New to these forums but thought this may be a good place to ask this question about my Friedman BE 100. Its been acting up a bit lately and I have been in touch with Dave on this but hes pretty busy it sounds like with the holidays etc so im still waiting to ship the amp to him till next Tuesday for warranty repair but I thought id ask some folks here what they think may be the issue just to give him some ideas when the amp arrives as this issue is intermittent and quite frustrating. Its my only amp and I do play in a local band so its gonna really suck when the amp is out for service but at this point I do not have any other option.
Issue:
Ok, the amp sounds good when I first power up. The overdrive sounds nice and warm, pretty much how it did when I first bought the amp last May (this is the BE 100 with Turret board construction (no PCB) and three toggle config, has one input jack, has 4 preamp tubes and 4 EL 34 tubes).
After running the amp for a bit, perhaps maybe 5 to 10 mins, it starts to just develop a nasty edge to the overdrive tone, sort of a rasp it shouldn't have. It makes the amp sound harsh etc and not like it should.
It started after I show I did a few weeks ago, I had the amp at a loud volume for about 3 hours off and on just taking normal breaks. Of course at the end of the night the bar owner was bitching at everyone to move their gear quickly cuz he wanted to go home (of course) and I did carefully have to move the somewhat still hot amp to my car, but it didn't get bumped etc. The next day I plug in and turn it on, no sound on the drive channel, wtf. So I change the preamp tubes as that's the first thing to really look at, the clean channel was working fine. I discovered when I replaced V2, the amp came back on. Thought I was all good.
Now when the amp warms up it starts its nasty routine of bad overdrive tone. I have tried other preamp tubes, cleaning the pins with contact cleaner and reinserting to elmniate any buildup. The power tubes have been checked by my tech, they are testing good and the tube temps are within acceptable range. He didn't take the amp apart though as he just looked it over for free BC I was already talking to Dave about shipping him the amp for service.
Also today, it was sounding alright for a few minutes (it does this at times, seems to sound ok etc, but it could just be ear fatigue etc from trying to figure out if its having an issue or whatever) so I turned up the volume to see how it would sound cranked, then it runs at high volume for about 3 mins and suddenly drops off to nearly nothing except a whisper, I kind of panic and stick the amp on standby right away, then turn it down some and try turning on again and it comes back up.
Also through all this, the clean channel always sounds great. I never play clean though lol. Also its way more noticeable with gain maxed. Amp used to sound fantasic with gain all way up.
At this point ive just shut the amp off and am leaving it alone till I can get it shipped to Dave Tuesday, but this is really pissing me off, its just annyoying me and id like to have an idea of wtf is going on with this amp before I ship it, know that sounds kinda redundant but any help I can give Mr. Friedman going in would be great to save time and get the amp fixed quick.
Thnks guys.
Shaggy
