So I picked up two PS-2A for my rig. One of them crackled and popped when I’d shut down for the day, but found a way to avoid it if I left the amps on standby for a few minutes before shutting off.
But then tonight I get home and when warming up on standby, that same PS-2A starts crackling and fizzling and popping. I go over and see that the left tube (furthest from power cord) was very bright orange and smelled like burning. I played and noticed the volume was dead on that one compared to my other amp.
I did some trouble shooting by swapping amps, same problem. So swapped back and somehow the problem went away and now the tube is not bright orange and it’s performing normal, but I imagine much like the post below me, it requires tube replacements. Is this correct?
If you are comfortable with it, I would remove the top cover and verify the tubes are seated properly into the unit. Something may have shifted in transit. If everything is seated perfectly, let me know and we’ll move on to troubleshooting the rest of this.
Not a problem at all. I removed the top, and just wiggled the tube around and when I turned it on it cut out again from a cold start. So I turned off, removed the tube entirely and re-seated it. It’s worked, but I will have to follow up if it acts up again over the week, as it “fixed itself” yesterday too after the initial startup. Will report back.
Just want to follow up on this after a few days. I play daily after work and every time the PS-2A in question does some whirring fizzy sounds when I turn it on (not particularly loud so it’s fine if that’s normal). And sometimes when I’m taking a break from guitar but leave the rig on, it will do this. But so far it hasn’t cut out or glowed bright orange again. If this is all normal, I’ll just continue using it until it acts up again.
I also have to leave the amps in standby for about 30 seconds before shutting everything off or it will make extremely loud popping sounds, but I sort of figured this was the power station turning off before my Friedman Plex shuts off, so it was just bypassing it and that was the amp sound.
But very satisfied with the product other than these sound issues.