2. amps-preamps
  3. 1038466429

Help with blown amp

I have a Plinius SA-102 amp which I have had for a few months. It sounds great and I have never had a problem with it. This evening, I was in another room, not listening to music. The amp was on as always, but no music was being played. All of a sudden I heard a loud hissing sound which lasted for about 3 or 4 seconds and then a click. The amp has an automatic mute switch which kicks in when there is a problem. When I checked out what was going on, the mute switch was on and I could smell burning plastic. The mute switch will not go off, and the amp will not work. I immediately unplugged the unit and tried to remove the top lid (per the instructions) to see if one of the fuses has blown. Unfortunately, I can't unscrew some of the allen nuts as they are too torqued.

Can someone please help me get a good night's sleep and tell me that it's only a fuse? Could it be worse? Any ideas on how to get overtorqued screws out?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
gboren

Showing 1 response by plato

plato
1,543 posts
 
I agree with TWL that the burning plastic smell would seem to indicate some sort of fried part as opposed to just a popped fuse. Chances are that you probably will not be able to repair the amp yourself and since you can't seem to get the cover off sending it back makes the most sense. Remember: it's only an amplifier and it can be repaired. The downtime may pose an inconvenience, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Just another question -- do you also keep your preamp on all the time and are you sure the problem is isolated to the amp? Perhaps you have another amp you can substitute to check that everything else in the system is working properly...
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