I think I bought the wrong amp or maybe something is wrong

M

morgansbluff

Member
I loved my quikrod when I got it a few months ago. Now not so much. My amp sounds like it has a wet blanket over it. I've tried various speakers (greenbacks v30s creambacks wizards). The wizards made a huge difference by cutting some bass but it's the highs that are my problem. This amp can get bright but not in a pleasant way. My 71JMP gets glassy highs and a nice chirp when overdriven hard. The Splawn just seems to blanket those frequencies. It sounds very arena rock sounding. Like distant. I hope that's not how it's voiced. Cranking the presence helps but after while it kind of just sounds harsh. I swear it didn't sound like this new but maybe the honeymoon had me blinded. Something did flash the 2nd day I owned it when I flipped it to half power mode(with ohm setting reduced by half per manual). My local tech looked it over and didn't find anything. He agreed it seemed to be lacking highs though also. I was hoping for a killer jcm800 with a clean channel and a boost. BTW the cleans sound phenomenal. But if I do a clean intro and go to channel 2 it's like throwing a blanket over the speakers. Really mismatched voicing.
Any suggestions besides tubes (tried that).
Anyone know how much it costs to mail an amp back to Scott? That flash has me thinking something happened.
 
The Quickrod should have more high end sizzle than anyone could ever want, and that's coming from someone that can't get enough high end/presence. I ran the few I had with treble near zero and presence near maxed. The flash may just be a preamp tube. Some do that when first powered up, doesn't necessarily mean the preamp tube is bad.
 
A flash would concern me personally - as if maybe a tube pin arc'd or something. But if your tech looked it over and didn't see any problems, I don't know what sending it to Scott would do. You could obviously email him. I am assuming it is a used amp?

I run my Treble on '0' and Presence up but also use an EQ in the loop to lower the bass and then add some high end sizzle.
 
IMO, Splawns are made to be played loud. They don't sound all that great at lower volumes.. they sound great cranked up though.
 
311splawndude said:
A flash would concern me personally - as if maybe a tube pin arc'd or something. But if your tech looked it over and didn't see any problems, I don't know what sending it to Scott would do. You could obviously email him. I am assuming it is a used amp?

I run my Treble on '0' and Presence up but also use an EQ in the loop to lower the bass and then add some high end sizzle.
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I called Scott when it flashed. He said it was probably just a loose tube. He wasn't too concerned. I wonder if something else fried. My amp tech didn't spend a lot of time with it. Just ran it threw the scope and verified the tubes all worked and looked for arc flash but didn't see any. I might drop it off to him for a real service and have him do a thorough checkup.
 
I would definitely take it back to the tech (is he a good one?)
my Supersport has plenty of top end, sounds very "open" and my amp sounds great at low volume, so if it sounded right before the flash something definitely happened to it.
 
So I put a $30 Amazon compressor pedal with a tone knob in my effects loop. I turn the tone up just a hair and bam I love it! The EQ just can't get me what I'm looking for which is that bright JCM800 sound. I tried doing the EQ in the loop but moving the sliders was really drastic changes. I'm going to leave this compressor on all the time. It sounds really good with the cleans too.
 
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