Contact Spray to Fix Amp Issues

[drumace]

Hey guys,
Here's an update.
I decided to compare 2 of my amps against each other in terms of their gain after making sure the issue is not related to cables.
I used the same preamp channel, same cables and only switched between the amps.
I used a volume meter app on my iPhone, played a full song through only one channel (the rest of the amps turned off for accuracy of the test).
I perform the test several times to make sure the results are consistent.
My test finding are - the amp that I suspected as being quieter is 3dB lower in volume than the other amp.
This explains why I felt the system was unbalanced in terms of soundstage.
Thankfully, I have 3 amps like that so the quieter one is used for the center channel, however, I still would like to solve this issue.
Has anyone had such an issue of an amp being quieter than another identical amp?
What can possibly be the root cause in such case?

Thanks again!

[KeithL]

The gain of a modern amplifier is set by the values of several components.

Some of those components could fail in such a way that the gain would be altered without otherwise obviously affecting sound quality.

(And other components could fail in ways that would alter the gain and would otherwise affect the sound quality.)

It's really a losing battle to generalize beyond that without actually troubleshooting the amp itself (taking measurements inside).

Aug 14, 2018 7:39:19 GMT -5 drumace said:

Hey guys,
Here's an update.
I decided to compare 2 of my amps against each other in terms of their gain after making sure the issue is not related to cables.
I used the same preamp channel, same cables and only switched between the amps.
I used a volume meter app on my iPhone, played a full song through only one channel (the rest of the amps turned off for accuracy of the test).
I perform the test several times to make sure the results are consistent.
My test finding are - the amp that I suspected as being quieter is 3dB lower in volume than the other amp.
This explains why I felt the system was unbalanced in terms of soundstage.
Thankfully, I have 3 amps like that so the quieter one is used for the center channel, however, I still would like to solve this issue.
Has anyone had such an issue of an amp being quieter than another identical amp?
What can possibly be the root cause in such case?

Thanks again!

[leonski]

Keith,
would dropping ONE leg of a balanced connection account for a 3db drop?