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I think this is weird


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I have a question for you wiser & vastly more experienced folk. About a year ago I got a new Carvin DCM1000 power amp and when I hooked it up I was surprised at how little power it had. With the amp wide open and the outputs on my pre-amp turned up there was very little sound coming out of the speakers. That can't be right, I thought. I checked the connections and tried different cables and everything seemed to be right - granted, I'm no expert, but I have a pretty good understanding of electronics and I read all the manuals carefully.

 

Anyway, here's the weird part - one of the first times I was using the amp live the right channel suddenly came to life, heralding its arrival with a huge feedback squawk. For about two weeks I had one channel that worked like it was supposed to and one that was quiet (if they were both set exactly the same the right channel was dozens of times as loud). So I used the right channel for FOH and the left for on-stage monitors and one day the same thing happened to the left channel - with a tremendous jolt of feedback it woke up and said "Hey, I'm supposed to be half of a 1000 watt amp!" (it was not at all fun to be standing in front of that speaker)

 

Since then (about a year of regular use (10-20 hours/week)) the amp has worked fine. My speakers seem to have survived their encounter with the amp-wakening and I'm pleased with the whole system. I can't figure out what happened, though. I wrote to Carvin's customer service department and they said they had no idea - they offered to replace the amp but since its working fine I figured I'd stick with the one I had (one in the hand being worth two in the bush and all (or however that goes...)). I didn't have the speakers hooked up any differently before & after - as far as I can tell it's entirely internal in the power amp. Has anyone else heard of anything like this? Can anyone tell me what happened?

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If you don't mind me saying so, I think you should've replaced the amp when Carvin offered. Now if something's wrong it may very well be out of warranty. All manufacturers make lemons... some more than others.

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J. - cheerfully conceded. It was so tempting to avoid the hassle of packing it up and shipping it back and waiting at least a couple weeks to get a new one that I sort of crossed my fingers and said "I hope it keeps working" - which it has, but I know I got lucky.

 

agedhorse - Yeah, I am sure. One of the first things I checked when it was being weirdly quiet was to make sure all the switches were correctly set.

 

It's like there was something inside the amp that needed to be opened up by being used, which doesn't make eny sense to me. I'm sort of relieved, in a way, that no one immediately posted anything like "Oh, you didn't flip the ExtraQuiet switch to the non-shipping position."

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