# Hughes & Kettner tube socket problem



## Wild Bill (May 3, 2006)

Here's a question I received about an amp problem. As I have said before, I prefer not to answer questions as private emails but rather will do them through this forum. That way others may get some benefit and there is an opportunity for other techs to chime in and perhaps help even more or even correct this old guy's mistakes!:zzz:

Most important to me, it will cut down on the number of duplicate questions I answer!


*I have an amp question... i once found the amp tone of my dreams only to have it die.. i bought a hughes and kettner 25th anniversary 20 watt tube amp last fall brand new.. i had it a week and i started to get this crackle sound through the speaker.. i sent it back and got another brand new one in exchange.. this one took a month and then started the same thing.. i sent this one back and got a refund.. i was a bit disappointed as this was the amp for me but i could not trust it and after having both with the same issue, i knew these amps have problems.. It turned out after talking to a amp tech at Long and Mcquade, he said there was a tube socket pin broke.... so this amp was breaking pins, because of the vibration.I also found out from Hughes and Kettner they knew this amp had problems breaking pins but just didnt bother fixing it because it was not a wide spread issue.. it depended on how you played, it had alot of bottom end and thats what i liked..and it could not take it. my question is .. is there any way of , making this amp stop breaking socket pins..i would sure like to have it back someday.. is there a way of reinforcing the pins too make them stronger or better heavier socket pins... if was just a solder joint broke then i think it would be easier but this was a pin broke and everytime it vibrated it would cause a crackle sound through the amp...just wonder what your thoughts are .
*To break socket pins is not that easy a thing to do! Must be some vibrations! More likely the connection from the pin to the circuit board was poorly soldered. It shouldn't be that difficult to touch up the solder points of the tube socket pins. However, if they'd tell you a lame ass story like that it may not be solder connections at the sockets. More likely there are bad solder points all over the board! Touching these up in an H & K can be a pain, since the amp is rather crowded. The most practical approach is to touch up every solder point you can reach and hope you fix the bad ones. Trying to isolate each offender can be all but impossible.

If I had the amp and could see that indeed the socket pins are broken then I would believe that they have some poor quality sockets. Replacing them might take an hour or two of labour, since modern amps are a true aggravation to get the circuit boards out and then back in again. Every shop has its own hourly rate. I charge $60/hr. You may find someone with a different rate.

Also, I'm suspicious of how the store handled the problem. Surely H & K has a warranty service arrangement. Why didn't the store send the amp through those channels? Was the employee just lazy or is there some problem with their arrangement to handle the line? It might not hurt to send an email to the company yourself and inquire.

Wild Bill


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## parkhead (Aug 14, 2009)

L&M is the authorized service center & Yorkville sound is the Canadian distributor. H&K should have an engineered solution for the problem. 

Unfortunately after the refund the follow up trail goes cold. If this guy still wants one of these amps he should direct his inquiry to H&K or Yorkville to see if the issue has 

been resolved prior to taking another dip. 

p


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## RobQ (May 29, 2008)

I had the exact same thing happen to my 20th anniversary H&K; pretty much the same amp except for some cosmetic changes. The tube sockets are cheapie plastic things.

Sold the amp shortly after that. Its almost total lack of clean headroom made it unusable as a gigging rig except in extreme low volume situations, and discovering how cheap the sockets were made me lose all confidence in it. Plus I start experiencing weird behavior from the fx loop.

I would not recommend this amp to my worst enemy.


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