TM36 newby

Hi, just got my TM36 30th Anniversary head. Only had a brief play with it so far, but initial impressions are pleasing. Got a rehearsal on Sat, so will have a good opportunity to assess it in a band environment.
Running Strats through the usual suspect pedals, into the TM, then into a Celestion loaded Marshall 1x12.

Ok, used the TM36 on two gigs now. Just as well as I'm running it through the pa, it's drastically underpowered. I can hardly hear a note I'm playing with the amp running flat out, tone is suffering badly as I'm having to dime master & gain to coax a little volume from the damn thing.
Conclusion? An expensive mistake.

TM36 now being returned to the retailer.
If you're considering purchasing one of these amps, please be aware that it's entirely unusable in a live situation, 36w but sounds more like 3.6w! I've never heard anything so drastically underpowered before, our keyboard players 20w combo was wiping me out!
It looks very pretty though.

There must be something wrong with it, I have an TM 18 combo, that is plenty loud, gigged with it about 20 times, I also bought the GM36 and I use many settings on 18 and some clean on 36 to get headroom (that's even with two of my preamp tubes swapped out for lower gain), these are plenty loud (in fact before I swapped the preamp tubes I was running at 18 watts for most settings and around 6 to 7 on my master). What happens when you switch between the different wattage settings is there a noticeable difference (wondering if there is something wrong the attenuator, and it's always on or maybe output stage is defective)?

Ran it on clean & crunch through my Marshall 1x12, my Peavey 4x12, and, rehearsal studios Marshall 4x12. Tried every power setting - no fault indicated on rear panel. Took everything out of the signal chain, tried 3 different Strats straight into the input, still inaudible. Real shame, as, when playing at home, I was getting some nice sounds from it.
The search for my perfect amp continues.....

If you get a chance try a different one in the store, I'm sure it has enough power, must be something wrong with your unit. They are pretty amazing sounding amps normally.

Think I'll do what I should've done in the first place, buy a Boogie.

Can't go wrong with a Boogie, great amps

Have you checked that all 4 output valves are working when you think it is too quiet?  The powersoak LEDs on the back should show you.

If you're running flat out there are safety features which can kick in.  One of these is that if it detects an imbalance in any output valve it shuts down that pair.  I have had this happen myself with an 8ohm load, especially on the 1W setting where you tend to push the amp harder because it is being restricted in output.

If this is the case then I think you are simply running it too hard, maybe into an 8ohm load.  This is within spec but will push the output stage a lot harder and maybe out of bounds.  (That's what protection circuitry is for after all).

It's gone now. I checked all the flash codes against the table in the manual, nothing unusual showed up. Guess it just wasn't meant to be. I was talking to an amp specialist today, he told me I must be the 6th or 7th person he'd spoken to in the last year, that'd had a bad experience with TM's. He was full of praise for some of the H&K 100w heads, so, don't think he had an axe to grind.

Cheers guys, it's been a gas.

Mattocaster wrote:Ok, used the TM36 on two gigs now. Just as well as I'm running it through the pa, it's drastically underpowered. I can hardly hear a note I'm playing with the amp running flat out, tone is suffering badly as I'm having to dime master & gain to coax a little volume from the damn thing.
Conclusion? An expensive mistake.

I can't imagine how loud your band must be?

The one thing that really blew me away initially was how freaking loud it is at 36watts.

I play mine at the 5watt setting and I'm still louder than hell when rehearsing. Our live volume is not hugely louder than rehearsal in the smaller venues, I can't image setting it to 36watts - ever - using my Les Paul . Something is clearly wrong with the unit you had.