Totally discouraged Egnater Junk Transformers, junk boards,

[bruce egnater]

Wired..........appreciate your support. Reviving a kind of bad discussion from a year and a half ago doesn't seem productive?

 

[Leotis]

2.5 years on my Renegade. No issues to report.

'Bout the same on mine and other than a noisy fan, no problems at all.

Scratch that... something's blown in it and it isn't the fuses. I've gone through all of them. It powers up...sorta... pilot light comes on, but fan doesn't and it produces NO sound, not even a faint hiss.

 

[moltenmetalburn]

I've owned rebel 20 & still own a rebel 30 & renegade head. Have gigged with the 30 & Renegade for the last 4 years & have not had one issue. Before my Egnaters, I used a Mesa Rectoverb for a couple of years & a Peavey 5150 for over 10 years. The only amp that ever failed during a show was the Mesa, which was also the most expensive. Does that mean that Mesa amps are junk? Of course not. Every product has a fail/error rate.

Except this fail rate is HUGE.

 

[Leotis]

2.5 years on my Renegade. No issues to report.

'Bout the same on mine and other than a noisy fan, no problems at all.

Scratch that... something's blown in it and it isn't the fuses. I've gone through all of them. It powers up...sorta... pilot light comes on, but fan doesn't and it produces NO sound, not even a faint hiss.

Power supply is fried...wound up being about a $150 fix.

 

[Leotis]

So... mine has shit out yet again. Pretty certain it's the PT. Have you given any more thought to a class action lawsuit? I'd certainly be onboard. This amp has been the worst gear decision I've ever made from a reliability standpoint. The first two years were fine...now I can't keep it OUT of the repair shop.

 

[Anonymous]

man, im sorry to hear this AGAIN. it's so unfortunate because they sound great. have you tried pm'ing bruce egnater on here recently?

 

[ripsix]

I have the same Tourmaster tranny problem and no joy.. even if it is an older one, pre mod and since the warranty is only two years I'm out of luck.

I do see that Mercury Magnetics sells a replacement for $295 and it's got to be better than Egnater's chinese junk... at least one can hope.

Next time sticking to real amp makers such as
Mesa, 5 year transferable warranty,
Deizel, 5 year, no transfer (pre 2009, lifetime)
Engl, 1 year
Bogner, Lifetime, no transfer
Soldano, SLO LIfetime, transferable
Others Lifetime, no transfer
Hughes & Kettner, North America, none
Marshall, 5 years , no transfer
Fender, 5 years, transferable

I'm a bit disappointed in H&K and Engl so I know which amps I'll be getting in the future, reputable ones who don't manufacturer in China and truly stand behind their products.....

 

[Anonymous]

The mercury tranny is power only not output... Just to clarify.

 

[Leotis]

man, im sorry to hear this AGAIN. it's so unfortunate because they sound great. have you tried pm'ing bruce egnater on here recently?

No, I haven't... based on other's experiences, I figured it would do no good...and my amp is 4 yrs old, so out of warranty.

Stuck with a 60lb paperweight.

 

[Anonymous]

you can't really justify that answer though (at least i wouldn't) until you contact him, which is what i would do asap.

explain the situation, keep a cool head man, bruce is a good guy.

 

[Leotis]

I'll do that...but I'm not gonna hold my breath...

 

[AmpStan]

I have on my bench a Tweaker 40 with a blown Power Transformer. The amp is from 2012 I believe and out of warranty. I have been reading about this, for lack of a better word, epidemic of failures all over the place..The young owner of this one can't afford a major repair like this. I also have had a Rebel 20 in my shop forever, it has some sort of shorting problem on the board which causes a dropping resistor to catch fire. I've also seen quite a few Rebels come in where the cheezy connectors that connect EVERYTHING in there have come loose causing a myriad of problems form cutting out to bias failures.

 

[digi2t]

WARNING.... VENTING AHEAD....

OK... I'm steamed!!

Egnater is my new dirty 7 letter word. Here's the story.

Bought a non-working Tourmaster on EBay. Managed to win it at a very low price (compared to what a new one is worth). My initial research revealed that for the most part, the power transfo's were the weakness, so I figured what the hell, I'll get a new transfo, if that's the case. Got some new tubes, and it should make a decent addition to the stable. Now begins the nightmare...

Tested the transfo, and sure enough, dead shorts in the secondary. Same as Terry's D-Lab Youtube video. Everything else inside the amp looks pristine. OK. Contacted Egnater for a new transfo. They have them. Perfect. They need an address. Here you go. Payment? Credit card, or Paypal. No problem.

Then they reply;

Dino



Sorry but I am not allowed to ship a transformer to residential addresses …it needs to be to a electronics repair shop

WTF!!

OK, I call them. I'm told that they can't take the chance on electrocuting myself, so they only ship to an electronics shop. I tell them that I'll sign a waiver. They say no. Besides, I tell them, if I do kill myself, they need not worry, I won't be around to complain. No dice. So, I send them a new address, the company I work for, c/o of the electrical department.

Know what? They Googled the address! New reply from Egnater....

Dino



Sorry but they don’t want to ship to anything that is not an electronic shop as we Google mapped the address you send and it’s just an empty parking lot …

In the eloquent words of The Champ, I lost it.... I snapped! My reply....

B***,

The address I sent to you is the company that I work for, which is located inside the Port of Valleyfield. As you may well know, Google Maps is limited to public roadways, and as such, the image you see is only the entrance to the port. The port itself is restricted Federal property, so street view will not reveal our location.

I've attached a picture of the satellite Google Earth view, showing our actual location. The red Google marker is the point where street view ends (the parking lot outside the port gates). The black arrow is our shop location inside the port (Bureau 400 is the office, arrow precisely, our electrical workshop). The red line delineates the port property.

In all honesty, do you folks really think that I would send you an address that would send the transformer to an empty parking lot? Seriously!

This is getting ridiculous. I need a transformer. How many hoops do I have to jump through? I'm beginning to truly regret that I ever bought this amp. Seriously. Besides what the amp cost me, if I can't get the transfo, I'm also out $300 for the complete tube set I bought for it.

I'm VERY frustrated. If I had known that it would have been such BS to get a simple part, I wouldn't have touched this amp with a 10 foot barge pole.

"Don't be the guy digging ditches. Be the guy making the shovels" (Bruce Egnater quote). Sure. But if you break the handle, we're terribly sorry... we only sell those to licenced carpenters.

If I can't get a transfo, I guess I could always sell the tubes. At a loss of course. The amp? Right now I have an old Univox U-1050 on my bench that needs parts, but quite frankly, I wouldn't even dream of parting out the Tourmaster to repair the Univox. I wouldn't even spend any time, or money, getting a Mercury Magnetics replacement transfo. No sir. If I can't get an original transfo for it, I'll tell you what I would do with the Tourmaster...

We have a training fire pit at the fire house. Gasoline and a match will take care of that. Yes... besides my close to 25 years experience as an electro-mechanical technician, I'm also a trained fire fighter. Not only will it will be useful for training the new guys on fire extinguisher use, but will teach me a VERY valuable lesson; never to touch Egnater products ever again! That alone will be worth what I paid for the amp. A sound investment indeed (no pun intended).

Sincerely,
Dino

Egnater... yeah... right! Fooled me once. Lesson learned.

Now, I'm off to the Electro-sonic web site to order a Hammond transformer for my old Univox. They ship, and right to my doorstep to boot!

UPDATE!!!!

Received a phone call from the CSR at Egnater tonight, and the issue has been resolved. As expected, this entire drama was a result of corporate machination getting out of control. It's not to say that others will not face this type of frustration with Egnater in the future, but for my part, the agreement reached between them and myself seems to have culminated in a satisfactory conclusion.

May I also add, Bruce Egnater himself was kind enough to drop me a note advising me that he would look into the matter. Needless to say that I was somewhat surprised, but pleased nonetheless.

I wish to thank everybody here, not only for enduring my gripe session, but especially those kind enough to reach out to me with help where getting the transfo for me was concerned. I'm truly grateful to all. Pretty powerful, this internet thingy. Never ceases to amaze me.

To all those expecting the next Hen's Tooth Café episode to feature an amp burning, I'm truly sorry. Looks like it won't be happening. Yet.....