# Dead attenuator -- now what?



## devnulljp (Mar 18, 2008)

My little Weber minimass 50 attenuator seems to have up and died.
It's only a few months old so is still theoretically under warranty, but shipping to and from warranty repair is going to cost more than either buying a new one or having this one fixed locally.

Before I do that, any idea what _can_ go wrong with one of these?

It was working fine, then it started doing this thing where the volume would suddenly tail off to nothing -- sounded like a dying battery in a pedal.
Today it's just sounding like a bad connection or something...drop-outs...then nothing.

It's not the amp (just back from a service) -- everything works fine with the attenuator out of the path.
I've double checked the impedance (there's aswitch for 4, 8 or 16 ohms). problem persists in bypass mode -- so signal is not getting into/out of the attenuator.

I don't see anything obvious inside -- but I also don't really know what to look for.

I can't see any loose solder joints or anything that looks like it's exploded or corroded or anything like that.

Any ideas?


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## zdogma (Mar 21, 2006)

Looks okay from the pic, hard to know what's going on.

If you don't get it up and going PM me, I have a Weber micromass 50 watt that I'll sell or trade.


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## sliberty (May 17, 2008)

There are really only two main components in there. The Rheostat and the Speaker Motor. The rest are just passive stuff like resistors (large and small) and jacks. If it is not a loose connection or a bad jack, then it is likely that the Speaker Motor is blown. You can't get replacements except for from Weber. I'd say send it back and make him cover the shipping since it is defective and in Warranty. But even if he only covers return shipping, it should be worth it to send it in. If you don't want to bother, mayeb you would like to send it to me (I'll cover the shipping) and I'll play with it and learn something from it.


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