Can an amp lose its sound quality?

[duro78 10+ year member]

Yesterday while driving my front stage amp which is in my sig just lost its sq. It was playing just fine then all of a sudden i heard a little bit of static then the the quality cut off then back on again then completely off. The amp has served me for several years just wandering what could of possibly happened because it still works fine just seem like it lost all its adjustments and sounds really off. All wiring is fine

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[Farmacist 10+ year member]

have you tried to take the amp out and test in another car to rule out the possibility that it for sure is your amp ?

 

[VWBobby 10+ year member]

You can also try bench testing it in place. Get a 1/8" to RCA adapter y-cable.... Plug a MP3 player or other device with a headphone jack into it. Bypass your power wires using a spare battery that's fully charged. As long as you're not running more than 2000-watts or so, you should be ably to play it long enough to test it out without draining the battery too much.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Bad cap, loose internal connection, etc... plenty of ways for it to happen.

 

[Wingman0121 10+ year member]

No amps last forever mainly due to how electrolytic capacitors dry out overtime. The hotter the ambient temperature the faster the capacitors dry out. There are capacitors in passive speaker crossovers too. Low-grade ones can die within 10~20 years but usually they'll last for 20~30 years before it starts to lose its ability to function.

I double your amp's capacitor has gone bad though, assuming everything is working... my guess is corroded/lose connections. Check the RCA cables too and make sure it isn't pinched.

 

[FlexnInLa 10+ year member]

Yes, amps can lose their "sound quality."

Most 2 channel stuff from the 70's needs to be gone through and freshened up to sound it's best. The same goes for old school guitar and bass amps.

 

[Shinju 10+ year member]

No amps last forever mainly due to how electrolytic capacitors dry out overtime. The hotter the ambient temperature the faster the capacitors dry out. There are capacitors in passive speaker crossovers too. Low-grade ones can die within 10~20 years but usually they'll last for 20~30 years before it starts to lose its ability to function.

I double your amp's capacitor has gone bad though, assuming everything is working... my guess is corroded/lose connections. Check the RCA cables too and make sure it isn't pinched.

Also depends on were the amp is located for example if the amp is under a seat with little to no air flow causing lots of heat build up. Also running an amp really hard/clipping for long periods of time over and over will cause the amp to slowly degrade sound quality.

So yes, Also as someone mentioned above there are lots of things that can cause sound issues too.

 

[duro78 10+ year member]

Ill check the connections tomorrow it intermittently came back on today.Since i bridged the amp 3 months ago its been running a lot harder/hotter. Its mounted on an amp rack behind my front seats so it gets direct airflow. Thinking it might be the **** rca's Thanks for the info guys