Road King problem

Hello, I've posted a few times on here. Have a bit of a problem with my Road King II.
A while ago, I noticed that when I turn my amp on, there's little to no volume. Even with the volume all the way up. I fiddle with everything, unplugging and replugging, eventually it comes back to life and sounds just fine...no idea what it is because it always seems to happen randomly so I don't know what the culprit is!
Possibly unrelated: the two right most tubes (I think the pre amp tubes) are very dim looking. I noticed this after my problem started happening. So I don't know how bright they were previously. Could this be the reason for the loss of volume?
Any help appreciated. Thanks

It could be a tube(s), they are the usual first suspects, but how brightly they glow (referring to the heater, orange glow) is no indicator of function. Some tubes glow brighter than others, and some seem to have no glow at all, and still function normally. Typically, an intermittent problem as you've described is a bad connection, and quite often a poor solder joint.

Shaun said:

Hello, I've posted a few times on here. Have a bit of a problem with my Road King II.
A while ago, I noticed that when I turn my amp on, there's little to no volume. Even with the volume all the way up. I fiddle with everything, unplugging and replugging, eventually it comes back to life and sounds just fine...no idea what it is because it always seems to happen randomly so I don't know what the culprit is!
Possibly unrelated: the two right most tubes (I think the pre amp tubes) are very dim looking. I noticed this after my problem started happening. So I don't know how bright they were previously. Could this be the reason for the loss of volume?
Any help appreciated. Thanks

Click to expand...

The tubes mentioned above, are they the large tubes marked 5U4GB, or are they the smaller ones under the metal covers (cans)?

The larger 5U4GB tubes are your rectifier tubes, when you experience this issue are you using the tube tracking or silicon diode rectifier?

You should always refer to your tube task chart on pg. 43 of your owners manual ( http://www.mesaboogie.com/manuals/RoadKing2_v2.pdf ) to ID the tubes.

I would start with a healthy cleaning of all jacks on the amp & guitar with a quality contact cleaner (I use DeoxIT D5). Make sure EVERY cord/connection is 100% good. Keep your signal chain simple to help troubleshoot (guitar=>cable=>amp).

Do you use the FX loop? If you do & the problem pops up again try hard-bypassing the FX loop to see if it goes away.

This could also be a preamp tube issue, possibly in the cathode follower positions. How old are the tubes and how much do you play it?

Dom