DickFoster

You might give EBay a try.

Be sure you're using the right MIDI cable. Vetta is very particular in that respect. About the only one that seems to work without trouble is the MAudio cable. However it sounds as if you could be having some power supply problems so you may need to get an electronics type to crack it open and check out the supply voltages for you. There is a service manual online that can be downloaded if he's lacking the documentation.

That's all I was saying. It's not that hard to find someone who can weld a soldering iron and scope probe so don't give up the ghost as soon as it goes on the fritz. Besides common test equipment all a good tech needs is a service manual which I happen to have if you ever need it.

My Vetta works just fine and always has but if and when it does break I can likley fix it and have the equipment, knowledge and service info to do so. However most folks don't so they'll be up the creek without a paddle should their's develop a problem. All I'm trying to tell folks is that there is little to no service support out there for the Vetta amp and Line 6 doesn't care to do anything to remedy the situation. They could do some stuff to help the situation but they simply choose not to. For what reason I don't know. All I do know is that it's a bad decision and it's appears from this end to be entirely an attitude problem. I once had a similar experence with a GM car. I realize that you can have a bad experence with any car made by anyone but it was their attitude that made me swear off of their products for life or at least until they fix their attitude. With proper support you can repair most products but you simply can't repair an attitude if they choose not to change it. From what I can see and I know electronics in depth, the Vetta is a well designed and well made amp but if it doesn't work, it doesn't matter how great it once was.

When Line 6 learns to adequatly support their products I will. Till they do that, I'm steering clear of anything they have to offer because it's likely to be money down the drain. I'm not buying anything from anyone who's apt to leave me holding an empty bag no matter how good it may be. Unless it's working, you have nothing. Unless you're handy with electronics and have the knowledge and equipment to repair it, I don't recommend that anyone buy a Vetta at any price. Not unless you're into collecting boat anchors.

You need to get it to someone who is good with electronics and has the test equipment and knowledge to fix it. If they don't have a service manual I can fix them up with what I have that was downloaded off the Internet. The manual I have is for a head unit but the heads and combos are almost the same execpt for the final power amp.

I don't think so as you'd have a large difference in speaker cone area which is still going to give you a large sonic imbalance even if the speaker impedance is equal on both channels. I think your best best is to run it in normal mode or to disconnect both internal speakers and run only the externals if you want more Left and Right seperation. You asked.

Sorry but you are most definatley Wrong. For two resistances in parallel the total can never be greater than the lowest resistance in the pair. The formula for two resistances in parallel is R1 X R2 -------- R1 + R2 It's not 12ohms and can't possibly be more than 8 ohms. It's 5.333 ohms for each channel with the two speakers in parallel an 8 and a 16. Do it yourself. http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-paralresist.htm Just plug 8 into one slot and 16 in the other and hit calculate. You can also do it with this formula 1/RT = 1/R1 + 1/R2 + 1/R3 = 1/R4 and so on depending on how many resistors you have in parallel but the answer will be the same. I wasn't an EE for over 40 years for nutin. This is really simple, I used have to do this sort of thing and much more with sliderules. You have it easy these days. LOL

As your external speakers are 16 ohm and the internals are 8, your internal speakers would be louder than your externals but I suppose it depends on what you're trying to do. If you ran it in split stereo one channel, the internal speakers, would be much louder than the external speakers. I suggest normal to keep things more in balance. If you just want to spread it out a bit sonically speaking it would probably work out OK in normal stereo but the externals won't be as loud as the internals. The parallel combination of internal and external would be 5.33333 ohms for each channel in normal mode but in split stereo you'd have 4ohm load on one channel and 8ohms on the other, a large imbalance. You could also disconnect the internal speakers and run the externals alone if you want it to sound more spaced out with the two channels more spatially isolated. More impedance is not going to hurt anything, it just won't deliver as much power but you probably don't need it anyway. Just don't run any combination that falls below 4 ohms total impedance for either channel or you could toast your power amps. BTW if you daisy chain or run them in series you'll end up with 32 ohms not 8. To get 8ohms you need to wire the two 16s in parallel.

I wouldn't even do that unless I first knew that the battery was good to go. Attempting to update the firmware is risky business if the system isn't 100% up to snuff. It's just way too easy to brick the amp and get yourself further into the hole than you were to begin with.

Has it been working OK or did you just get it? As a rule of thumb, the first thing to look at for any sort of software problem is the battery. That is unless you know it's good and not the problem. The firmware uses the battery backed DRAM to boot up. If it has random garbage data in there due to a dead battery then it just goes haywire. Today they use flash memory for that sort of thing so you don't need battery power but back when the amp was designed, flash memory wasn't so common and standard practice was to use battery powered DRAM. A fresh battery is good for several years, it's just a PITA when it goes down. To replace the battery the amp has to be taken apart enough to access the main circuit board. They used a soldered in board mounted battery holder but it would be easy to relocate the battery to allow outside access for future changes.

Yes, From the Vetta service manual parts list. Battery 3V Lithium COSMOS CR2430. You can probably find one at your local hardware store. For a pic of what it looks like. http://www.amazon.com/Energizer-cr2430-CR2430-3V-Lithium/dp/B000E896U8 You have to take the amp apart and be handy with a soldering iron to change it. It's on the main PC board and is not hard to find. because it's the only battery looking thing on there. Don't get it in backwards now. If you aren't comfortable doing this sort of work, getting someone who is to help you would be a good idea.

Just a word or caution. The update procedure using their monkey will only get you 2.5 the latest, nothing earlier. If it's something earlier you want then don't use the monkey do it, you'll have to use the edit program to do it manually. I just want to be very clear so you aren't disappointed. .

If you just want to get it updated to the latest Line6 made avaliable for your amp then you might want to get yourself an Uno USB/Midi cable and let the Line 6 monkey update your amp. From what I've read any other cable may not work and they recommend only the Uno cable. Its cheap enough if you don't already have one. This will of course erase any custom patches you have stored in the amp and replace them with the facotry stuff so save them to your computer if you want to hang on to them. Here's a Line 6 tutorial for the update procedure using their monkey. I don't know why they call it that. http://line6.com/media/jive/vetta_tutorial/index.html

If that's the case it's a bit easier to deal with as long as he doesn't have to replace the switch. that could be a pain unless you're used to working on PC boards. They are PC mounted switches and some are mounted in sub assemblies of more than one switch.

I suspect you may need to replace the battery. The Vetta will do a lot of wierd stuff as they begin to die and the voltage drops below spec. It's little brain gets scrambled like it has Alheimers or something. It's a good starting place and can't hurt anyway.

I'm glad you got it sorted out. Vetta's are good amps with a solid design. Did they change the whole board or just the bad component parts? As complete boards are getting ever tougher to find, it's making component level repair the only option as time goes forward. If you know could you share what the defective components were?

Actually no. The only thing that mutes with the heaphones plugged in is the preamp to the power amp that drives the speakers. All the other outputs headphone output, effects out and direct out will still function with the headphones plugged in. That tells us that your problem is likely either with the preamp, power amp or one of the supply voltages dedicated soley to one of those circuits. At least that piece of info eliminates a whole bunch of stuff in the front end of the amp, the DSPs, processor, etc. etc. etc. It's all about finding out what works and what doesn't so you know where to start looking for the problem. In electronics they call this the half split method of troubleshooting. You start in the middle of the overall circuit to find out if the first or second half is good or bad then cut the known bad half into half again etc. until you eventually get the problem isolated down to your problem component. Now that you know that the front half is good, ever who works on it need only look at the back half to find your problem. The fact that it's a stereo amp and both channels are not working should make it just that much easier to find the trouble. Armed with a schematic and common test gear like a DVM and scope ever who your tech is should have little trouble finding your problem and getting it put right again.

Can you hear anything with a set of headphones plugged in? Careful with headphones plugged in the speakers are automatically muted so there could be something amiss in that circuit. It gets the power amp mute signal via a mechanical connection in the head phone jack so if that has gone flakey then the speakers will be muted. It's somewhere to start anyway.

LOL now you're really out there into outer space. Feel an amp? Get real fer pity sake. Sorry but that's just plain jibberish to my ears. You don't feel an amp unless you're talking about a bass that can thump you but you do hear it.

I'm interested in reviews for this too.

My guess is battery for starters.

I'm sure you can make the combination work safely however due to the state of support or lack of it, I don't recommend that you buy the amp unless you are able to diagnose and repair the amp yourself. Unless you're an electronics technician or engineer you're liable to end up with an expensive but finely designed and made boat anchor. Line6 won't support the amp and thier so called designated repair shops are not much more than board swappers and Line6 no longer supplies the boards. Unless you can troubleshoot and repair down to the component level, you're apt to be stuck and out of luck altogether if the amp goes south. I'm sad to say that but it's essentially true.

What kind of pickups on your guitar. Humbuckers or not. Hum can also often be traced down to a defective ground like a disconnected lead to a tail piece in the guitar. You'd have to try the amp with a different known to be good guitar to be sure it's the amp. BTW I wouldn't recommend spending a lot of money on so called oxygen free wire in guitar cords etc. as it's all just a marketing gimmick. The only things that counts for anything is the quality of the hardware and plating used, quality of construction and the amount of shielding in the cable.