I know there is already a strong following for Joe Henry's excellent amps on here (Pass Labs and First Watt clones etc), but having used Joe recently to repair an issue with my genuine Pass Labs Aleph 3 power amp, I thought he deserved another plug.
Bought the amp second hand from Emporium, advertised as recently upgraded/re-capped. Started buzzing through the right speaker after a few weeks and decided it wasn't worth fighting with Emporium over, so initially sent it to my usual engineer, who couldn't find out what was wrong and concluded that, as it had been recapped recently, doing so again means the same issue might recur, so gave up on it as a lost job (after keeping it to play with for about 8 weeks).
Enter Joe who took the repair on. To cut a long story short, the work he has done on it has, in his words, brought the amp back to a condition like it has just come off the Pass Labs factory floor!
Stripped right back and cleaned up the boards, re-soldered everything, recapped, new upgraded bridge rectifier etc etc using top notch parts. All very reasonably priced and sorted within a week!
Got the amp back and oh no, the buzz is still there! Joe not happy at all about this, took it straight back and spent the best part of another week re-testing everything, to finally discover it had a faulty mains transformer, much to his great surprise (first time he's come across this).
All sorted and no additional charges at all for the many extra hours he spent on it.
Amp now back with no hum and sounding fabulous.
Top service from a great guy who I have no doubt is one of the more knowledgeable amp repairers/builders around. Thoroughly recommended.
Bought the amp second hand from Emporium, advertised as recently upgraded/re-capped. Started buzzing through the right speaker after a few weeks and decided it wasn't worth fighting with Emporium over, so initially sent it to my usual engineer, who couldn't find out what was wrong and concluded that, as it had been recapped recently, doing so again means the same issue might recur, so gave up on it as a lost job (after keeping it to play with for about 8 weeks).
Enter Joe who took the repair on. To cut a long story short, the work he has done on it has, in his words, brought the amp back to a condition like it has just come off the Pass Labs factory floor!
Stripped right back and cleaned up the boards, re-soldered everything, recapped, new upgraded bridge rectifier etc etc using top notch parts. All very reasonably priced and sorted within a week!
Got the amp back and oh no, the buzz is still there! Joe not happy at all about this, took it straight back and spent the best part of another week re-testing everything, to finally discover it had a faulty mains transformer, much to his great surprise (first time he's come across this).
All sorted and no additional charges at all for the many extra hours he spent on it.
Amp now back with no hum and sounding fabulous.
Top service from a great guy who I have no doubt is one of the more knowledgeable amp repairers/builders around. Thoroughly recommended.
