Brand new Mark 5/35 - am I an idiot?

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martinlb

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Hi, thanks for letting me join here. I'm looking for some feedback about whether or not I really blew it with my new Mk5 head. I've built tube amps and learned about "conditioning" the capacitors. You start with a variac and go from 10v all the way up to 110v by steps of 10, ten minutes each time. Well... I thought "why not condition my new Mk5?" So I plugged in a speaker and plugged the power into my variac with power and standby on then I did the steps. That's what I did last night and didn't try playing til tonight. Ugh. ...No sound. Waited 4 months from ordering a special build from Sweetwater. All the lights work, the footswitch works, but no output to the speaker, which works and is correctly plugged in. Did I make a mistake trying to condition the caps like that?
 
I can't imagine that you hurt the amp, but I'd look into a few things. First of all, make sure the speaker is connected properly and that the speaker isn't turned off (it sounds stupid, but we've all done dumb things). Look at every control on the amp and make sure you're not missing something. Then I'd start looking at tubes one by one, replacing them with a tube that's known to be good.

Regarding conditioning the capacitors- Mesa ran that amp before shipping it, so it's already seen full voltage. Also, you don't need to condition new electrolytic capacitors.
 
I had the disable speaker switch on. No problem now. Thanks Don! I also didn't know about not needing to condition new caps. Thanks also to you, Jeronimo.
 
That's good to hear! Enjoy the amp!
 
martinlb said:
I had the disable speaker switch on. No problem now. Thanks Don! I also didn't know about not needing to condition new caps. Thanks also to you, Jeronimo.

Happy to hear nothing is wrong, enjoy the amp!!!!
 
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