Disaster , first time I played loud!!

Well , I have only used the GM36 at home so far mainly at very low volume, Last night was the first practice at live volume.
I carefully copied my pre-sets 1 , 2 and 3 to 21 , 22 , 23 but adjusted the power to 36 from 1
Ready to go!
Switched on the amp , let it warm up whilst I set the PA up

Played the first few notes at 1amp then switched over , whilst playing to 36 and ... silence ...
The singer said there was a yellow flashing light , I tried everything but still silence..
The pick went into the Valve tester and all lights were red , manual said the Anode fuse probably had gone.
This is an internal thing for a technician !!

Amp back at the shop now so fingers crossed !

Anyone else had this problem ?

I now wonder if I need to take 2 amps to gigs just in case it does the same again , brings back memories of years ago and my Peavy classic 50 , always wondered when it would stop working , not if!

Ric

I think you are the first to report an anode fuse blow. I play mine so loud in 18 and 36W mode I use an external power soak when I gig to keep stage volume down.

I had a teething problem with my TM36 too.  I bought it before last Christmas, used but only just.  The story was that it had been bought only as a backup to a bigger setup, maybe it just didn't fit the bill once the buyer got it home.  Either way you could see that it had stood for a while unused.  At that time I was using it into a single 1x12 8ohm cabinet.  The manual says it can cope with 8ohm of course.  However, running at 1W on the power soak, I managed to get it to cut out on three occasions. It always came back up after four or five seconds but then, things got worse. Once while I was playing at 1W into 8ohm the thing dropped out and the whole internal structure of the left EL34 started to glow red hot. Now this is a 'very bad thing' for valves and is often associated with low bias. I immediately kicked it into standby and it calmed down. When I came out of standby again it was in diagnostic mode with the pair of valves turned off. I shut it down, waited a worried minute or so, then ran it up again and it was fine. And when I checked, the bias settings reported back ok.  It hasn't had a problem since.

I really think there is almost a case for saying that they grumble if they are NOT used. For example, things like electrolytics don't like to be left too long without a bias voltage applied to keep them formed. They recover once they are put back into use but it takes a little time and a gentle hand to allow them to recover back to spec. And sitting idle shouldn't have an effect on valves, they're just bits of coated metal and wire sitting in a vacuum with voltages applied, but who knows! I wouldn't worry your head about it. When it comes back it will be in full working order. Use it at 36W a few times so all of the valves get a run out then trust that the H&K safety system kicks in. You may have a single pair shut down but you shouldn't lose the whole amp.

The only way forward is to use the little beast to do what it was made for. There are a lot of these about out there now and most of us have no problems in use, just visualise yourself as one of those satisfied owners not as the problem child. Did you see two TM36s in Milton McDonald's rig, Jeff Lynn's guitarist at the Hyde Park concert recently? Can't post the pic here but this link shows it: TM36s at Hyde Park

Well, that sucks. I've not had any problems with mine. I generally run it at 18 watts, but have run it at 36 on occasion. For me, the master volume control was implemented in a very positive way, allowing the amp to sound good at most ranges of the control. Anything less than 18 watts is running through the attenuator. I've found I like the tones better without the attenuator.

As for a back-up: I bought a Crate Power Block solid state micro head over a decade ago to carry to gigs. A couple years ago, I got an Electro-Harmonix 44 Magnum as a gift. It's the size of a Boss pedal and pushes 44 watts of class D power. It lives in my gig bag, coming out to make sure it still works every few months. I never have to worry about a back-up

The "active" componenkt on my active power soak is a crate power block - not necessarily the best amp in the world, but 150 watts at 4lbs, usable input stage, and power amp in (stereo no less), the power block has served a variety of uses since I bought it. So on the odd chance my GM36 fails at a gig, my line 6 goes straight into the power block, gig saved. Is the power block fails I can drive the speaker with the GM36 - but if you are familiar with the power block, failure is very rare.

Kudos to H&K and Kenny's Music (Dundee) UK , having had the amp for a few weeks they have decided to replace it with a new one (it was only 3 weeks old) . My old H&K statesman was lent back to me in the meantime.

As an aside , I used my sons GM36 at a gig this weekend with both our H&K cabs , in the same venue the previous amp blew , same plug socket! I had 3 settings 1 for 5W 1 for 18W and 1 for 38W all identical. Despite a heavy drummer and the other guitarist having a 100W Vox I only used the 5W setup.

New amp tomorrow!

Ric

That's great to hear.

My buddy bought one about 3 weeks ago. Last night he tried adding some fx, but the knobs did nothing. Turned the amp off, and on again. The perspex lit up, but no lights on the control panel...no sound at all. Went through the motions a few times...nothing. Left it off for a while and got it to work. That was the only time it worked again. A few more attempts yielded no results.

My Switchblade did the same thing, and it turned out to be the fuse. I'm hoping this is all that's wrong with his. Although the fact that it came on once leaves me unsure.

Another friend has been using his for over a year with no issues. I'm hoping this one is just a fluke.