Slight distortion on my GK MBEIII

[EntropicLqd]

Hey all,

I was playing last night and I noticed some slight distortion coming from my little GK MBE-III where there was none before when playing an E or below. It was pretty much an acoustic set so the amp was barely being driven.

I've pulled the amp out tonight, and found the same thing. After experimenting with the volume, gain, and limiter I decided to push the amp a bit harder and use 50% on volume and gain (wooo!). Not only did the neighbouring village complain but the distortion also vanished.

I wound the volume & gain back down (to their normal 1/2 settings) and the distortion was initially absent, but returned.

It seems that for low volumes and low notes (bottom E or below) I'm not driving the amp hard enough. Is that even possible/plausible? Or is it simply a cry for help from my amp, in that it wants to be used a little harder?

Anyone got any ideas?

[alexclaber]

Loose connection somewhere? Low voltage causes poor contact, sparking etc, turn up and higher voltage bridges the poor connection effectively and thus no distortion. My first hi-fi amp used to suffer with this on the cheapo spring clip speaker terminals.

Alex