3below

As above, many best wishes to a musician who has given me (and others) countless hours of pleasure and inspiration.

Following earlier post: 18 instruments, one pa system, 3 bass rigs. Married for 34 years. Conclusion: have GAS, buy kit, lots of kit lol.

1 castration 2 divorce 3 conjugal refusal 4 no new car 5 you buy that and I will go 6 you do not love me 8 you spend more time with the band than me, choose

[quote name='icastle' timestamp='1363980197' post='2020572'] Yep. I've found them to be full of overly competitive types who are either 'better' than you in reality, and make sure you know it, or feel the need to be nasty if they're not. Last time I browsed one I came away knowing that I was probably going to be carrying some of those people off of a mountain in the future and they wouldn't be quite as full of themselves then... [/quote] There are mountains in leicestershire? [size=4] [/size][size=4] [/size][size=4]Seriously this is a great forum, it is a testament to human goodwill and support.[/size]

Resist GAS [size=4] [/size]

Amp is too loud, you are lucky [size=4] I needed 700W (real watts lol) and BF Dubster to put drummer in his place. Try turning bass volume down.[/size]

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1363777340' post='2017318'] Warwick Rockbasses. Nuff said [/quote] Agree, small, light, perfectly formed and cheap s/h - how does £100 sound if you wait until a bargain appears. Quality is spot on.

Seems straightforward to me on several counts: You manufacture a product - one that will be handled by people who wash hands (if you are lucky), it is a bass so this is not unexpected. You are in an age where customer expectation of quality is high, we are used to Japanese, Korean, Chinese, German kit (cars, electronics, guitars and basses) You live in an age where the Internet makes it easy to show customer experience and product quality to the world. Business 101 here...... Kia car, secondhand, may cost £1000 more than a Ric. The warranty is 7 years. Go figure. Guess the paintwork only has gentle conditions to operate in. Free market, so free to take my money elsewhere. I think someone should take a look at what Chinese built guitars offer, quality is up there with both my 'premium' non Ric USA basses. My Chinese bass cost £150 s/h, it is 'perfect', top quality woods, ebony fingerboard. What price USA exclusive IP.

Can we have a picture of the binding and bleed sideways on? [size=4]I did the Ric thing in my early 20s, it was blue.[/size][size=4] [/size][size=4]There is a very clear message for me about the support I would get if I unknowingly purchased a 'grey' import. [/size][size=4] [/size][size=4] Always good to see manufacturers standing by the quality of their products and letting that quality stand for itself with end users.[/size]

Roto Trubass - buy once, last a lifetime [size=4] I have the original set still on my acoustic bass from circa 1980. Still compliant and sound good.[/size]

Your thoughts seem good, am impressed that you can ignore side markers, they would irritate me. You may have a 22 'fret' fretless neck rather than '21'. Try it and see What are you doing with the previous neck?

Well packed, well sent and arrived just so. Many thanks, Jim Bass excellent to deal with.

My advice would be fix it. The construction makes this easy - large components, widely spaced and big wide pcb tracks. You can keep this amp going forever. It is also a relatively simple amp in terms of design so fault finding is straightforward. I had one, extremely loud and no annoying fan is a big plus. As Icastle states, do make sure you get the capacitors wired with correct polarity. The results of getting it wrong are quite spectacular. The BW in mine failed in a surprising way - like yours it was about 30 years old. A buzzing noise started on some low notes. The glue holding the cone to the frame had given up. If you catch this early before too much damage it should be an easy repair.

[quote name='brensabre79' timestamp='1363020853' post='2007041'] I'd say the caps are blown! But like iCastle says, might not be all... Another thing the Combo 300 is rather prone to that makes a crackle is the soldering of the inductor coil. Its easy to spot this, its a coil of copper wrapped in cardboard. These can work a bit loose with the internal vibrations and very small cracks can appear in the solder - which supports the entire weight of the coil! It should just need resoldering - it happened to mine and it took me ages to figure it out. Simple test is to turn the thing on with the amp open and, with something non-conductive (plastic pen), you can give the coil a light tap. [/quote] A good point, I had forgotten that little issue that they develop. I have just looked at the photos. Looking at the photo with the transformer (real iron lol) you will see to the right and front of the blue capacitors another pair of capacitors - black and grey with polarity arrows. These are also electrolytic and if I had the soldering iron to hand I would replace these as well. They will be cheap and available from any good electronics supplier.

Since I do not use fb I was unable to access sound clip. Several possible causes. First thing to try would be rotating the controls a lot when switched off. Rotate each control back and forward several times. If this helps then spraying contact cleaning spray (e.g. Servisol) into the pots may fix the issue. Next areas I would explore - [size=4]If you can de solder / solder it is diy and not expensive - [/size][size=4] [/size][size=4]replace the smoothing capacitors, they are 20? years old. If that does not remedy, then replace diodes in bridge rectifier. All of these can be done for small expense and worth a try unless you have access to an oscilloscope. With a scope and the circuit diagram (easily available on web) you should readily find the problem.[/size]

Thank you, gives a sense of what was what for those of a long way away from the big city.

One of my major musical influences for so many years. Wilko's music has been with me for most of my life and will continue to so.