Mesa Boogie DC-3 Problem

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Morbid

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Hey Fellas,

I'm not sure if I posted this in the right place, but it was the one that seemed most suited for this.
Last year I bought my father a Mesa Boogie DC-3 Combo Amp for Christmas. Like most of us, he fell in love with the amp, and was very pleased. Well, over the last couple of months the amp has developed a strange problem, but only on one channel.
When my dad is playing on the clean channel and strums a chord with reasonable force/attack, or hits a note with decent strength, the amp crackles, almost like a bark, almost as if the speaker is going bad. When you first turn the amp on, it doesn't happen, but then as the amp warms up, the crack starts and gets worse up to a certain point, and then never gets any worse than that. However, the amp doesn't crackle on the lead channel, regardless of force, attack or volume. This naturally means that the problem doesn't lie within the speaker itself. I thought surely the problem had to be the tubes, so my dad went out and bought replacement tubes for ALL of them...every single tube in the amp was replaced with brand new puppies. The problem still persists. I told my dad to pull the chassis and take a look around to see if he could find anything obviously wrong...blown cap, burnt area, etc. He went over it with a fine tooth comb several times and never found anything, so now we're totally lost.

I called Mesa to ask them what they thought, and they had no words of advice, other than to find a qualified amp tech to fix it. Well, I don't even have a Mesa Boogie dealer within an hour of me, and I've yet to find a qualified tech within even reasonable driving range.

So I'm hoping you guys with ample Mesa experience may have some helpful tips for me! It would certainly be appreciated, as my dad has been without his amp for a couple of months now and it seems time to get the issue fixed.
Thanks in advance for whatever help you guys can render!

Jordan
 
Well,
If you've tried new tubes and it is only happening in 1 channel, then it could be a bad solder connection or possibly a part is failing. It is hard to say without looking at it.

These amps get hot. I would say that you might want to make sure your amp is not against the wall or anything else that might be causing it to overheat.
Also, try aiming a fan into the back of the amp.

If this doesn't fix it, and you can't find anyone in your area, I would be happy to look at it.
 
Thanks for the insight and advice Monsta, it's certainly appreciated.
If I can't find anyone closer to home, I'll likely be heading your way. Thanks again

Jordan
 
No worries! It's good Kharma!

When I 1st started working on amps, everybody on the internet (most everybody) was so gracious with their knowledge. Just trying to return the favor!
 
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