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Is there a long lasting guitar amplifier?
Maybe you could share your observations?
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01-03-2025 04:24 AM
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Teal stripe Peavey Bandit, maybe?
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When I was younger, I built a few amps, so I would say that a high quality solid state amp with regular professional maintenance, periodically changing parts like caps etc, would probably never break down.
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I've had my Mesa/Boogie Studio 22+ for 35 years , it's always been rock solid , fresh tubes as needed.
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No amplifier ever breaks down – until it does.
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The older the better, especially if one doesn't follow the internet fads of changing half the amp components with new stuff that may fail within a year.
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The title and the question in the first posting are at odds:
Title: Is there a guitar amplifier that will never break down?
First post: Is there a long lasting guitar amplifier?
Answer to the first question, typical of answers to questions with absolute words like "never" in them, is no.
Answer to second question is Sure, lots of them. But they all require maintenance and repair from time to time.
But I'm not sure the second question as asked is what the OP really wants to know - it's a pretty broad question. If the OP could recast the question in more targeted terms that address the OP's specific concerns, the answers might be better.
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That's why I'm asking such questions because two amplifiers - a head and a combo - suddenly broke down.
Originally Posted by dconeill
I suspect that the components of these amplifiers may be cheap.
These are not old amplifiers and little used.
Replacing parts in an amplifier that is little used is not a good idea.
But I'll have them repaired anyway.
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Maybe tell us what they are. For example, I wouldn’t repair a Temu amp.
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Any acoustic guitar worthy of its name is its own amplifier which won't break down before the guitar. That's as close to "never" as you can get I guess
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There are individual amplifiers that will never break down, but it's impossible to predict which ones they will be. There are individual amplifiers that will break down very quickly, but it's usually impossible to predict those as well. It's the same for cars, refrigerators, and everything else we use. Some models are more prone to breakage, of course, but even in the worst models there are individual units that run seemingly forever. In the best, there are individual units that break quickly. Material science is imperfect, and stuff breaks. It's not possible to infer overall quality from one item.
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It's a law of physics that the universe tends towards entropy. So, therefore, there is nothing that doesn't break down.
Entropy - Wikipedia
Just offering a little perspective here.
In more practical terms, yes of course there are amplifiers that tend to last longer than others- just like there are humans who tend to last longer than others and who break down less often. If a reasonable goal is for an amplifier to last longer than our playing career, perhaps 50 years, I don't think it's possible to guarantee that will happen. Capacitors and resistors fail, solder joints crack due to thermal expansion and contraction, manufacturing and design flaws occur, damage from getting jostled around, etc.
I have an early 70s fender pro reverb that I've owned since probably 1986. I've had to have it partially recapped a couple of times, the first time I think due to aging components but the second time maybe due to "the great capacitor plague" affecting the components that were used to fix it the first time.
Capacitor plague - Wikipedia
Any amp built with capacitors or had them replaced during this time period is probably prone to failure.
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it is also circular reasoning. Originally Posted by RJVB
Any acoustic guitar worthy of its name is its own amplifier which won't break down before the guitar. That's as close to "never" as you can get I guess
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Nothing lasts forever. When you buy a product that has a lifetime guarantee, the company making that guarantee is betting that you will sell the product or die before they have to make good on their guarantee.
The most reliable amps are ones that are made by top companies and are somewhat new. While i see guitars as something to keep for as long as I want, I see amps as something to replace every 5-10 years or so (just like a car).
Who are the top companies? Here is my list:
Fender
Marshall
Mesa
Quilter
Henriksen
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The only amp I've ever had that died quickly was a Mouse (battery powered amp that was popular in the 80s). The one I had started making hideous noises after the warranty period, and I couldn't get anyone to fix it). I also had a Roland Microcube with a plastic input jack that broke after maybe five years. I was able to fix the jack temporarily (repeatedly), but it finally broke for good (and no one would replace it for an amount less than the cost of replacing it). Other than those, everything else I've owned has essentially lasted forever. The tube amps I've had would break and/or need servicing from time to time, which could be expensive, but they were always fixable. Originally Posted by kris
My current amps are Fender Champion 20, which works fine after around 9 years and probably a few hundred gigs and jams, and a Quilter Aviator Cub. I've only had the Quilter for about a year, but it seems pretty bullet proof.
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Huh. That's an interesting perspective; I've never really thought of it that way. I think, like many people, I see the expense of an amp as an investment with an expectation of lasting performance. However, an amplifier is indeed a highly energized object causing heat with moving parts causing vibrations. The more one uses it, the more likely it is to wear out. From this perspective, vintage may not be better (but vintage may be more readily repairable than amps with PCBs, micro-sized electronic components, more plastic and less metal, etc.). However, when an amp fails early in its service life I feel annoyed, frustrated and ripped off. I had an Egnator Rebel 30 combo amp which failed within a couple of years; it was repairable and the amp tech said basically the wiring harness was pulled so tight that it was putting stress on the solder joints, which were indeed what failed. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
The guitar has moving parts, also, but the stresses are much different. The structure of the guitar seems to be modified by and to adapt to those vibrations over the course of its life, improving in most cases rather than breaking down.
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Anything tubes with older tubes will usually give a sign that tubes need changing. However anything with new current tubes can die just like that. My Pro Junior IV was working fine, until it wasn't. The preamp phase inverter tube suddenly died with no warning at all. Supposedly lasts 10000 hours, i have maybe played 100-150 gigs with this amp, never use it at home, so 250-300 hours. Easy fix, but still, there was no warning, volume loss, hiss, nothing. Only reason it didn't happen on a gig was i was making a new pedalboard at home and it was next to it so i used it.
My old 60s Princeton still has tubes from the 70s, works fine (fingers crossed). But i have it checked every few years. Most vintage amps i know of, the tubes last forever, with the average use most players will do, that is a couple hours a day low volume, a few gigs a month.
90% of the time when tubes are involved they are the problem. Or just a fuse. If using tube amps, the best reliability advice i have is to use NOS tubes, but i wouldn't go through that cost with known brands unless the amp was vintage or very expensive, handmade etc. On the other hand, there are many old tubes from the 60s, 70s and 80s, that are far better than current ones and don't cost a fortune because they are not the well known brands. For example in Europe's Tube Amp Doctor, two RCA 6v6 are 170 euros, two Russian Nos 6v6 are 30 euros. Just buy from a reputable shop.
Generally speaking, these last two decades, are the digital technology's domain, that's where quality and innovation happens. In tube amps, the quality just ain't there, especially with the better known brands like Fender and Marshall etc. Just nowhere close to the money they're asking. A new Mesa for 3500-5000$? A new Fender for 2000-3000$? Why? At least Marshall has a lot more models with logical pricing. You check technical videos on YouTube exploring the amps insides and the cost cutting is intense. For amps that last, you either have to go boutique, and i mean well established boutique not starting out and unknown builders that have only made a few amps and are still discovering potential problems, or look at silverface amps from the 70s (or 60s if money isn't a problem). Or like Stringswinger said, use new amps like expendable things and sell them after a few years, buy something else.Last edited by Alter; 01-03-2025 at 01:53 PM.
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Nope, more a tautology because we're talking about a closed system. Originally Posted by Cunamara
For solid-state amps used within but close to the limits of their operating range it could be interesting to look at studies of SSD failure in big datacentres. There should be a lot of data on that - there definitely is for HDDs. IIRC their MTBF follows a Poisson process (a former colleague who'd worked in a bank datacentre explained this *long* ago), implying that both a new and a used disk could run fine for (another) 10 years or break down next week.
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Your amp, if you bring a spare.
Seriously though, I wouldn't trust anything modern further than I could throw it (or the day after the warranty expires). Older SS amps, and tube amps that aren't overly complicated.
With some research, you should be able to find out if an amp has reliability or service issues.
Another benefit of buying an old amplifier, is that all of the lemons are long gone. If something lasted 40 years already, have it serviced by a reputable tech, and there's a good chance it will outlast you.
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All electronic components will require maintenance. There is never an amp that won't break down. Most people aren't putting stuff through hard use so there are a lot of 60 year old amps that still work. I've bought a couple and then put them through hard use and then they didn't work anymore, lol.
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Quilter has been the closest for me. Going on 15 years!
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One of the best things you can do is plug everything electronic into a surge protector/power conditioner. Lots of places have spikes as well as over and under power situations.
My tube and solid state amps work fine but they are all pre-80s.
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Here’s one:
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I’m a bit worried that if I venture an opinion I’ll be struck by Murphy’s law
Sent from my iPhone using TapatalkLast edited by Christian Miller; 01-04-2025 at 06:59 PM.
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There are still a large number of this yamaha series of solid state amps kicking around 50 years later. The 50 watt one was used by many jazz guys back in the day. Mine was great until some punk rocker kicked it over at a garage jam session. My 1983 fender princeton reverb II was all hand wired. Mine still had all the orginal tube when I got it a few years ago. I dont think its ever been touched other than a couple tubes I tried in the reverb circuit. Those were both designed by paul rivera.
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