I have a Samson Servo 240 amp. One day several parts accidentally lost
their smoke (smoke is what makes electronics work). Is there a place
that fixes amps (and replaces the smoke) that is reasonable and
reliable?
I have had much bad luck with local fix-it shops that actually charge
you even though they can't fix it. Locally Daddy's Junky Music will
fix it...their estimate was about $30 over the price of a used Samson
260 on Ebay.
Samson will not fix the amp. It has been discontinued.
Lets here your recommendations (besides throwing the unit out).

Thanks

In article ,
Gene Pool wrote:

I have a Samson Servo 240 amp. One day several parts accidentally lost
their smoke (smoke is what makes electronics work). Is there a place
that fixes amps (and replaces the smoke) that is reasonable and
reliable?
I have had much bad luck with local fix-it shops that actually charge
you even though they can't fix it. Locally Daddy's Junky Music will
fix it...their estimate was about $30 over the price of a used Samson
260 on Ebay.
Samson will not fix the amp. It has been discontinued.
Lets here your recommendations (besides throwing the unit out).

Thanks

Your physical location would be a good piece of info to append to this
post, otherwise you'll be getting offers from shops in Ulan Bator or Tierra
del Fuego.

I'm guessing you are in New England. There's a guy in Lawrence, MA who
might be able to help. I think he's called Pro Tech Services. The owner is
Bob Doucette. I've never used him, but he does have a good reputation.

If you are closer to NYC, try DBM pro audio http://www.dbmproaudio.com I
have used them quite a bit.

You've got to figure a minimum or $50/hour labor with at least 1 hour, plus
parts. $80-100/hour is not uncommon. So what is that unit worth?

If you use 50% of replacement cost as your max figure for repair costs,
you'll probably conclude that anything retailing for under $300 bucks is
disposable.

Jim


"Gene Pool" wrote in message
...
I have a Samson Servo 240 amp. One day several parts accidentally lost
their smoke (smoke is what makes electronics work). Is there a place
that fixes amps (and replaces the smoke) that is reasonable and
reliable?
I have had much bad luck with local fix-it shops that actually charge
you even though they can't fix it. Locally Daddy's Junky Music will
fix it...their estimate was about $30 over the price of a used Samson
260 on Ebay.
Samson will not fix the amp. It has been discontinued.
Lets here your recommendations (besides throwing the unit out).

Thanks

Samson will not fix the amp. It has been discontinued.

I believe their refusal to fix it is illegal. They are, at the very least,
required to provide service parts for a specified number of years.

In article writes:

I have had much bad luck with local fix-it shops that actually charge
you even though they can't fix it. Locally Daddy's Junky Music will
fix it...their estimate was about $30 over the price of a used Samson
260 on Ebay.

Samson will not fix the amp. It has been discontinued.

That's the story with today's disposable equipment. It costs less to
build initially than to disassemble and troubleshoot. There may be
a problem getting parts on a discontinued product, so even though the
labor to diagnose the problem has been expended (and should be paid
for) it may not be possible or practical to repair.

If you had bought a Bryston, you could, and would get it fixed because
it would cost much more than the repair cost to replace it.

I have a TEAC DA-P20 DAT that needs repair and the only person who's
been recommended to work on it is nearly 1000 miles away (no problem)
and charges $100 for just taking a look, and says that typical repairs
run $300-$400. This is a tough decision for me as there really isn't a
good replacement for it right now (yeah, I have my Jukebox 3, but
where do I plug in the mics with the XLR connectors, and will the plug
stay in if something moves?) but I doubt that I'll get $400 more use
out of it before it's really time to retire it and replace it with
something that costs $2,000 (about twice the initial cost of the DAT).

Sometimes you're just stuck between a bank and a hard place.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )

Gene Pool wrote:
I have a Samson Servo 240 amp. One day several parts accidentally lost
their smoke (smoke is what makes electronics work). Is there a place
that fixes amps (and replaces the smoke) that is reasonable and
reliable?

Not really. Those amps basically aren't worth the time to work on them.
Any good tech should be able to fix them, but it's going to take a lot
of time. Everything inside is just so underrated that if anything on
the output stage goes, it takes everything else out. Really really cheap
design.

I have had much bad luck with local fix-it shops that actually charge
you even though they can't fix it. Locally Daddy's Junky Music will
fix it...their estimate was about $30 over the price of a used Samson
260 on Ebay.

Yup, that sounds about right.

Samson will not fix the amp. It has been discontinued.
Lets here your recommendations (besides throwing the unit out).

Buy a cheap Adcom or Hafler. It'll cost less money than fixing that
Samson, and you'll be amazed at the improvement in sound quality too.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

What they said!

Samson amps really are junk. If you want to get by really cheap, buy an
old consumer amp on eBay. I can't think of any that would be worse than
the Samson and most would be better. Or spend a little more and get a
Hafler, can't go wrong there. I have 2 consumer line Carver amps in my
studio that I am very happy with. -Rob

(I guess its ok to toppost my own message..hehe!)

I gutted the Samson case (there were two components that literally
exploded and burned traces, etc.). It makes a great rack shelf (don't
laugh, they cost $50 w/shipping ... then I bought a Hafler on ebay
auction.

thanks to all who responded.


On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 23:15:43 -0400, Gene Pool wrote:

I have a Samson Servo 240 amp. One day several parts accidentally lost
their smoke (smoke is what makes electronics work). Is there a place
that fixes amps (and replaces the smoke) that is reasonable and
reliable?
I have had much bad luck with local fix-it shops that actually charge
you even though they can't fix it. Locally Daddy's Junky Music will
fix it...their estimate was about $30 over the price of a used Samson
260 on Ebay.
Samson will not fix the amp. It has been discontinued.
Lets here your recommendations (besides throwing the unit out).

Thanks

Gene Pool wrote:
(I guess its ok to toppost my own message..hehe!)

I gutted the Samson case (there were two components that literally
exploded and burned traces, etc.). It makes a great rack shelf (don't
laugh, they cost $50 w/shipping ... then I bought a Hafler on ebay
auction.

What happened was that one of the output transistors failed into a dead
short, and because the output stages on those aren't properly fused,
it took out the emitter resistor when it blew up, and took the trace out
as well.

If the output stages had been fused right, it would just have taken out
the transistor, and replacing that would have been a fairly easy repair
job. But because they skimped on protection, it becomes a much harder
job when it fails.

Keep the power transformer from the thing; it's way undersized for a power
amp but it's handy to have around. Pretty much all the other parts in
there aren't worth even keeping in the junk box.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Gene Pool wrote in message . ..
I have a Samson Servo 240 amp. One day several parts accidentally lost
their smoke (smoke is what makes electronics work). Is there a place
that fixes amps (and replaces the smoke) that is reasonable and
reliable?
I have had much bad luck with local fix-it shops that actually charge
you even though they can't fix it. Locally Daddy's Junky Music will
fix it...their estimate was about $30 over the price of a used Samson
260 on Ebay.
Samson will not fix the amp. It has been discontinued.
Lets here your recommendations (besides throwing the unit out).

Thanks

Samson gear is junk and the company totally sucks ass...I wouldn't buy
a paperclip from them at this point.

Many years ago (1997) I bought a 1602 rack mixer for submixing
keyboards, only to find out that the aux sends are both PRE-FADER, not
post fader.

This was before the era when companies posted their manuals on the
web, but if you go to the Samson site they are still really vague
about the aux sends, they don't really say they are pre.

So I decide that I want to mod the thing, or get it modded. What
followed was a series of phone calls over the next two years, trying
to get a schematic. It took me four phone calls just to get the number
of the service department, and then another six calls to actually talk
to someone. I never did get back a single call that I was promised.

The guy on the phone said they "did not endorse such mods and could
not tell me how to do this". He did send me a schematic for free so at
least they did that.

I take a look at the thing and realize I'd need a desoldering station
to work on it so I take it to a shop, with the schematic. They refused
to work on it, saying the mod would not be possible (maybe the Samson
guy was right).

Anyway I wind up loaning/giving it to my keyboard player and a couple
of years later, with light gig use it now has four of the 8 channels
either crackling or not working in one channel.

It's in the shop now, no word on if they will be able to fix it or
not.

So just light a bonfire and burn the sucker, you'll be much better
off.

I've got 20+ year old Peavey CS400's that still work, the fact your
Samson died after a few years is pretty indicative that it's a cheap
and crappy amp.

Good luck.

Analogeezer

p.s. Oh yeah, I wound up buying a used Roland M-120 line mixer a
couple of years back...paid about 40% of what the Samson cost. It was
like taking a blanket off the speakers, the keyboards sounded SO MUCH
better it was unreal.

If anyone has any amps that need to be blown up, let me know... I've got
that down. :-)

Skler



Gene Pool wrote in message
...
I have a Samson Servo 240 amp. One day several parts accidentally lost
their smoke (smoke is what makes electronics work). Is there a place
that fixes amps (and replaces the smoke) that is reasonable and
reliable?
I have had much bad luck with local fix-it shops that actually charge
you even though they can't fix it. Locally Daddy's Junky Music will
fix it...their estimate was about $30 over the price of a used Samson
260 on Ebay.
Samson will not fix the amp. It has been discontinued.
Lets here your recommendations (besides throwing the unit out).

Thanks

(P Stamler) wrote in message ...
I remember working with a live-sound dude one time in the 70s at a festival;
his inputs were clipping like hell (on acoustic guitars with SM-57s, no less).
I went over and gently suggested he turn the channel gain down a notch (this
was a late-60s board with switched gain, not continuously variable). It got a
lot better. Encouraged, I suggested one more notch. Suddenly, it was clean. The
guy looked at me open-mouthed -- "I never knew it could sound like that!" Yeah.

Peace,
Paul

Are you sure he wasn't running modified brain cells at the time? The
70's were like that IIRC...

Analogeezer