Issue With Peavey 300 Combo BW

[BKthickburger]

Hi Everyone,

As the subject states, I recently bought a Peavey 300 Combo BW and am having troubles getting it to properly work

When I plug my bass into the high gain or low gain inputs I'm not getting anything out of the amp. I've tried adjusting the equalizer along with the gain knobs and am still not having any results. I have two basses and tried each along with different cables with no luck. The basses and cables work fine with my other smaller amp too.

I read somewhere to try running a cable from the pre amp out to the power amp in and that does actually seem to make it work, but it still seems like it should play louder. The gain knobs also work with this cable is connected. What does this mean, and does it help diagnose any issue I could be having with it?

Any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[dak]

There usually are switches on the power amp input that connect the power amp input to the preamp output when there is nothing plugged in. It would appear that those switches are corroded enough that this does not happen. If that's the case, chances are that you have similar problems with other connectors which calls for using contact spray on them (opening the amp may give you better access at least to the switches).

It may help to put contact spray on a plug and plug it in and out repeatedly in each plug. However, that is not likely to help with switches (at least it is not likely to get the contact spray there: the plugging itself may help). I think some Peaveys turn both Hi and Lo input into Lo inputs when they are used at the same time: again this might be accomplished using plug switches.

[Enzo]

Also if the amp has any INSERT jacks or FX loop jacks, the same things apply.