Cult status debunked

摘要

Sometimes I just can't say no, especially to an industry friend. A glaring grammatical error on the 20-year-old amp's engraved nameplate should have been sufficient warning, but instead of politely declining, I took the bait, and a few days later the amplifier went on my work bench. The problem? Its 2A mains fuse blew instantly when the power switch was engaged. On the bench, the amp drew a full 2A from my Variac at less than 5VAC, indicative of a dead short. The likely culprits: shorted rectifier or filter capacitor in the power supply, a shorted output device, a bad driver, or a shorted mains transformer - this last possibility so remote that in four decades of technical work I've seen only two or three such.