Problem with a 5153 50 watt

Wayniac3

Well-known member
Looking for some help...

Red channel - amazing. Full, thick, gainy - EQ's work.... fluid feel, full sound.

Shared EQ green/blue.... am radio. Literally sounds like an am radio. Loss of balls, thin...

Gain seems to work (clean to crunch). But Only the high tone control seems to work... bass adds no low end, mids add nothing...

Am I looking at a cold solder joint, preamp tubes...?

Thanks for any assistance.
 
Pre tube I'd bet. Not sure which, but take a known good tube and swap it in/out of every position. Try the blue channel each time. I think you'll find it soon enough.
 
Racerxrated":2j4b2ezq said:
Pre tube I'd bet. Not sure which, but take a known good tube and swap it in/out of every position. Try the blue channel each time. I think you'll find it soon enough.
Yup. My blue channel is amazing.
 
Wayniac3":quw7m85g said:
Thanks
Schematic looks like V5, V6. Any suggestions on tubes?
I haven't bought new production in a while, I've got a bunch of Chinese 8/9th gen that I like with every amp I've tried. Sovteks I think are reliable...jjs I'm not so sure.
 
Swap V2, V3 or V4 into V5 and V6 (one at a time). If channel 2 is now fine then you know it was either V5 or V6.
 
Still no tone controls besides treble, and vol on channel 1 & 2 is wayyyy lower than channel 3...
 
I played a 50 watt head and matching 2x12 and it was the same as the op. Blue was lame. No bass. Resonance knob did nothing. My 5150 III 2x12 combo I spend all my time on the blue channel. Me likey. Something was clearly wrong with that head I tried. It happens.
 
Returned it. ... but I was smart enough to have it shipped to the local GC this time.
Unboxed it, plugged in and the replacement had almost no volume at all.

I looked and they had a used black one in stock! Plugged it in, and it was the one I had returned - just thrown back out on the floor unfixed.
I told the store manage that I was disappointed that it was on the floor, and how bad that business model sucked (blow off a long time customer, and that that I wanted my $ back for the shipping on 2 broken amps). I was pretty pissed and they knew it.
They let me have a new one (that I plugged in and tested) for the price of the used one. I also was told that both would have repair tags put in the system for them.
Ridiculous.
 
My experience with that parent company enterprise has gone very south in the last two years. That being said, glad you got a working one now. Blue channel is the gem of that amp in my opinion, wish I had it back just for that.
 
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