SnorkelMonkey

Years later and still playing through it.

Maybe the best $50 used I've spent on an amp? The bedroom amp mostly but I grab it now and then for rehearsals depending on the band I'm sitting in with.

If everything was taken apart and put back together house I would look for one of two things. Double check to see if the remaining leads for the LEDs are not somehow touching each. If they are take a pair of dikes and snip them closer to the board. If that checks out I would then look at the underside of the PCB board to check for damaged traces. The rocking motion could have lifted and or cracked a trace possibly causing an intermittent open circuit. If that's the case an easy long term solution is to jumper the trace by soldering jumper wire or a solder joint.

Thing is... That little 8" speaker has such a wide range and is very efficient for a little bugger. I've not come across any 8" guitar amp speaker that comes close. It's in no way like an efficient modern 12" but it can hang with those old school 12's. Thing is... I'd rather have the modern more efficient 12. But hey, for a little 8" that thing slays.

Tonight I sat in with a pretty loud punk act with a heavy hitting drummer. My role on several numbers was to play clean. My normal grab an go is on my bench and I didn't want to grab a monster so I rolled the dice with the Pathfinder.

I honestly didn't think the amp would keep up with this group max'd out dirty. To my surprise with the LED mod it kept up in boost mode completely clean and was loud as {censored}. The other guitarists were floored that it could do that.

It could never keep up at those volumes before without the mod, certainly not clean. It would just barely keep up in that setting with everything dimed full on distortion. {censored}ing great mod, I'm glad I thought of it. : patshimselfonback:

Hey Bot, did you check the top of the pan? If you go with a different speaker check out 8" PA speakers. I've put just about every 8" guitar amp speaker on the market in there and they all sucked by comparison to the stock speaker which I suspect is some sort of home audio/PA speaker. They all display limited frequency range and (buzzy) early breakup whereas the stock speaker has more bass, better highs, and has a decent amount of headroom by comparison.

I have a pile of 8" speakers vintage and modern (Jensen's vintage/reissue, Weber, Vox). I tried few of them in the PF and found the stock speaker to be the best in the stock cab. I've ran it out into a few different cabs for a comparison. The 8" stock speaker holds its own up against a number of larger speakers. Up against really efficient wide range 10" and 12" and multiple speaker configs not so much, as you'll find they edge out ahead in the volume and bass dept. But for a crappy 8" speaker it's pretty amazing that it can keep up with some of them. I can't say that about any of the others.

I just pulled the board and hit the bottom with a soldering iron. If you can hit it up top go for it. Some just cut the leads which would also do the trick.

That might work. If you can't find any markings on the tank shoot me an email and I'll see about checking mine out for you. It might have been on the inside of the tank? I could swear it was a sticker on the outside.

I have both the PF15r and the AC4TV8. Both different animals. Both with 8" speakers. The AC4's speaker like most 8" speakers sounds tiny and a little anemic. By contrast the PF's sounds more like a 12" all be it maybe a less efficient 12". The AC4 has early tube breakup. It's been a while because I modified my PF for more headroom and volume but the PF breaks up later and has a more solid state "screamer" type distortion where they were using solid state components to get a tube like sound. Something close that comes to mind are effects pedals that attempt to do the same. With a regular rock band you'd be pressing it to gig with an AC4, maybe with a larger cabinet but you would be at full tilt the whole time. The PF can be used to gig with. It has enough headroom and volume (more with the LED mod) to gig with a mellow act, and pushing max with a more aggressive act. At the price If I was lack of an amp and needed one on the cheap I would get a PF first. I look at the AC4TV as more of a home rocker for practice and for use in the studio.

Hey Monsterbot, I was looking into upgrading the reverb tank but never got around to it. On the stock tank itself it does have the input/output ohms ratings where you could go off and find a more robust tank from. I remember finding something that was the largest that could be tacked down inside the PF's cab on the floor. Sorry I forget the model it's been a while.

Nope, I decided against it. I picked mine up for about $50 used and I only wanted to do very small effective mods to the amp. The LED mod for me (ymmv) opened up the boost channel, I'm a little less afraid to take it to louder jams and I didn't really get along with the stock distortion. The mod cost me about 20-30 minutes of my time and no $. Lately that's all I've been about, just doing what I can with stuff and not getting too obsessed with it. If I sell the stuff down the road it's all win win with not too much time or money lost in upgrades. The reverb tank is good for what it does. I'd like a little more out of it but lately I've been using pedals to cover those bases.

Great amp, great mod.

Muy-Caliente-VOX-Pathfinder-15-15r-Modification, AKA LED MOD

If it was a good player and sounded good I would SWOOP in on that

Ouch! That's really expensive for a solid body guitar. Why are they asking so much for it?