Buggered amp

My brother bought a nice little valve amp a week or so back, and this evening it’s apparently humming like a bitch and the volume control appears to be almost completely stuck. He’s emailed the supplier but whilst he’s waiting on a reply, is it likely to be anything other than “needs a repair”?

Apologies for lowering the forum with an actual hifi question

Do you mean the control is mechanically stuck, so you can’t turn the physical knob, or it behaves as if it’s stuck, so the knob goes round perfectly easily but the sound doesn’t get louder or quieter as you would expect it to ?

VB

It’s physically stuck and cannot be turned.

Sounds like the volume control pot has failed then. It will almost certainly include a connection to signal ground and if that’s failed as well (quite likely) then that will explain the humming too.

Unless the pot was something unusual a replacement shouldn’t be very expensive. Fitting it will be more or less of a faff depending on precisely how it’s attached to the electronic circuitry and to the amp’s casework/chassis.

Is it under warranty, or bought from a retailer ? If so then the seller is probably obliged to fix it. If it was bought from a private individual ‘as seen’ then technically any subsequent fault is the new owner’s problem. But a decent seller might well help to get it sorted.

VB

Yeah, getting it sorted out won’t be an issue, was just trying to get him as much of an idea of what was going on in advance.