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Longevity, not


Rich
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Following on from bj_rocke's Amp/Cab thread about his almost-immediately expiring Ashdown head, what's your briefest customer-satisfaction experience? Have you had an amp that went [size=1][i]*phut*[/i][/size] on its first night? A cab that blew its drivers at the first watt?
I've been very lucky so far... the only kit that has ever let me down was my old Laney PB150 ProBass 4x10 combo (remember them?), which blew one of its cones and then developed a dry joint. However, I'd had it 10 years when the driver went and the dry joint was 3 years after that, so it did well... :)

EDIT: come to think of it, one of the pots on my Wal went kaput once too. But I'd had it for 9 years by then.

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I went into Dawsons in Liverpool to buy an Ashdown Fivefifteen combo, asked to try it out before buying, the staff plugged it in, switched it on and it went BANG!

I asked them to ring the shop in Chester to see if they had one where (which worked), to which they said 'yes'. So I drove down to Chester from Liverpool, got to Dawsons and asked to try the amp out first and this time when they switched it on, nothing happened! They tried different plugs,sockets, changed the fuses e.t.c which did nothing. Needless to say, I was a tad annoyed!

So I've had two different Assclown combos, from two different shops die in the space of a few hours and the first one didn't even survive getting switched on!

Edited by Waldo
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A few years ago I got a bonus from work and ordered a brand new Mesa Boogie 400+ from the Bass Centre. When it came over from the states we unwrapped it, plugged it in and..... pop! It turned out to be a bad valve but the amp went on to blow up bits of its innards several times after that. The Bass Centre finally offered me the choice of another amp. That was good of them because the amp was way out of warranty.

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I bought an amp off ebay - UPS, who usually requires a signature for delivery, left a rather tattered box on my doorstep.
when opening it, the tinkle of broken glass was the next hint, and the entire chassis had been snapped out of the head cab, which had the sides at 45 degree angles.
lucky? for me, the damage was all at joints, so it was repairable (not very easy to find another) and after gluing, replacing switches and some valves, and a long time messing with the shipping insurance, it turned into a bargain as well as a great sounding amp.

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It has to be a Bongo 5-string which was dead on arrival from the USA - the rear pick-up was open-circuit. I'd ordered and bought it from a US dealer in order to save some money so there was no-one to send it back to and I wasn't going to send it back to the USA to have it fixed. After posting on the EBMM forum and exchanging pms and emails they eventually sent me a replacement which I installed. I then had to send the old one back. They never did refund my postage. Finally it was so out of alignment I had to pay to have it set-up by my local luthier. After that it was fine bass and is possibly still in the BT fraternity

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