Amp help please: Cornford MK50 has died

Fortheloveofguitar

Hi guys after some help please

Bought a used Cornford MK50 on 23rd November from Richtone and paid £900 for it

Just checked and i'm surprised that they only offer just 30 days warranty on used items when most are 60-90 days and the amp has just died so i'm gutted to say the least

The amp was always noisy when switching it on but that would be the transformer but now that sound has gone when firing it up and i have no output at all. When you have a lead plugged in you can hear it buzzing inside the amp when you press it with the end of your finger but no output to the speaker cab. Does this look like the output transformer has gone?

Any help or advise as to where to get a new one would be much appreciated or if it could be something else. Pretty pissed to have paid so much and had only 8 weeks use out of it

Thanks

ICBM

Check the speaker cable and the cab with another amp if you have one before assuming anything about the amp.

If you don't, plug the cable into the cab and touch a 9V battery to the tip of the cable, with one stud of the battery on the tip of the plug and the other touching the sleeve - it should make a pop as it contacts. Don't keep it connected for any longer than just to test this.

Fortheloveofguitar

ICBM said:

Check the speaker cable and the cab with another amp if you have one before assuming anything about the amp.

If you don't, plug the cable into the cab and touch a 9V battery to the tip of the cable, with one stud of the battery on the tip of the plug and the other touching the sleeve - it should make a pop as it contacts. Don't keep it connected for any longer than just to test this.

Thank you @ICBM ; you're a hero as always

There is clearly a problem with my cab which is strange as i don't gig and its never left the room where it sits in years. That is a huge relief and i will look into the problem

Thank you as always for your help. It's always very much appreciated  

ICBM

I thought it might be - the buzzing from the amp is actually the sound of the OT winding vibrating... this isn't at all good for it without a load attached, but in the short time (and I assume not fully cranked) you did it for is unlikely to have done any harm.

Try a guitar cable as the speaker cable if you don't have a spare - it will be fine for a brief test at low volume.

Strat_a_tat_tat

@ICBM is the most useful bloke I've never met.

Fortheloveofguitar

Strat_a_tat_tat said:

@ICBM is the most useful bloke I've never met.

He’s a hero 

martinw

Fortheloveofguitar said:

Hi guys after some help please

Bought a used Cornford MK50 on 23rd November from Richtone and paid £900 for it

Just checked and i'm surprised that they only offer just 30 days warranty on used items when most are 60-90 days and the amp has just died so i'm gutted to say the least

Hopefully not necessary now in this case, but forget warranties, the Sale of Goods act gives you far more rights.

The act states that goods, even used, must last a 'reasonable' amount of time. I don't think anyone would consider just over a month reasonable.

I bought a used car in 2011, and it had a problem after about 10 weeks. The dealer refused to cough up, so I spoke, off the record, to trading standards and a motor engineer. I wrote the required letters to the dealer then paid £25 to take him to court, using the online system. I won of course.

DJH83004

As IC quite rightly says, check the speaker cable and cab connection with a battery (quick flick on and off), don't keep trying it with the amp until you are happy there is a connection - you wont have damaged the amp BTW, so no need to worry about sending it back etc. the noise you can hear when touching the tip of the lead is a combination of the output transformer laminations and the output valves buzzing, quite normal - but don't keep doing it