Classe Omega mono amp down

[AudioGremlin]

Failures sometimes do occur during the switch on surge period, a relatively rare fact of life.
I serviced and repaired electronic equipment over 23 years though I'm now retired. These included radars and HF communications, so I know that things fail at the most inconvenient times. The problem nowadays is that many manufacturers won't provide schematics & don't have many service facilities, meaning a lot wait and carriage out expense for the user. Not a very satisfactory situation.

[eelii08]

Thanks AG. Yes you seem to know very well what you are talking. I am very useless on these subjects myself. Still I had an amp with problems before, but they were there for a while and just got worse and you saw it coming. In this case, with the amp being so new, (and expensive..) and working perfectly all the time till the very minute I disconnected it, I could not belive it. Thought it was something else until I did the fuse swap as per your advice. Now it seems clear the amp has a proble of current that is killing the fuses. Whatever that is.

I did the last fuse swap with all diconnected from amp but the power cord. So i guess that leaves very little chance to being anything else.

My amps were one of the last units they produced and was initially a 120v version. They did the conversion to 230v at the factory before it ever left Classe. i dont think that has anything to do with it.

Anyway, I dont think I will have costs asociated with it, but considering won't be able to send until september and the amount of time it takes to get to canada and back (they send by ship due to cost of air courier due to weight), it is going to be a loooong time without the system.... What a....

[AudioGremlin]

eeli008, wouldn't have thought either that either a change of mains transformer or a change of transformer tap (& relative fuse value) would have anything to do with it.
Its not good to have a failure so early in the amplifiers life especially considering that cost! It would be interesting to know what caused it (but somehow I expect you'll never know).
I now use Manley (Steelhead & nc250's) because apart from great performance their equipment is not overly complex and Manley willingly provide schematics to owners and happily also provide them with tech support if required. Because of this I can relax even more during listening knowing that in the unlikely event of a failure I have the support on hand and the ability to easily repair it.
Because my equipment is valve based I also have a AVO valve tester & characteristic meter, guess after many years of being involved in high end I've now covered most of the bases. (I never say all, that's tempting providence!)
I think in this case you've just been very unlucky.

[redsectora]

Originally Posted by AudioGremlin

The omega manual does state the correct replacement fuse and under section 5 advises a test if the mains fuse blows. Says to try a replacement fuse after disconnecting both the speaker and input connections. Obviously if it blows again you'll need an approved repair.
Replacement fuses should be able to be sourced easily.
Hope you are able to get the amplifier repaired quickly and without too much carriage expense.

You should call Classe or your local distributor, they may have somebody local to help you under warranty.

[eelii08]

Yes I guess so.... I guess there are things you just can't prevent, but this really should not happen on such expensive and new equipment unless user does something rare, which I haven't at all.

Thing is I really like how these amps sound. I did a lot of listening to different amps before buying this model. Many costing even double the price of the Omegas. And to my ears the Omegas were the most neutral and good sounding.

I think the fact that Classe never sold many of these (maybe the brand is not seen as ultra high end or something, got very little attention from reviewers which does not help...) may have to do with the fact they could not put even bigger margins on top of them. THey are expensive, but on a relative basis (comparing to other models the Omegas actually outperformed -to my taste-), actually they were not.

But of course if they are going to have reliability problems, than that is a different history...

[redsectora]

Originally Posted by eelii08

Yes I guess so.... I guess there are things you just can't prevent, but this really should not happen on such expensive and new equipment unless user does something rare, which I haven't at all.

Thing is I really like how these amps sound. I did a lot of listening to different amps before buying this model. Many costing even double the price of the Omegas. And to my ears the Omegas were the most neutral and good sounding.

I think the fact that Classe never sold many of these (maybe the brand is not seen as ultra high end or something, got very little attention from reviewers which does not help...) may have to do with the fact they could not put even bigger margins on top of them. THey are expensive, but on a relative basis (comparing to other models the Omegas actually outperformed -to my taste-), actually they were not.

But of course if they are going to have reliability problems, than that is a different history...

Classe is local to me, 20 kms away, so if you need any help don't hesitate. Not aware of any issues with them so you should be allright. My local dealer does carry the brand and they are pretty finicky with who they deal with so I would not worry, call them. BTW I wouldn't base reliability on one issue.

[New guy]

I repaired a friend's amp a couple of years ago that had a very strange failure. It worked fine most of the time but if it wasn't used for a few days and the power was completely shut down, the fuse would blow. After replacing the fuse a couple of times,it would work fine again. This went on for a few months and I could not find anything wrong with it. It was taken to a repair hop and they couldn't find the problem either.

I got tired of looking at it so I just replaced the four power supply caps and that fixed the problem. I kept the old caps and measured them a few weeks later and found that one would slowly develop a short over time.

Just sharing my experience.

Rich

[eelii08]

Redsectora, thanks for your offer. I wish I was 20 km away from classe... No I am not saying they are not reliable on a general basis. Just in my case which I hope is isolated. I like these amps very much.

I bought them from the importer in Spain which is actually B&W Spain. Not sure if they will be able to fix. Most likely will have to send to Canada. If they do not have qualified or experienced people to deal with Omegas, (just guessing since I do not think they sold many) I actually think I prefer they do travel. It just takes forever cos they send by ship due to wright. I wrote Classe on thursday but no repiy so far, which is not too good either, although given the dates they may be off and u der min. Will give them a couple of days next week and see if I hear from them.

If you know someone well there I may ask you for help.

Thanks

[eelii08]

New guy, thanks for the advice. Will be worth checking. Since I will not be able to send it for servicing before vacation break ends in 2 weeks, if I can get it to work until I do send it it would be great. It did kill one fuse already but will buy more and see if that is also the case. Do not think I have much to loose but a few fuses no?

[New guy]

Eelii08,

I hope you are able to find a local tech that help you resolve the issue. My guess is that there is an issue with the power supply section. It could be a bad capacitor or a rectifier but it should be relatively easy to fix.
As for the fuse, you can try replacing it but make sure it the same current rating and same type of fuse. There are different types of fuses such as fast blow and slow blow. If you put in slow blow instead of fast blow, it can cause more damage since it takes longer to blow the fuse. Using a fast blow instead of a slow blow may cause premature fuse blowing since a fast blow can't handle inrush current/high peak start up current of power supply.

Richard