Arfa Daily wrote:


Hey Ron, how's it going ? I also do a lot of Trace Idiot bass heads. Have
you had a lot of trouble with the main smoothing caps hanging out of the
board ? I had one just yesterday with an odd smoothing problem. The reported
problem was that it "cracked up when a bass guitar was put through it, and
an open E was played". On idle, it sounded fine, no hum or other nasty
noises. With normal music going through it, again it sounded fine. But when
40Hz from a signal genny was put in, it sounded harsh like a ripped speaker
cone. On the scope, you could see a disturbance on the waveform - but
nothing *really* significant. Turned out that BOTH the smoothing caps on the
negative rail to the output stage, were COMPLETELY open circuit ! A new pair
sorted it. It's amazing that it didn't show more obvious symptoms to point
to caps this badly defective.

Arfa


I,ve seen them mechanically out of circuit due to the solder joints
being fractured but so far not seen an actual faulty cap. I have seen
lots of Peavey Impulse powered cabinets with internally intermittent
o/c smoothers, even replacement ones have failed after a time, yet
Peavey technical say they haven`t heard of the problem.

Usually the Trace Elliots come in with the graphic eq board hanging off,
and the little switches broken. Bass players drive em till they stop
working!


Ron(UK)