Do I sell my Wizard or take Boss to small claims court?

[glip22]

Damn, I just played my MC through a TAE for an hour just now. Being in Japan, I'd be so screwed if this happened and I had to ship it to Canada and back. Can anyone explain the fuse thing? What's bad about a 10A fuse in there? Would different fuses have prevented the OT blowing in OP's case?

Layman's description. The fuses job is to blow in case a bad tube causes an arc. With such a high amp fuse it will not blow and send the spike right to your transformers which can easily open the windings in either your mains or OT. Usually OT when it's a bad tube. There are other scenarios that can fry your transformers as well. The fuse is there to do a job. At 10 amps or even 6 or 7 it may as well not even be there ,as your protection is very limited. 4 amp in the mains 1 amp in the HT is plenty. If you play out increase HT to 2 amp

 

[Dave L]

10A isn´t a Wizard special, though, I´m pretty sure my VHT 2150 has 10A on the mains as well and no one accuses Steve Fryette of blowing up his amps. It has standard 1A on the secondary DC fuses for the power supply and OT, however, but I can´t imagine Wizard has 10A there as well?

But anyhoo, there can´t really be anything special with how the Wizards work with the TAE (or any other load) when compared to using a cab. Watts are watts, ohms are ohms. A load is a very basic thing, and I´ve yet to see one of any brand or make actually damage an amp. In my mind most perceived damage from using loads is from guys cranking the amps way more than usual, which brings up stresses and faults you would never have seen when turned up to, say, basement or moderate rehearsal space levels. Power tubes really flaming out and what not. I would guess more guys blew up their OT with stage volume in the 70s than today, and the loads are bringing some of that vintage flavor back into our lives

 

[narad]

Just checked mine -- 4A and 2A, just as written on the chassis. Maybe the move to 10A is a new thing, since mine is fairly old.

 

[SpiderWars]

10A is way too big, that isn't something that 'changed' to account for such a large increase.

And fwiw, my understanding is that the Mains fuse should be SLO-BLO to account for the high inrush current from the filaments and the HT fuse should be regular (not SLO BLO) to protect the OT. Not all amps make that clear on the back.

 

[Samhain]

I got an original Scholz power soak & THD Hotplate. They function perfectly.
I have no need for any other kind of attenuator.

 

[Dave L]

I got an original Scholz power soak & THD Hotplate. They function perfectly.
I have no need for any other kind of attenuator.

This isn´t really an attenuator, though, it´s basically what used to be called a dummy load paired with a SS poweramp.

 

[ElectricVoodoo]

$1500 + shipping to swap in a new OT seems completely asinine

That's what I was thinking too. Crazy

 

[ElectricVoodoo]

Pretty sure this is because of the Boss TAE and not the Wizard.

Who would trust their amp with a Boss product in the first place is beyond me.

The TAE is way too feature heavy and has too many bells and whistles if you ask me. Like anything, the more shit stuffed in it, the more shit to go wrong with.

Boss products have been around for decades and have been proven reliable by pro and amateur musicians all over the world. I honestly dont think that boss reliability is an issue.

 

[thegame]

Pretty sure this is because of the Boss TAE and not the Wizard.

Who would trust their amp with a Boss product in the first place is beyond me.

The TAE is way too feature heavy and has too many bells and whistles if you ask me. Like anything, the more shit stuffed in it, the more shit to go wrong with.

Boss products have been around for decades and have been proven reliable by pro and amateur musicians all over the world. I honestly dont think that boss reliability is an issue.

A Boss stompbox is one thing, a complex device designed to safely handle tube amplifier loads is quite another. I’m curious which country the TAE is manufactured in.

 

[CornNutz]

Boss would have their Attorneys litigate you into the stone age and SW is a no-load company. Good luck with all that.

Boss/Roland is in LA California, attorneys are not allowed in small claims court in CA. Now the OP has to sue them in CA so hopefully he lives there, or willing to take the trip.

 

[thegame]

Who remembers Doug Roccaforte saying use of a THD hot plate or any attenuators automatically voided the warranty of his amps? This was a huge issue 20 years ago with tons of people damaging their Mercury Magnetic equipped Roccafortes with attenuators. I don’t know if such a device incompatibility was from the amp design, transformer design, both, or Doug’s overall douchiness in general.

 

[Fordman65]

There are certainly good and bad load boxes and attenuators on the market. Something I've always tried to be careful with. THD hotplates? A BIG no thank you. Suhr or Fryette? Absolutely good products. Say what you want about the Wizard prices, but they are high quality products and there's not much out there that sounds like them. This boils down to either User Error or Boss failure. Not sure how to prove the latter, eventhough that is probably most likely. I would just sell the Wizard as-is. Someone with the necessary skills could get it back up and running, but you'll never recoup your costs based on the repair estimate from Wizard

 

[stratjacket]

That is a real bummer, bad luck. As stated above, I don’t see how any legal recourse can be made, so many variables. The best course is probably trying to escalate up through Boss support and raise hell. I think SW probably has an obligation to help push it with Boss, but that’s about it for their part.

Scary...

 

[journeyman73]

There have been a lot of rumblings about the TAE potentially not being 100% safe, even when compared with comparable devices, with the higher wattage amps.

Take a look at some of the threads across forums, read between some ‘insiders’’ lines, etc and there is some notion of things like this being an elevated risk with the TAE

 

[Tiger1016]

There have been a lot of rumblings about the TAE potentially not being 100% safe, even when compared with comparable devices, with the higher wattage amps.

Take a look at some of the threads across forums, read between some ‘insiders’’ lines, etc and there is some notion of things like this being an elevated risk with the TAE

To be fair, you can also find various threads with other competing options if you look around. Kind of seems to be the nature of the beast. Not sure that I have come across anything legitimately concerning yet other than 2 publicly reported issues with seemingly defective TAE units. I guess defects and unit failures probably happens with every load box to some degree, but the number of TAE units in the wild has to be significantly lower than the alternatives.

What I find to be more tangibly concerning/frustrating though is we still don't seem to have any impedance curve graphs for the TAE to see how real and safe it is or isn't.

 

[fusedbrain]

But anyhoo, there can´t really be anything special with how the Wizards work with the TAE (or any other load) when compared to using a cab. Watts are watts, ohms are ohms. A load is a very basic thing.....

This is not correct.
The impedance curve of the load is critically important to proper functioning of the output stage of a tube amplifier.
There are some poorly designed load devices on the market that have dangerous impedance curves, with the impedance spiking up to hundreds of ohms at certain frequencies, usually in the lo frequency area. Use of a depth control at large volume will make this situation worse.
The fly-back voltage from this condition will destroy the OPT.
The ONLY load device I would use or recommend at this time is the Suhr stuff. YMMV....
If using the TAE, I would suggest do not use the resonance control set to any setting other than low.

 

[Dave L]

But anyhoo, there can´t really be anything special with how the Wizards work with the TAE (or any other load) when compared to using a cab. Watts are watts, ohms are ohms. A load is a very basic thing.....

This is not correct.
The impedance curve of the load is critically important to proper functioning of the output stage of a tube amplifier.
There are some poorly designed load devices on the market that have dangerous impedance curves, with the impedance spiking up to hundreds of ohms at certain frequencies, usually in the lo frequency area. Use of a depth control at large volume will make this situation worse.
The fly-back voltage from this condition will destroy the OPT.
The ONLY load device I would use or recommend at this time is the Suhr stuff. YMMV....
If using the TAE, I would suggest do not use the resonance control set to any setting other than low.

I stand corrected. I wouldn't think a seasoned outfit like Boss would make a mistake like that, but I guess anything's possible!

 

[311splawndude]

(no dog in the fight, sorry Erik for the trouble - hope Boss does the right thing but I think this will be tough to prove....did SW give you an actual reason why they claimed it was defective? Do you have that in writing?)

I know very little about attenuators .....so I'll shut up now.

 

[311splawndude]

Also, for those who didn't read the entire thread Erik said that Wizard said $500 for the OT. The $1,500 part was for Wizard to do a bunch of other work on top of that too ($1,500 - $500 = $1,000) so that was confusing but $500 seems reasonable.

 

[Eventide]

Just checked mine -- 4A and 2A, just as written on the chassis. Maybe the move to 10A is a new thing, since mine is fairly old.

My MCII is also 4A and 2A, and it is a new 2020 amp. The only 10A fuse I've seen on one is for an older amp with a different tube compliment.