DC-3 help needed ... possible purchase

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rvschulz

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some local CL guy has listed a DC-3 head and a 1x12 cab ... and says the head is "broken". I am trying to find out what kind of cab it is - hoping it's a Thiele with an EVM-12. Anyway, if anyone has had one break or works on them and ... wants to make me an offer or work with me on what could be wrong ...

I am not adverse to buying everything if it's a Thiele and letting someone have the amp at a ridiculous price (including shipping) - the LAST thing i need is another amp. Of course, I've said that before.

I will be checking all day today ... if you want to chat, PM me a phone number. Thanks y'all !

Roger
 
more info from the seller:

"the amplifier does come on, but it plays at a really low volume...then it gets super loud randomly. i wish i knew exactly what was wrong with it. i will tell you this, i opened the amp to see if something was obviously blown on the inside...and there is a radioshack capaciter in there. there are two capaciters i believe, and I can't tell you if the other capaciter is the original or not."

i would try some new tubes first ... but if anyone has any other ideas, let me know. i am hoping it's not just a regular 1x12 Mesa cab - hoping for a thiele, but he doesn;t know. will look at it tonight.
 
rvschulz said:
more info from the seller:

"the amplifier does come on, but it plays at a really low volume...then it gets super loud randomly. i wish i knew exactly what was wrong with it. i will tell you this, i opened the amp to see if something was obviously blown on the inside...and there is a radioshack capaciter in there. there are two capaciters i believe, and I can't tell you if the other capaciter is the original or not."

i would try some new tubes first ... but if anyone has any other ideas, let me know. i am hoping it's not just a regular 1x12 Mesa cab - hoping for a thiele, but he doesn;t know. will look at it tonight.
Click to expand...

don't tell him it's a thiele if he sends you pics of it and it turns out to be one! If he finds out it's worth more than he thinks he might jack the price up. With radio shack parts in it there is no way to tell what all it has been through. It is most likely salvagable by someone that knows what they are doing (Mesa authorized service tech)....

And once you get it fixed up you might end up keeping it! I bought a DC-3 head for $400 shipped and I love it! It rips through my newly acquired thiele cab!! I've owned several Mesas (Roadster, Mark IV, Stiletto Ace, F30, Rectoverb) and the DC-3 is my favorite!
 
:D Thanks Adam! I can use all the business that I can get! :D

Can you take a picture of the inside and email it to me? andy at amps-tubes dot com

I would be more than happy to look at it for you. I usually recommend a tune up for these amps to avoid any future (next 10 years or so) problems.

Thanks.
 
Funny, I emailed with that guy earlier in the week asking if he would sell me the head alone. I was hoping to buy the head shell to covert my combo and figured I might get lucky and be able to fix the amp.

Couldn't talk him in to shipping it to me.

Good luck, I hope you can resurrect the head. You'll enjoy the DC-3 if you've never used one. Puchy little amp.
 
well, the guy traded e-mails with me, but has not had any contact for a day or so. i think it is a std 1x12, not a thiele. he says it has some volume jump problems ... i am not so hot for it at this point that if i don;t get it i won;t be upset.

perhaps he might figure that he should get it repaired and then sell it.

roger
 
well, it looks like i will get a shot at this amp on Thursday evening. still non-descript on the cabinet - and has not sent me a pic of the guts of the amp. If it comes on and makes noise ... and has the footswitch(es) to channel switch and that works, i guess i'll buy it.

my 1st option was to hope it was a Thiele or a EVM-12 or MS-12 speaker in the cab and dump the head ... but if it's a regular or wide cab with MC-90, i may just dump that and run the head ... if i can get if fixed reasonably.

of course, anyone who is REALLY interested can make me a offer I can't refuse ...
 
okay - latest update. i bought an amp and cab. the previous owner explained what the problems were a little more clearly - he said the amp worked fine when they practiced. They got to some gig, set up, and then he left the amp on standby and they waited to play. When they went to play - sound level (master on 3) was not audible - turned it up to 9 to get it to play. then ... a few minutes into the gig - FULL POWER. supposedly caused some hearing damage as he lept to turn it back down. played fine the rest of the way. did this one other time.

he said he swapped all the tubes - and i have the "original" tubes as well as the amp is currently tubed with non-label EL-84s ... I didn;t bother to check them too much.

he turned the amp on, waited maybe 10 seconds from standby to on, and it worked fine. switched channels - adjusted the tone knobs and volume and reverb ... by the way the reverb is pretty nice ! after he played on it for maybe 10 minutes (since he described the problem - i wasn't hanging around to make it fail if it would, and it didn;t fail every time) we flipped it off and he pulled the chassis. I didn;t see anything ...

IMG00001.jpg

IMG00002.jpg

IMG00003.jpg


anyway ... i am going to give the amp a test run this weekend to see if I can make it mess up - but i definitely don;t need the cab so if anyone is interested ... let me know.
 
Cool deal. That was pretty silly of him to turn the master up to 9!! He should have known something was wrong. Hopefully it won't act up on you and you'll decide to keep it! ;) If it does crapout on you then I would get some contact cleaner (i recommend deOXiT) and clean all the jacks on both the head and the cab as well as the pots on the amp. I did this to mine and I can tell a difference. I even cleaned the reverb RCA connections and noticed it sounds better now too. Heck, I would do this anyway regardless of if it craps out on you! Hopefully it won't. Sounds like a bad tube was the culprit which has been replaced (so he says)...

Is that a open back widebody cab?
 
thanks for the info on the cleaner - I'll look for it at the local music store today. I am not sure if the cab can be considered a "wide-body" I will measure it later ... the seller did not have a boogie footswitch but used a Boss line-switch pedal to channel switch. I got that as well ...

i'm sure that sometime next week i will be selling something - i just don't have room for everything and i don't play all my current amps much anyway ... DC-3 may be on the block as I REALLY love the Mark IIIs ...
 
rvschulz said:
thanks for the info on the cleaner - I'll look for it at the local music store today. I am not sure if the cab can be considered a "wide-body" I will measure it later ... the seller did not have a boogie footswitch but used a Boss line-switch pedal to channel switch. I got that as well ...

i'm sure that sometime next week i will be selling something - i just don't have room for everything and i don't play all my current amps much anyway ... DC-3 may be on the block as I REALLY love the Mark IIIs ...
Click to expand...

Well, now you know what a DC-3 sounds like! It should sell pretty quick if you clean it up and take some good pics of it from all angles. Give it a few more days though to give it a thorough honeymoon phase! ;)
 

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