Motorboating on a Tremoverb HELP!

[sirdss]

Hi...

My Tremoverb has been motorboating in the Clean and Blues settings.

In other amps like old Fenders this useally means a cap job and it's when the caps are like 20 years old.

I just bought this amp and it didn't have this problem when I tried it out at the store. Someone did opened the amp to fix the reverb that was not working at the time.

Could this be a rectifier or power tube?

If anyone hes any experience the moterboating Tremoverbs PLEASE let me know what you have experienced.

Thanks,

Dave

P.S. No the tremolo is not active...

 

[Boogiebabies]

Take a look at the tube task chart in your owners manual and see what tube are for what channel. I have had plenty of preamp tubes go Mercury outbard on me. It'sprobably just a preamp tube. You can try replacing them 1 at a time with a new tube to see of the problem goes away.

 

[tele_jas]

By motorboating do you mean the sound is coming in and out??

I had a 1995 Tremoberb head that started sounding like the Tremolo was on one night on the clean channel, and it wasn't. I swapped tubes (power and preamp) and it still went in and out until it was out more than in. I took my amp to a local Boogie repair guy and he found the problem...... it was a LDR (light detecting relay, or something like that) that was used for channel switching and it was going out. He fixed it and it only cost about $40 for the labor and $3 for the new LDR. The amp worked fine after that, but I learned to ASWAYS bring a back up amp now on matter what amp I have!!

I later found out from Trace at Voodoo amps that this is a common issue with early Tremoverbs (that's why they no longer mod them), so I called Boogie and they said it was a known issue and that there is an upgrade that they recommend all Tremoverb owners getting that cost between $235 and $350 and they replace all the LDR's in the amp and a few other things and I also heard they put brand new tubes in the amp (not sure about the new tube part though).

I bet that's what is going on with your amp .

 

[boogieslide]

I don't get it....why does Boogie charge $235 and $350 to fix a known problem that cost you $40 to repair with a local tech? I am assuming they replace more than just the one failed LDR, but still it seems expensive and it is kind of their fault in the first place.
I had a Tverb for a little over a year and never had a problem with it although all these LDR stories made me worry about it reliability.

 

[tele_jas]

I guess the instability issue didn't become known until after a few years, and none of those amp are under warranty anymore. I kind of think it's not too cool to say "oh, we made a mistake..... but we'll fix it for $300".


From what I understand they fix more than just one LDR and I think upgrade a few caps, replace several LDR's and some resistors as well (and possibly put new tubes in), they basically give the amp it's 100,000 mile over-haul to make sure it last another 100,000 + miles.

I guess for some people, they don't ever have a problem and for some they do. The early Road Kings had a similar problem and since most were under warranty when they discovered this problem they sent out a recall and offer the upgraded components for free.

Kind of shotty, but in a way I understand from a business stand point and after 10 years of use, they can't fix our problems along with theirs.... It'd be nice if they did, but we'd end up paying $2500 for Dual Rectifiers and $3500 for Road Kings.