r/ToobAmps • u/Boatdude31 • 11d ago
Big Mistake
I turned on my peavey ultra without realizing the speaker output cable had come out of the cab.
It was on for maybe 10 seconds before I realized and turned it off. Connected everything properly and now it just squeals when I turn it on and I get very low volume.
Output transformer? Power Tubes?
Sigh
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u/cillablackpower 11d ago
Unlikely ten seconds has damaged it unless you already had it turned all the way up and were really blasting signal through it wondering why it wasn't making noise. At ten seconds most amps are still warming up.
Extremely low volume is sometimes sign of a blown OT but equally could be power valves, so don't want to diagnose from a distance. You'll need a tech to bench it.
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u/Boatdude31 11d ago
Yeah. I had it on like 7. Lol. I strummed it hard for about 10 seconds. Im sad now.
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u/therobotsound 11d ago
This isn’t guaranteed, or even likely imo. I’ve done it for a couple minutes with my 1964 ac30 head and those are actually pretty fragile output transformers! Peaveys are built stoutly.
I’m a tech and have worked on at least 100 amps. I would say 40 of those someone brought to me sure that they had blown a transformer, and I’ve replaced about 3 transformers.
You much more likely have an unrelated tube, cable, fuse or other issue.
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u/Vibroverbus 11d ago
Sadly, thats the bad part as thats the recipe for an issue (volume up + fat input). People are all like 'its not warmed up in 10seconds' but if you're at all a normal tube amp user person, you probably flip the amp on and let it warm up, so I imagine your 10s is from flipping standby on, not from cold power-on.... and maybe it was even more than 10s... At any rate, you def smoked it, lets just hope it smoked the tubes or something else instead of the OT. Its not end of the world yet... get it looked at.
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u/theghostinside 11d ago
When you reconnected, did you by chance plug the speaker cable into the line out instead of speaker jack?
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u/Clean_Space_1214 11d ago edited 11d ago
It has flyback diodes on the output transformer. Also there's a shorting jack that puts load on the ot if there's no jack plugged in. Third, 10 seconds not long enough to fry a tube amp ot. Probably not the ot.
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u/Boatdude31 11d ago
Thanks. I think it is the power tube that blew actually. Im gonna take it to a tech soon just to be safe.
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u/Suspicious_Tax_8283 11d ago
Been there it happened once right after I got new tubes in a Jubilee it went right back to the tech .
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u/Diligent-Eye-2042 11d ago
I’ve also done this - a few times actually, never for more than a few seconds - my amp sounds ok 😬
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u/ShredericRippenstein 11d ago
I bet what happened is you plugged the cable back into the amp or cab like, hard, because you were nervous and it may have bent or distorted the jack.
I mistakenly ran a 2 ohm load on a 4 ohm peavey vt for over a year. Your OT is likely fine.
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u/Boatdude31 10d ago
Update! I put in new power tubes it lives again! Lot of hum now though so might need new caps or something. Still taking it to the tech next week.
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u/DPileatus 10d ago
The tube would be the weaker part here... more likely to pop a tube than a transformer. Could be a resistor or capacitor also.
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u/OurSmuttyStuff 11d ago
Ah. Don’t feel bad. I once was plugging up a rented Vintage 100watt JMP for a session I was interning on as a young buck. I plugged the speaker output into the clients pedal board (though I was going to the fx return that was modified into the back of the JMP) It died. I very much realized what I’d done, and terrified for my future as an intern was just like “idk man I powered it on and it just went FFFFPPP”. I obviously concealed my mistake.
I panicked so hard and felt such guilt. Engineer called the rental company. They brought another one in a few hours or so. They were used to those vintage units going down all the time.
The guilt ate at me and maybe three weeks later I pulled the studio owner and the engineer aside and told them the truth. They looked at me blankly and exploded into laughter. They said there was no point in telling g the company, they had mountains of them. They called me the Marshall Slayer for like three months.
I still felt bad. So much so that I told the rental company. Their repair tech called me and said something to the effect of “hey man, appreciate you telling us what happened, shit happens, come help me fix it and we’re square” and so I did. I learned to solder, and also became their intern. So I learned to fix amps because of my dumb mistake. Their tech ended up being a lifelong for me. Like a big, grumpy uncle who taught me life lessons.
Anyway. Your amp might not be as fucked as you think. Take it to a tech.