Repairing a Vox DA5 practice amp (fixed)

[solewheelin]

*Never buy a used amp from an ebay pawn shop because much of the time, they don't give it a proper test with a guitar (or even a 1/4" jack) before listing it as a working amp.


I won an auction for one of these on ebay and when it arrived it was DOA.
The light goes on but I get a weird re-occurring hiss (not a crackle).
There doesn't seem to be any loose connections inside, but i told the seller that i'd try to fix it because i have been having trouble finding this amp. It's not rare, but this model has not been made in 10 years and I like it.
Anyway, i'm hoping to have someone here help me troubleshoot.
Also hoping the issue isn't involved with the digital part of the board, but judging by the sound it was making, i'm doubting it.
Thanks!

[solewheelin]

Well, it looks like I fixed it and I didn't do much.
I once again was poking around the solder connections and heard nothing loose so I figured before I start actually dismantling this thing, let me poke a 1/8 dowel into the jacks to see if I could hear something. Low and behold, there might either be a loose connection that I was able to access inside Line/Phone jack. After poking and feeling, I got it working! It could have also been a tiny piece of foreign metal lodged in there. I just blew some compressed air in so we will see how it holds up from here on out.
Awesome discontinued travel amp. I also look forward to trying it out in the woods this spring with some C batteries I'll get from the dollar store.

[Pepe]

Great job! The DA5 is a cool unit. Our man from the KORG distribution came over with one of these when they were new. I played around with it and was very pleased with the sound and overall volume. Not bad for 5W, I thought. Then he showed me the switch on the back - the DA5 was in the 0.5W position! On "5W" it sounded awesome and we sold quite a few of these. The new ones aren't bad, either. VOX is cool again since KORG develops the new stuff.

[solewheelin]

Thanks! It definitely is a cool amp. I worked at a major music store 10 years ago and it was my favorite small amp there for testing.
Little did I know they were discontinued when recently shopping for a small amp for my bench.
The new Vox Mini 5 doesn't seem bad, no, but here are a few key differences between the two.

- Mini 5 has no auto wah mode.
- everything from the back of the DA5 is moved top on the mini5 making controls more cluttered
- The power switch doesn't look nearly as solid as the one on the DA5
- Mini 5 takes 6 AA batts where as the DA5 takes 6 C batteries which are heavier but hold more juice.
- The mini 5 also has 1/8" jacks for aux and headphones where as the DA5 has 1/4" jacks.

I think that's pretty much it.
Anyway, I am really happy to have gotten this amp working.

[solewheelin]

After spending some time with it I gotta say I love this little amp. Sounds great in all wattage settings especially the 5w mode.
The effects sounds great, especially the Auto wah setting, and the tap button takes the place of a rate knob for both the modulation and for the delay, which I don't mind.
I'm using it for my bench but if you are looking for a good practice amp that does everything short of drum accompaniment, get one of these. These amps sound great and can't really be beat for the $$ they seem to be fetching used on ebay.