Orange Amps Forum

I have a orange dark terror. I tried to put the send from the FX loop to another amps return because i did not have a cab. I cranked the volume and could hear the guitar through the actual dark terror head (not speaker) What did I just fry out of stupidity? Is it 100% sure that I just fried something in my amp?

Also, if I did fry my amp, how much will it cost to repair it if you know what was fried? Lamps still light on standby.

Alright....... Don't do that again!!!!!

I assume something in the DT was moved enough to produce some sound - that is what sound is after all, an air wave. Speakers are much better at that than transfomer or valves mind you.

How long did you do that for?
If it was only a matter of seconds you may be fine.

If you had damaged the amp, it's very likely the power transformer would have taken the hit, and you would probably have smelt that. The only way to find out is to plug it in a matched cab and put it on!!!

I hate to be a dongle-narf here, but I still cannot believe how some new owners of expensive equipment can be completely oblivious to this part in the instruction manual, that is written very visible in the beginning of the booklet next to a large "danger" sign:

“Speaker Outputs” must be connected to a speaker cabinet of the designated load rating using an un-shielded two conductor cable for speaker use at all times during operation

Make a habit of reading the manual (if not the entire thing, at least the "important" and "warning" sections) whenever you aquire some new electrical equipment that you cannot afford to throw out the window, and you will end up saving yourself a lot of money and worries during your lifetime.

BTW: This is the reason I don't buy used amps.

GummiTZ wrote:I hate to be a dongle-narf here, but I still cannot believe how some new owners of expensive equipment can be completely oblivious to this part in the instruction manual, that is written very visible in the beginning of the booklet next to a large "danger" sign:

“Speaker Outputs” must be connected to a speaker cabinet of the designated load rating using an un-shielded two conductor cable for speaker use at all times during operation

Make a habit of reading the manual (if not the entire thing, at least the "important" and "warning" sections) whenever you aquire some new electrical equipment that you cannot afford to throw out the window, and you will end up saving yourself a lot of money and worries during your lifetime.

BTW: This is the reason I don't buy used amps.

You are right, but I did buy it used for 450$ instead of 850$+ taxes. In fact, when I read the manual (I'm french) I misinterpreted the warning as ''dont turn it on to the wrong cabinet, not ''without''. Anyway, I thought that by using the send on the fx loop I would have no problems with the speaker outputs since there was supposed to be no return. I guess that since there was no return the amp, it interpreted it as if there was nothing in the fx loop. I did a stupid mistake because of a misunderstanding but I dont know yet if I fried anything. If its the case, how much do you think it will cost?

Les Paul Lover wrote:Alright....... Don't do that again!!!!!

I assume something in the DT was moved enough to produce some sound - that is what sound is after all, an air wave. Speakers are much better at that than transfomer or valves mind you.

How long did you do that for?
If it was only a matter of seconds you may be fine.

If you had damaged the amp, it's very likely the power transformer would have taken the hit, and you would probably have smelt that. The only way to find out is to plug it in a matched cab and put it on!!!

I did not do it for long but I cannot say that it was a matter of seconds. In fact I wondered for 10-20 seconds what was the sound I was earing without having the reflex to immediately turn everything off. Now, I know that if something bad happened, its already too late. So, lets say I go to the shop tomorow and something fried, you say its probably the transformer so how does one go about changing a transformer?

Big update, one of my pre-amp valve has a little red dot on top, is this a sign that I fried it? If so, did frying it save other components?

Does the amp work? You don't say whether you tried it with a speaker cabinet after doing this...

If it is not working, don't try to fix it yourself. Bring it to an amp repair place.

A red dot on the top of a preamp tube isn't an indicator of anything. It might have been there already. Does it light up when you turn the amp on? You could replace the preamp tube yourself but if that doesn't fix it, take it to an amp repair place.


Oh - and for future notice, only post once, not in multiple places.

Have you connected a proper 16ohms cab in the meantime or not?

The amp MAY in fact not have taken any damage from this at all. I have heard it being said that the transformer should not take any damage unless the power amp stage has a signal to work with.

Now, I don't know if this is true, and if it is, it would also depend on whether the signal would reach the power stage with nothing in the return input (don't know how the loop is designed on that amp). BUT, you might be lucky. Connect a cab and test it.

Using the effects loop send should decouple the power stage, providing its a series loop as Im lead to believe. If thats the case OT should be fine. I run out of the send on my amps all the time. Whats the amp you ran it into?

Okay, so today I went to the store and tested the amp. Luckily, the amp seemed to work fine and I could crank it pretty loud and play and had alot of OOMF. On the other hand I did identify some noise but I'm not sure if its natural. I think one of them was because I was not grounded but I recorded them with low fidelity device. Bar in mind that i had the volume and cranked at least at 3 o' clock

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152082372567507" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152082373132507" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you cant see the video, tell me and ill upload them to youtube.

bclaire wrote:Does the amp work? You don't say whether you tried it with a speaker cabinet after doing this...

If it is not working, don't try to fix it yourself. Bring it to an amp repair place.

A red dot on the top of a preamp tube isn't an indicator of anything. It might have been there already. Does it light up when you turn the amp on? You could replace the preamp tube yourself but if that doesn't fix it, take it to an amp repair place.


Oh - and for future notice, only post once, not in multiple places.

Yes, I tried it and it works. Now I dont know if I dammaged it, what would be the sings if I fried a preamp valve powervalve or OT

Kenji, consider yourself lucky. For future reference, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have a tube amp of ANY KIND plugged into either a speaker of the proper rating (ohms) or a load box/resistive load of the the proper rating BEFORE turning it on. You will break your amp and it will be very expensive to repair, probably comparable to what you paid for it.

I make a point to connect the speaker cabinet before the power cable every time I hook up my rig just in case the power switch was bumped or flipped without my knowledge.

yossarian83 wrote:Kenji, consider yourself lucky. For future reference, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have a tube amp of ANY KIND plugged into either a speaker of the proper rating (ohms) or a load box/resistive load of the the proper rating BEFORE turning it on. You will break your amp and it will be very expensive to repair, probably comparable to what you paid for it.

I make a point to connect the speaker cabinet before the power cable every time I hook up my rig just in case the power switch was bumped or flipped without my knowledge.

You are right, it was a learning experience and now I know more about individual components in my amp and I'm considering modding it. I'll learn to do it myself and repair it myself so If the day comes that my OT is dead, I will change it myself.

Better learn all these things now rather than when ill buy a Dual Terror.