Solid State Guitar Amp Forum | DIY Guitar Amplifiers

Just bought a Fender Ultimate Chorus 2X10 Amplifier.  2 Inputs, Reverb effect built in, etc.  Solid state digital amp.  Got it home and there was a lot of buzz on the clean and drive channels.  About half volume it starts popping loudly.  There is a repetetive cracking noise any time I play, but not just sitting.  The buzz is there even when nothing plugged into inputs.  I took the cover off, removed all the connections and cleaned them and reconnected them, put a nut on the input jack that didn't have one.  Found 2 capacitors that had been glued together.  The glue was coming loose so I ran a strip of electrical tape between them to hold them from shaking and breaking solders.  Put it back together and it sounded great.  After playing at 3/4 volume with the gain way up on the drive channel for about 10 minutes, no touching the amp, the crackle came back and it started popping again.  Please help, I can't figure out where to start!

Did you resolder the two large caps?  Or just tape them together?  I resolder those as a matter of course.

When the board is out, I always look along the front and resolder any controls or jacks that need it.  And check the solder on any of the large ractangular cement power resistors.

The amp only crackles when you play?  Ball up your fist and whack the top of the amp.  Does that make it crackle?  It shouldn;t.  If it does, there is a loose connection inside somewhere.

Oh, just maybe a loose transformer mounting bolt could cause this.  SNug up the nuts.

I am voting the main filter caps need to be soldered.