Simul-Satellite Crackle

[Boltino]

I just picked up a Simul-Satellite head. It's great except for one issue. It intermittently crackles from time to time. When I first opened the box (bought through e-bay and shipped to me), put in the tubes, and fired it up, I gave it about 5 minutes of warm up. About a minute after I started playing on it, it began to crackle and in about 10 seconds, the volume went down to nothing. After being down for about 10 more seconds, the volume crackled its way back up then the amp played perfectly. I played it for another 30 minutes with no problems. It played fine the next 5 or 6 times I fired it up over the next week. Then it happened again. The amp began to crackle a few minutes after beginning to play. The volume didn't drop this time, it just crackled really bad for about 30 seconds then played just fine. My first thought was that it might be the tubes (even though they were new) so I shipped them back to the seller to be checked. They were tested and appear to be fine. Anyone have any other thoughts on what the problem might be? Thanks in advance for your time.

Wes

 

[Boogiebabies]

Dirty pots can crackle as well as dirty sockets.
Check the speaker and speaker connections as well.
Whenever I get an amp I clean everything from A-Z before I even turn it
on. It takes out the guess work if there is a problem.

 

[Boltino]

Thanks for the reply. The amp was immaculate when I got it so I didn't give it a full cleaning as I usually do. (I worked on my '64 Tremolux for several days before I was satisfied). One of the pots was a bit scratchy, but I fixed that with some Deoxit. It's not my speaker cab or the cabling, I checked these too. Thanks.

Wes

 

[Boogiebabies]

If you are a tech, I would open it up and use a chopstick on the components to see if you can isolate a cap, resistor, or a cold joint.
If it has not been used much, maybe the filter caps are having trouble operating and they might me trying to reform themselves. It's hard to tell.
It may be an issue with the EQ circuit, Faders or LDR's.

It should not be too bad to isolate. The Sat is basically a minimal clean preamp with a simul output section and EQ.