Distortion on my Hartke HA3500 amp

[dazza14]

I've just bought a second hand Hartke HA3500 combo amp.
I tried the amp at the sellers home and it sounded fine.
Drove it home in the car and now when i plug it in it sounds awful!!

It sounds like it has a distorted sound and no matter what i try to do to fix it it doesn't get better.
Any help would be massively appreciated....


I've tried it with the valve/solid states turned up or down and nothing helps.

[BOD2]

First you need to do a quick check of "other" possible problems -

1. Is the bass guitar ok (if it's active, do the batteries need replaced) ?
2. Is the guitar lead ok ?
3. Is the speaker cab ok ?
4. Is the speaker cable ok ?

If possible, check each of those items with a different amplifier.

Think what was different to when you tried it at the seller's house.

If you still have distortion when you've ruled all of these out, then it could be the amp - but check these first.

[dazza1414]

Hi, i've changed the power cable, the guitar and even the guitar lead and nothing makes a difference.
The only thing i can think of is that while i transported it in my car it got knocked in someway and it's dislodged something. Maybe a component from the power board or something that was loose and i made it worse.
It has small castor wheels and i 'pushed' it twenty yards across the car park so maybe the vibration highlighted a problem...

I think i'll check it into an amp repair place and see what the cost is to get it sorted. Hopefully it'll be minimal.

[Ancient Mariner]

[quote name='dazza1414' post='1008229' date='Nov 1 2010, 09:57 AM']It has small castor wheels and i 'pushed' it twenty yards across the car park so maybe the vibration highlighted a problem...[/quote]

Most likely the vibration has loosened a component or fractures a solder joint. Check the pre-amp valve is seated properly. However if something does require resoldering then unles you can see it easily (unlikely) then you'll need someone to look at it.

Just one more thought - clean up any sockets that you plug into, and especially anything like a loop on the back that doesn't get used much. Could just be a bad earth on a socket somewhere.

Edited November 1, 2010 by Ancient Mariner

[icastle]

I used to have an HA3000 that had a problem similar to the one you are describing here.

Try plugging a cable from the "Send" socket to the "Return" socket - that sorted mine out until I could do arrange to do a more permanant repair on it.

Unfortunately, Hartke have had a pretty poor reputation for PCB quality over the years and my problem didn't get resolved until I resoldered vast quantities of dry joints on the underside of the pre-amp board.

HTH