ampage Tech Humor

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Brian 11/22/98 11:50 pm 11 0
Once had a lady and two kids walk in with a home stereo reciever that they wanted repaired. While they waited I hooked it up, found no output at all. wanting to check the fuses, I opened it up and found everything inside coated with thick sticky white powder! When questioned further the kids explained that it started smoking so they figured it might be on fire and shot a fire extinguisher through the vents!

 
11/28/98 8:29 pm 16 0
Just had a mouthbreather come in asking for "Duncan Hines" pickups! (Probably to put in his Epiphiny guitar)

 
Rich Koerner - Time Electronics 12/4/98 11:44 pm 32 0
In all the years of strange requests, I thought I had heard everything. One day a young fellow comes in with a Fender Strat, and asks if I could re-finish it in Camouflage. I asked what pattern did he have in mind. He said he didn't really care about the pattern but wanted a lot of blacks, greens, and browns for colors.



I asked if he wanted a flat or gloss finish with it. Again, he left it up to me. Then he asks if I could but a bullet hole in the body too. I said, handing him a piece of masking tape, put this exactly where you want the hole. He sticks it on the body.



I asked if he wanted one that looked like one, or a Real Bullet Hole! He said the more REAL the Better!



I asked if he would like a small caliber hole, or large caliber hole. He said the bigger the better for the look on stage.



We agreed on the price, and the date it was to be done.

On that day he showed up wearing Camouflage Clothes with ammo belts hanging all over him. I asked him why the getup. He said he was in a para-military band. I said cool!



I brought out the guitar case and opened it for him. He saw the bullet hole, and goes nuts on how great it looked! He asked how I did it.



I told him I took it to the range, and let my 45 do the rest!

 
Bruce Holcomb 12/11/98 5:23 am 19 0
A microwave oven came in for repair,it had a bad door switch.Upon visual inspection I noticed the AC line fuse

looked strange ,when I removed the "fuse" it was actually

a machine threaded bolt with head cut off! It was a perfect fit in the fuse holder, but I wonder how many amps was it?

 
D. Stork 12/21/98 2:41 pm 20 0
A fellow sent in a Marshall Valvestate with a detailed letter describing his complaint. The symptoms, he said, were an intermittent hum and a persistent, mysterious "tremolo" type modulation of the signal. I found the hum was due to a cracked solder joint on one of the filter caps; the other "problem" probably had something to do with the fact that the chorus was turned on and cranked up all the way.

 
Rick Suter 12/25/98 3:04 am 88 0
2nd hand story but I tend to believe the source.



A customer brings in a stereo receiver for repair saying the left channel is dead. Bench checks OK, no problem. Customer picks it up but calls back later with same complaint. (this may have happened twice)



Over the phone the shop reviews speaker hook-up, has customer swap speakers around, reviews source hook-up, swap sources, etc. Problem remains with left channel. OK, bring everything in this time.



When customer arrives the tech tells him to set it up exactly as he was doing at home. He proceeds to hook it up properly and then starts adjusting controls. "ok, I like lots of bass (cranks it all the way up), lots of treble (cranks it all the way up), and lots of balance..."

 
Anony Muss 12/26/98 9:03 pm 11 0
Ok, now for a requested submission.

Heres a letter from one reknowned head of a particular tube retailer.

Heres the setup. This was my first tube purchase, and I phoned a cousin of mine to get me some 12AX7's and an EL34 quad. This stuff was then brought from there to me via my mother who visited them. Too many of them were bad so I bitched to the company via email, the response was this.



"Dear *adress removed* (or who ever you are since you didn't have the balls to sign

your flaming letter)

It seems obvious that you are a beginner in the use and problems of tubes, so

I'll not get as upset as you did without finding what the problem really

could be, and therefore who, if anybody, could be to blame.

Yes, we rebrand tubes (like Ruby and Sovtec) but the difference is we've

developed a scientific and effective testing regiment that matches power

tubes in a meaningful way for musicians, and selects the "cream" of the

preamp tubes for musical aplications. We have never indicated otherwise. We

are in business for more than 18 years becasue we have been honest about what

we do, and becasue we spend most of our money educating beginners like you

with publications (the Tube Amp Book is in it's 5th edition withover 70,000

copies sold) and not on large color ads hyping our products featuring a bunch

of musicians who take free tubes in exchange for selling their smiling face.

No, we are still the number one tube company for musicians in the world

because we take customer satisfaction sertiously Which brings me to the main

point, you seem to be very upset without even trying to get satisfaction

from us....makes me wonder if all your facts are straight.

Let me take a guess, you mom stuffed the tubes in her suitcase which was

fairly heavy and flew home. Most likely, the added weight of the suitcase

transferred the shocks each time it was throwen into or out off the baggage

cart directly to the center of the tubes (the plate structure) as they are

held tightly in their plastic container...this kind of shipping usually

cracks the glass and the porblems would have been obvious upon unpacking.

However, since the glass didn't break immediately, I can assume some

internal damage was done (usually the plate structure bangs around insdie and

loosens, making microphoinics and finally shorting the grid windings). So

the problems were waiting for the first few hours to show ...this is a common

situation of mis handled tubes that we've commonly seemn over the years. We

take great pains to carefully overpack our tubes when we ship them tot he

dealers to avoid these kind of problems, I can tell you I spent a fortune

replaceing tubes before I got it just right .

Unfortuantely, when Mom's of the world bring their presents home to the kids,

they treat tubes like any other t-shirt or present and don' t realize the

damage possibilities.

Look at the situation logically, do you really think I'd still be around

today after 18 years if every guy had 3 out of 4 preramp tubes go DEAD after

a few hours..or one out of every Quartet go bad after a few hours use, of

coarse not. Your tubes were either mishandled before your mom bought them at

the store (that happens too) or after she bought them and shipped them home

in a suitcase.

We know this can happen, and it's not your fault. That's why we give a long

guarantee to see if any problems will develope in the first few months of

use. We want to most importantly tyake care of you, the final customer, to

insure you got good value.

Sure we rebrand tubes, but we extensively test them before we put our name on

them and they almost always will give years of superior sonic performance

(yes, our tubes will always sound better, even tubes from the same factory as

Ruby Tubes uses). We also design and tool up to prodcue many of our tubes,

so we are much more than a distributor, believe me on that one.

So, I'll forget your poor attitude and offer you the same satisfaction we

give all our customers, and alittle advise from an old guitar player who's

been at it for about 40 years. Next time you have a problem, consider ti an

opportunity in disguise. If you wanted satisfaction, all you had to do was

ask! (try it nicely next time).

Let me know how I can deliver you some GT replacement tubes, hopefully via

UPS, and I'll be sure they get packed and shipped correctly. I will need to

see some kind of sales receipt just to be sure you're an actual customer, and

not the competition pulling my leg (it has happened!).

Don't worry about the invoice date, I'll waive the warranty expiration date

in your case, I believe your story that you only recently put them in.

I'll even make you a bet you a free meal in LA or on the islands (which ever

comes first) that you'll prefer the sound of our matched tubes to those

you've just ordered through Ruby Tubes. Incidently, the GTE34Ls is not

available through Ruby or anyone else. It is completely our own design and

our tooling which produces this tube. The GTE34Ls is higher in power and

much better sounding than any other tube on the market. Well, of coarse

that's just my opinion, but also the opinion of many players like Joe Walsh,

Billy Gibbons, EVH, Matchless amps and many others....but we don't advertise

these guys. That is partly because they pay for all their tubes, and partly

because most major acts have been using only our tubes for many years, we

couldn't possibly choose which one to feature. Maybe if they wouldn't be

buying them so often, then we'd consider some endorsement ad campaign but

that has never been necessary. By the way, tubes are made of glass and we

are quite used to replaceing broken glass and tubes that are broken

internally without obviously shatterd glass...it's all built into the price,

which you mentioned was too high. Perhaps if you walked a mile in my shoes

you'd understand why the price needs to start out fairly high since 40-60% of

the tubes we process can never be sold as GT tubes becasue of poor quality,

then add on that the breakage replacements possible every time we ship them

n(you are a case in point), plus the retailers have to make a profit of 50%

or so (maybe that's too much but most "discount that anyway and I didn't make

the system). We do not sell direct at wholesale price as some others do

because the good dealers will not do business with them (too many bad tubes

and no good warratee policy when something does go wrong), we support the

dealers becasue we need them to support you if problems do arise. So, I

hope you can see why it may appear our tubes are overpriced.

However, they do not SUCK, and people who are buying GT tubes for more than

18 years are not TUBE IGNORANT! On the contrary, these guys are

professionals that are used to sifting throught hte vast amounts of hype in

our business...they've tried the other "brands" and freely choose to pay more

for ours instead.

I hope you'll reconsider your rather hard line position about us. We really

do not like to let even one small customer slip through the cracks after such

a product horror story like yours. We both deserve another shot Let's start

over, shall we?.

Let me know if you want satisfaction, I'll be glad to try.

-Aspen Pittman, President"



I guess the signature gives it away.

 
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ampage Tech Humor