The Steel Guitar Forum

I have a Session 400 Limited, S/N 9A-03857728. Does anyone know of or recommend any maintenance or upgrades? I've had this amp for about 12 years and played/gigged with it almost every weekend. I've seen a lot of stuff on the web concerning the older Session 400, but i haven't seen a lot on the Limited. I thought about going through and replacing the PS caps and add the bypass caps and also replace the electrolytics between stages with higher quality film type caps as recommended by Brad Sarno's page (excellent page by the way).

Any advice is welcome and appreciated.

take the 4 phillips bolts from top of amp out after unhooking reverb and speaker best to lay face down.
buy a can of peavey Gunk out. there are little openings at the top o those pots spay a little cleaner in them turn knobs hit is a little more turn knobs again I dried mine out with q tips. Mine was really scratchy

If you're doing that, I'd contemplate upgrading the op amp chips.

I've had two of these amps, still use one of them. One of them had a John LeMay kit installed and the other had chips from Ken Fox. Both amps sounded alot better than a stock amp. Better chips definitely help these amps. I would recommend putting in a neo speaker though.
Lee

All of the above would help! Sarno's recommendations on capacitors are right on the money, and Fox's 2134 opamps are excellent also. The only other addition you may want to consider is upping the power supply capacitors' values. The stock ones are 4700uF, I believe, and the super-clean audio guys will tell you that one low ESL 10,000 uF capacitor per 100 watts per rail is recommended. That would be four caps total.

Steven Paris wrote: That would be four caps total.

I got four caps sitting on top of my old LTD 400: Twins, North Stars, Gopher Hockey, and Hamm's Beer. Sounds much better now.

Thanks for all the input, guys. Can you tell me a bit more about the caps you mentioned? Do you know of a good supplier? I will search and try to find out where to get the upgraded chips.

I never thought about changing the speaker. I thought the BW was "voiced" for steel. Any suggestions on a particular speaker model?

Thanks again. She's been a great amp, but definitely time for a little TLC.

Oh, and I just got the joke Jack. Funny

Best supplier I have used for all electronic parts is Mouser. Good prices, fair delivery charges, and good service. Capacitors should be low ESL, high ripple rating types---63 volt, 10,000 uF, and probably "audio grade" though they're more expensive.

Thanks. I'll check them out. Were you able to fit them in the stock cap location? Looking at the chassis and looks like it might be a little tight for the larger caps.

If anyone can help I need to find some Power transistors Ive been told when after playing a little while my amp starts to lose volume it could be
because its old I might have to change the transistors I checked with Peavey they don't have those made Ry G E g2188 C 7710 If any body happens to have or no of a place. Thanks Charlie

Charlie, check your email.

Thanks a bunch Mike I will get with Peavey about the caps I am not to good at electronics if you can come back to me do you thank will have symatics with
with the caps? Thanks again Charlie

Charlie, let's talk about this via email...so as to not derail this thread any further.