I have two old solid state amps from the 80's, a Fender M80 combo, and a Peavey Stereo Chorus 212.
On both, the speakers and cabinets work great, I made the 212 into a cab for a separate head, and have the amp sitting on a shelf. Both amps have scratchy sounding pots and inputs, the power module on the Peavey is dead, and the Fender has a broken instrument input. I'm looking for the opinions of those with some experience, is it worth the time and money to try and repair these amps, with the intention of keeping and maintaining them, or should I salvage them for what I can? Also, are there people who take up these old amps as a challenge (donated), and then the parts wouldn't just end up in the dump?
Thanks!
Yeah both of those amps are great solid state amps. I would fix either of those amps up any day of the week. Also, you have great tech advice available to help you along online. As far as, is it worth the time and money to repair these amps....? That depends on how skilled you are at repair and what parts needs replacing. I, for one, started repairing amplifiers so they would not get tossed in the dump. So yes there are people who love these old amps and want to see them working again.
You should have some troubleshooting skills,of course, such as reading a schematic and identifying parts , finding them on the PCB and viceversa, also taking some voltage measurements.
In a way, *we* are repairing it, but you are our eyes and hands :)
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Both amps have scratchy sounding pots and inputs,
Normalwhen amps are in storage long time, doubly so if in a humid place, that is symptom of grime, maybe light corrosion, nothing WD40 or a specific cleaner can´t solve.
Absolute worst case, you replace the part.
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the power module on the Peavey is dead,
well, that will require troubleshooting, but in general Peavey designs are very logic, well made and clean, so repairs are relatively straightforward.
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and the Fender has a broken instrument input.
ok, input jacks suffer a lot because people yanks guitar cables, step on them, amps fall on their face, etc. , but usually it´s a "mechanical" problem, rather than an "electronic" one, so in general soldering must be refreshed (it may have cracked) or worst case, jack is replaced.
Fender uses a special kind of jack, not the usual one found everywhere, but since Fender amps are so popular, quite a few vendors carry them.
So all problems described are "solvable" .
Try that with latest crop of amplifiers, where preamps are just a square 100 pin DSP chip with proprietary (secret) software which does it all , complex class D power amps and complex switching power supplies.
Now *those* are "dumpster meat" :grr
Thanks for the replies. Looks like I might have a new hobby for over the winter!