My old woodson amp

[zakelectric]

Hey guys, first post here, nice to meet y'all!

A while ago I traded an old peavy 300 watt bass head for a Woodson combo amp (Solid state), It has fender speakers in it. Sounds GREAT! That is when it works.

Right when I turn it on it sounds fine and usually I can play for a good 10 minutes before it starts going in and out of being very heavily distorted and quiet, to the point where it just sounds terrible. If I kick the amp it sounds normal for a couple seconds or a minute then goes back to bad.

I'm hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction here, sounds like it might be an easy fix. I have lots of experience with electronics so lay the heavy stuff on me! Thanks!

[J M Fahey]

You can subject it to the Chinese torture to force it to confess. :trouble
You order some take away chinese food, grab one of the chopsticks that accompany it and use it to slightly whack *everything* inside it.
You can prod everything, move wires, tap on pots, etc.
At some point you will find something that makes noise, cracles, pops, etc.
Look around and resolder or unplug, clean and reinstall, whatever.
You might also have , say, an electrolytic with a cracked pin just entering the case, it will *seem* to be attached but when you wiggle it it crackles.
Guitar/bass amps vibrate a lot.

[joecool85]

I'm with Juan, probably an electrical disconnection happening somewhere.  If you don't like chinese food you can always use a drum stick or any other non conductive "stick" to gently tap things.  Make sure you do this while it's on.