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I've owned and worked on both P-T-P and circuit board amps and I'd
have to say the point-to-point stuff is more reliable and WAY easier
to fix. Printed circuit boards are great for home consumer stuff
that sits in one place, but they don't do so well with vibration,
shock, and repeated cycles of hot-cold thermal expansion/contraction--
- which is exactly what a gigging tube-based guitar amp gets. In
particular, when things like input jacks, controls, tube sockets and
large transformer connections are soldered right to the board, the
solder joints tend to develop tiny fractures around the leads that
can open up the electrical connection.
I first saw this on my '93 Fender Super Amp when it developed an
intermittent crackling sound. The amp tech showed me solder
connections that had fractured completely around the leads of several
of the larger components. He said he sees this all the time, and on
circuit board amps that get hauled around and used a lot, you
basically have to open 'em up every few years, look under high
magnification and resolder whatever's coming loose.
It might be different for solid-state amps, though. Much smaller
components and no heat from tubes. I never had a problem with my old
circuit board-based Roland JC-120 (other than its 1980's studded-dog-
collar styling and ice-pick-in-the-head tone...)
Rob Woolsey
--- In , "darklsurf" <dcordes@s...>
wrote: Is there a big difference between hand built point to point
and sqeezed out of the factory stamped circuit boards? Other than
the obvious being able to repair a point to point board, I've been
under the school of thought that once a stamped circuit board was
burned in and "worked" is was good to go. If a stamped circuit was
bad, you'd know right away...well hopefully anyway.
