment to this store with whom I have never done business.

These people are awesome! They are quick to analyze the issue and get back with me with results and cost estimate. Fearful that the 4th of July holiday would prolong my repairs John was able to diagnose and repair in 3 business days.

Work was exceptional and my CDJs are back running at optimal level. Thanks for your assistance John and I will definitely be back for any further needs. This company was very professional and did outstanding work on restoring my Adam A7 speaker to spec. Will use them again in the future. Had my vintage Pioneer amplifier recapped and serviced here- they did a first rate job in communication, turnover time, and results. It now sounds better than I ever remember it sounding. I will use them again- thanks!

They are very professional, knew exactly what they needed to fix with the projector. Projector working perfectly since it was fixed, about a year ago.