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My Rectoverb is going in for repairs today...

3K views 19 replies 7 participants last post by  Josh 
#1 ·
So, the other day I finally had a chance to crank my Rectoverb. My old band has gotten back together for a reunion show (and more as a memorial for our drummer who pasted away 10 years ago) and rehearsals started last week. As a whole the practice went well and our 'hired' drummer did his homework and sounded on point for the most part.

But much to my disappointment, my RoV sounded 'off'. At first I noticed that it simply didn't have as much volume as I thought it should (again, this being the first time I got the Output past 9:00). It lacked bottom end and sounded a wimpy. My other guitar player has a 5150 head, and his tone simply shit all over mine. At one point I had him turn down because my amp couldn't keep up. At this point I should say that we were both running into identical Marshall cabs (8 ohm). I dissabled the internal speaker in my RoV and ran into the cab.

The worst and most disturbing part was when I noticed this 'penny rattling in a jar' sound coming from my amp. It scared this shit out of me, and I immediately put the amp in Standby and checked for smoke and odd smells. Everything appeared normal, so I proceeded to flip the amp back on and tap the PT's to check for a bad tube. No microphonic tubes, but I noticed a few things:

1) The left tube was running much hotter (physically burned to the touch). I flipped powertubes and still the left tube socket ran hotter. Not sure if that's normal?!

2) I noticed a screw loose and seemed to be rattling around. It's a long black screw in the middle of the chassis. Not sure if it was always like that or what, but I noticed a mechanical sound coming from the speaker when I wiggled it. That said, I also noticed said mechanical sound when I simply tapped on the amp enclosure. Really weird shit going on.

So, with practice over, I go home and check out the preamp tubes. I try swapping each with a known good preamp tube. Didn't notice any changes, good or bad until I got to V4. I swapped in my Tung Sol for V4 and all sound ceased to exist. Oh fuck I thought, so I put in the original Mesa tube, and still no sound. The amp powers up fine, but nothing but the faintest of sound only with the channel master dimed (output knob does nothing). I tooked the FX send and ran it into my computer and inserted a Cab Sim plugin, and the preamp section of the RoV appears fine.

Anyways, long story short. I'm taking the amp into the shop this afternoon, dreading the repair bill. Based on my description anyone have any guessing as to what the problem could be? The rattling tone and overall lack of volume sucked enough, but now I fear that I somehow fucked things up even more.

Side note, a 50 watt Recto SHOULD be able to keep up with a 5150 head, right?!
 
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#3 ·
Side note, a 50 watt Recto SHOULD be able to keep up with a 5150 head, right?!
Yes.

Also, tubes will always be hot to the touch - it's like touching a lightbulb, basically. If a tube WASN'T hot, that might point to the problem as well.

V4... That's the phase inverter tube on a recto, right?
 
#4 ·
Of course tubes will be hot... but this sucker was insanely hot! Much hotter than the other one. Perhaps the other side is running a bit colder? But hey, just something I noticed while inspecting things.

V5 is the phase inverter according to the manual, and why I didn't mess with it. V4 is the FX loop.
 
#6 ·
Update: Just got back from the music store. They'll send it out to their repair guy, and if all goes well it should be fixed by Wednesday of next week.

The annoying thing was the salesman at the store kept telling me "it's probably a bad preamp tube". I asked how that could be, considering the preamp is passing audio perfectly fine. His answer was that if the powertubes are shot, a fuse would have blown and the amp wouldn't even power up at all. I can concede that perhaps the phase invertor tube is bad, but the more pressing issue is the mechanical/glass rattling sound when the amp was functioning, which I attribute to the loose screw dangling from the chassis. He apparently didn't think that (the loose screw) was much cause for concern though. I'm just glad that dipshit isn't the one working on my amp.

In any event, I'll post up the issue(s) when I hear back from the repairman.
 
#8 ·
^ What he said. I think swapping out V4 and having all output cease was simply a coincidence. This is definitely a power amp problem, and it won't necessarily blow a fuse.

Now, if you said it was V5 that you were messing with, I could have solved your problem right there. Most of the modern Mesas are very sensitive to what tube you put in V5, and the wrong one will loose you your high gain channels. It makes no sense to me, but it happened with my Roadster (at a gig, no less), so I stick with Mesa for that slot.
 
#9 ·
Thanks for the replies guys. I'm hoping it's something relatively simple to fix like you described, MetalKen. I'm obviously a bit freaked out because I've never experienced anything like this from a Mesa, and I've used them pretty much exclusively since '95.

And Noodles, I'm thinking the tube/no output issue is coincidental too. Perhaps there's some pilot error on my part, but we'll see. :pray:
 
#10 ·
UPDATE: So, apparently the phase inverter tube was bunk. It had a dime sized hole in the top of the tube... 1 new tube later, and all is well.

I'm not sure why the tech didn't address the loose screw. But whatever. I'm not bringing any more business back to that store. A shame, because they're a local shop which I totally support, but they didn't listen to me at all. Afterall, I'm the customer and I'm paying the fucking bill - just do what I want and I'll be happy as a clam.

The good news is last night at band practice the RoV sounded fucking loud and brutal. I had the channel master at 9:00 and the output at 12:30. There was a bit of PT saturation and would have prefered to back down the volume a bit, but our drummer is retarded loud.

Only shitty thing now is that I'm gassing for a Roadster. I know 50watts is more than enough for most, but that extra bit of headroom at 100watts will help keep my distortion tight. What to do, what to do... :metal:
 
#12 ·
To say nothing of the fact that you also get switchable rectification modes.

I'm buying a Roadster (unless I decide the Mark-V is more to my taste, but I'm really happy with my ROV). It's just a question of when...
 
#13 ·
You also get ch2/Brit, and a second high gain channel.

[action=Noodles]is more than happy to feed Roadster gas.[/action]
 
#16 ·
28 knobs and 6 switches on the front alone... man, I think I'd get lost!

[action=TemjinStrife]is very used to his 2-channel "sounds good with the knobs anywhere" amp.[/action]
 
#17 ·
Considering that all the channels share the exact same knob layout (volume, presence, bass, mid, treble, gain), it's not really as hard to use as you think.
 
#18 ·
Yeah, the confusing thing isn't the number of knobs, but rather the fact that the knob response and "sweet spots" changes depending on which mode you're in. :lol:

I'm cool with that, though - if that's the price of flexibility, it's one I'm happy to pay. :D
 
#20 ·
I mean, I can appreciate the flexibility and versatility of the amps... and I bet I'd love one if I owned it. But, I'm also very happy with my current rig, and that one requires like no tweaking to get a good sound... just a little bit of coloration and some slight knob tweaks to tweak things to work with individual guitars.

They're really two very separate beasts, and I can appreciate both. It's just a fucking intimidating front panel!
 
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