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Any Thoughts on a Carvin SX-200 for $100

Started by guitarkitbuilder, March 18, 2011, 12:08:03 PM

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guitarkitbuilder

I have an opportunity to buy a Carvin SX-200 amp for $100 with a non-working clean channel (owner reports noise and hum on it).  The distortion channel is reported to work fine, and the effects are fine.  I haven't worked on one of these before but from a look at the schematic I think the clean channel will be fixable.  Carvin sells these new for $299 and I see one one eBay for $269.  If you know this amp, what do you think of it?

bry melvin

 I use Carvin SS amps for performing and recording.

They are great amps:

However IF you can't figure it out yourself almost no one fixes Carvin amps. Carvin has an exchange program. Currently the SX200 exchange is 200.

The Carvin SX200 blem on sale at Ebay from Carvin themselves for 269 might be a better deal as it comes with a Warranty.

If you are confident of your skills I'd go for it though.

Another thing is Carvin has been through several speaker suppliers. If it is an older 200SX with the speakers that were made by eminince it's worth the 100 bucks for the two speakers.

I use NEWER sx200s to perform....but I have sets of those old emminence made speakers that I use in them. They simply sound much nicer. I find the newer GT12 Carvin speakers have a woody hollow sound to them.

guitarkitbuilder

Thanks Bry, I picked up the amp for $100 with the intention to repair and resell.  I don't think it has the nicer speakers, they are marked British Series, 12", 100 watt, 8 ohm, with no mention of Eminence anywhere.  I'll get to try them out tomorrow when I can make some noise.  I don't have an idea of the age of this amp, but I may get one when I pull the circuit board out tomorrow.

What type of music do you play/record with this amp?

J M Fahey

It *might* still be Eminence made.
Does it have a thin strip sticker anywhere, with some code on it? (Usually glued to a side of the magnet, although it might also be on the frame itself)
If so, post a picture.
If not, post frame and magnet pictures anyway; Eminence frames are typical, plus the back magnet plate usually has a small "useless" hole (they insert a hook there while electro-painting it)

guitarkitbuilder

#4
OK here are photos.  What do they tell us?



The sticker - there's one on each speaker, facing each other


The only "hole" that I saw


Appears to be a not earlier than 1997 build


The power output board is Rev(E), that may help date it

guitarkitbuilder

Also, if you know, what type of capacitor are the yellow ones, eg C24 in the center of the 4th photo? 

J M Fahey

Yes, those are definitely Eminences.
The frame is the typical black painted stamped one, with a single reinforcing "ridge" along each arm.
The hole I mention is in the thick back plate, near the edge, covered by the "British Series" sticker.
I think those yellow caps are Tantalums, a fancy type of electrolytic.
Does your amp have digital effects?
Because the parts seen on that board look so.
The speakers must be one of the 175458 variation of Legends.
If they are bright-shy I guess they may be Legend1218.
They are good, but somewhat heavy.
If you can repair that amp,  you got a mighty fine amp for $100 + parts.
The empty cabinet+speakers+chassis+transformer is worth way more than that.

bry melvin

I looked up c24  shows polarized so those would be tantalum.

bry melvin

#8
QuoteWhat type of music do you play/record with this amp?

The Carvins were bought to do this album:

http://sunsets.arivacaart.com



clarification  the album was recorded using a vintage (64) Guild amp ART digital processors and Peavey rack preamps DI.

I asked Carvin for something to use to do the album live.  Ended up with SX200s.

Note you need the footswitch for the effects on this amp to work properly. With the footswitch the channels remeber the settings as you switch back and forth.

Also you get a sharper cleaner tone by removing the footswitch and plugging directly into input 2

I have never used this AMP without the bues switch on (channel 1)  That gives me the best tube emulation/blues sound I have ever gotten from an SS amp.

guitarkitbuilder

JM, thanks for letting me know, I'll up the price when I sell it.  I found this item confirming it as well based on the part number 381208  http://www.carvinmuseum.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=121073&sid=96c34ddb7cfde035211e19bf3d10820d .

Yes the amp has digital effects, and thanks on the tantalum call.

Bry, thanks also for the help and looking up the part.  I'll get to work on fixing the amp today.  Channel 1 works fine, but channel 2 makes a lot of noise as soon as the volume pot is raised above 0.




guitarkitbuilder

FYI, I found a bad op amp that was causing the problem with the clean channel.  In case anyone else is working on one of these, the current nomenclature is for channel 1/2 while mine uses channel A/B.  The schematics shown on the Carvin site are very different than my model, and it wasn't until I took a look at the SX100 schematic that I saw that the drawing was labeled SX100/SX200.  This was the correct schematic version for mine, at least for the preamp board.

The bad op amp is on the channel B input, which was passing DC voltage to the volume pot and causing the noise/hum among other problems.  I should have this amp ready to go once the part arrives. 

What's the fair market value of this amp, with no footswitch, given it's got the Eminence speakers?