Amps Carvin 1x12 Nomad

CapnDenny1

CapnDenny1

Student Of The Blues
I bought a Carvin 1x12 Nomad amp today in dirty tweed. Hopefully it will clean up, but if not I may make a custom wood cab for it.

A guy had it on Craigslist for $380 which seemed like a reasonable price? When I looked at it I noticed it had a kind of motorboat or buzzy sound? He said it was the fan, so we turned off the fan and unplugged his guitar cable, but it was still there. I offered him $340 and he took it. Hopefully it just needs new caps. He said it was an '80's model?

He had a gorgeous Fender Twin Reverb sitting there! So I said, "Sure I'll give you $380 for that!" he declined my generous offer on the Twin. :-(

I was explaining to him what all the knobs did on the Carvin. I told him I like to fix old amps, so I would be doing the work on it myself. So he asked what I charged to fix amps? It turns out he had an old tube amp that belongs to his Father in Law, that he said starts cutting out and the tubes get really hot after about an hour. He took it to a shop who charged him $100 and put a new set of tubes in it, which didn't help. So I really didn't know what to say, so I said that I would diagnose it for $50. Once I knew what the problem was then we could discuss what it would cost to fix it. I said he would have to pay for parts. So I have my second paying gear related repair! Woo Hoo ! Actually it is pretty cool. But of course now I have to fix the dang thing! The pressure.

Then I get to figure out what's up with the Carvin Nomad. Anybody know how to clean tweed cabinet covering?
 
mountain man

mountain man

Still got the Blues!
That is a great price for the Carvin Vintage Nomad. There is a used one on Ebay right now for $525. New from the factory are more of course. I like those all tube amps as they can play clean or then can be over driven real nice with the Soak knob. I had JJ's installed in my Vintage 33 which is basically a 33 watt Nomad. I've got the 50 watt Nomad as you have also. I've not heard of the problem you are having so I'm stumped on that one. I know when I had JJ's installed in the 33 I had the guy flow fresh solder at different connection points and it really freshened up the sound. The Carvin Vintage amps are my kick around amp when I don't want to take the Nace Pro-18 out. In fact, I've got two Carvin Vintage Cabinets for my Nace Pro-18 head and it sounds great! Different than the Greenbacks in my Pro-18 combo. Three thumbs up for the Carvin Vintage! :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: I hope you like it once you get it fixed!
 
Elio

Elio

Student Of The Blues
CapnDenny1 said:
I bought a Carvin 1x12 Nomad amp today in dirty tweed. Hopefully it will clean up, but if not I may make a custom wood cab for it.

A guy had it on Craigslist for $380 which seemed like a reasonable price? When I looked at it I noticed it had a kind of motorboat or buzzy sound? He said it was the fan, so we turned off the fan and unplugged his guitar cable, but it was still there. I offered him $340 and he took it. Hopefully it just needs new caps. He said it was an '80's model?

He had a gorgeous Fender Twin Reverb sitting there! So I said, "Sure I'll give you $380 for that!" he declined my generous offer on the Twin. :-(

I was explaining to him what all the knobs did on the Carvin. I told him I like to fix old amps, so I would be doing the work on it myself. So he asked what I charged to fix amps? It turns out he had an old tube amp that belongs to his Father in Law, that he said starts cutting out and the tubes get really hot after about an hour. He took it to a shop who charged him $100 and put a new set of tubes in it, which didn't help. So I really didn't know what to say, so I said that I would diagnose it for $50. Once I knew what the problem was then we could discuss what it would cost to fix it. I said he would have to pay for parts. So I have my second paying gear related repair! Woo Hoo ! Actually it is pretty cool. But of course now I have to fix the dang thing! The pressure.

Then I get to figure out what's up with the Carvin Nomad. Anybody know how to clean tweed cabinet covering?
Click to expand...

I bought a well-used nomad a couple of years ago. The tweed on mine was fairly dirty from being lugged to a lot of gigs. I ended up using Murphys Oil soap as a spray cleaner and it actually cleaned up fairly nicely. I think that any non-harsh spray or leather cleaners will probably work well.

BTW, after a new set of JJ tubes from Eurotubes I have to say that my Carvin really sounds spectacular. Eurotubes offers a Blues Option substitution that cleans up the soak channel a bit and really sounds nice.
 
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CapnDenny1

CapnDenny1

Student Of The Blues
I made him a decent offer, since I felt it was already a good price.

The amp I am supposed to fix is a Spectra 30 T. It was from a small company in Kansas that was bought in '83 by Dean Markley and changed the name to Spectra. It is supposed to have a really nice clean channel. I found schematics that are basically all wrong, but based on that it is pretty standard. I have read where there is a flaw in the design where they used the same power supply for the bias as for the dc voltage to drive the op-amps around the reverb, and the relays used for channel switching. It is a cut little amp.
 
CapnDenny1

CapnDenny1

Student Of The Blues
I got around to playing the amp last night. Really nice clean. The gain channel is nice too, but when I turned it up a bit it started doing drop outs for a split second with a harsh pop or click. It was worst when I hit a loud chord. It does it on the clean channel too when turned up. So I have some work ahead of me. It almost sounds like it's arcing over? maybe a bad connection somehwere?
 
CapnDenny1

CapnDenny1

Student Of The Blues
I finally got around to checking out the amp. I found one of the power tubes was barely hanging from the pins. I guess it bounced out on the ride home?

I pushed it back in and tried it out. Loud or soft no cut out.

So that's pretty cool.

It still needs some new caps, which I ordered last week. So i will do a before and after on the noise, to see if the re-cap helps or not.
 
CapnDenny1

CapnDenny1

Student Of The Blues
I decided to try the Carvin out with my Les Paul. OMG did it sound great. The Carvin, not the Les Paul. Well I guess together. So Fender and Fender , and Carvin and Les Paul? It really did sound great. Until all of a sudden it sounded like the whole this was about to self destruct, was buzzing and squealing really loud. I hit the standby switch to shut it down. I tried again later and it was OK? I guess the amp needs some work. But at least based on what I heard with the LP it will be worth it.
 
mountain man

mountain man

Still got the Blues!
I think you just verified what I've mentioned before! That Soak knob can get you right into those all tube Marshall tones!! Those are great amps! Especially for the price!! I've confidence you will get it all dialed in!! :Beer:
 
CapnDenny1

CapnDenny1

Student Of The Blues
Actually that was the clean channel.

I still like the gain channel of my Ampeg Reverberocket over the Carvin, but both are nice.

But the Egnater Rebel 30 MK2 is still my best sounding amp. I think the custom ported speaker cab with the Emminence Texas Heat which I use with it hels a lot as well.
 
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