Is my amp losing its Voice?

[VikingBlues]

Is my amp losing its Voice?

... well, not so much voice as one of its voices.

The three versions of "Blackface" voicing [bright vintage tone, bright slightly overdriven vintage tone, bright heavily overdriven vintage tone] seem to have had a fair drop in volume. And the overdriven aspect of two of them is very diluted to be almost not noticable. I do not use the overdriven voicings so it's not so much a problem with two of those three settings.

Also given that I usually use the Hot-Rod or Tweed voicings it's not necessarily a problem for me .... unless the issue starts to effect the other voicings too. Which is quite possible of course.

I would think it's the sort of problem where any effective repair would be of a cost level that would make a change of amp more sensible. I'll just have to see what happens. Guess it's one of the dangers of buying used gear - just got it 5 months ago. Ho hum!

[ratfinkdan]

VB, I would look at the tubes first, the preamp tube I think is used only as a phase inverter but it is possible that if its going it might effect the voiceings, I know on my super champ xd the preamp tube started acting up and made it sound different , changed the tube and it was all good again. Hope this helps some. Dan

[VikingBlues]

Thanks for the idea Dan.

I've e-mailed Fender - I'll see if they can make any suggestions. If they reply!

I would have contacted Fender UK or a UK Fender Service centre but all links on Fenders website and on Google that I could find for these lead to broken links and 'Page Not Found messages'. Not helpful.
Voice 2 - the fat vintage Basman tone seems to have lost a bit of it's sound too now.

[HalfBlindLefty]

VB, try careful pulling the powertube out of it's socket ( do NOT wiggle, just gently pull) and reseat it, sometimes that does the trick

Also, mind the position of the amp's back towards walls, curtains ( cloth won't reflect much sound coming from the rear) etc, keep a distance between the back of the amp and walls. Believe me, I can make my Cybertwin sound like a 40 dollar amp, just by putting it against a curtain or a wall.