Amp repair shops in Phx AZ?

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mandude

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Joined 2008
#1
Hi guys, new here. I belong to a couple other car audio forums, but this one seems to have a good focus on amp repair, which is cool.

I have a PPI 5440 amplifer (purchased in 1999) that finally gave up on me after 9 years of abuse. I would like to get it repaired...anyone know of a reputable car audio repair shop in the Phoenix area? Thanks! 😎
 
#4
I live in Nor-Cal so I did not respond. Not far as the crow fly's but not AZ. Your PPI 5440 was built offshore as I recall, I have a friend has one .
Fairly straightforward amp inside, nothing super special. Usually a power supply issue, or an occasional output failure. It is SMD and thru-hole so some folks don't care to work on SMD. The Tweezer work gets tedious. All in all no biggy.
Have you tried to contact PPI directly? They have one tech as I recall. And they usually offer a B stock replacement for reasonable prices. Thats what they did for my friend on his earlier model amp, thats how he got his 5440 for like $180.00 shipped.
 
#5
1moreamp said:
I live in Nor-Cal so I did not respond. Not far as the crow fly's but not AZ. Your PPI 5440 was built offshore as I recall, I have a friend has one .
Fairly straightforward amp inside, nothing super special. Usually a power supply issue, or an occasional output failure. It is SMD and thru-hole so some folks don't care to work on SMD. The Tweezer work gets tedious. All in all no biggy.
Have you tried to contact PPI directly? They have one tech as I recall. And they usually offer a B stock replacement for reasonable prices. Thats what they did for my friend on his earlier model amp, thats how he got his 5440 for like $180.00 shipped.
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PPI was not offshore when I bought this, they were still located here in Phoenix. Not interested in B stock, want to get this one repaired, I liked it!
 
#6
I Am An Idiot said:
What kind of problems are you having with the amp? There are several people here that can help you Fix it yourself, if of course you are willing to do a little testing and are able to answer a few questions.
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What kind of problems? Well, channels 3 and 4 died first. Then, quite some time after, the sub channel died. Then, shortly after that, channels 1 and 2 died. I always ran the amp fairly hard, and it is extremely hot here in the summer, so I'm sure that didn't help.

What I mean by died, is that the output started to sound kind of crackly, then after a few days/weeks pretty much no output. At that point, any sound that there was was extremely crackly sounding.

After the first set of channels died (channels 3 and 4) I took it apart. I noticed that some of the white components (I think they were resistors) looked a little discolored. Everything else looked pretty normal (and yes, I took the clamps off the fets). The white components are circled in the image (image taken from ampguts and I added the red circles)
 
#8
It was attached, but I don't think it worked because my account was 'under moderation', but i think that's lifted now, so hopefully this works.
 

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#9
Yup thats a 5440, and it was made offshore I.E. Korea I think is where they had them made. ALL PPI's after the older PCX series are offshore made, Heck even some of the PCX series were offshore just look for the Red mark on the top side of the PCX amp.

I ran PPI myself back in the late 80's and very early 90's, and still own several PC series amp.

Your amp has a sub power supply and a four channel power supply the darker looking toroid is the sub supply. It sounds like current limits have let go on your amp, This would explain the eventual loss of all the channel over time...but it should be benched to gain perspective of its real problems...:smash:


PS there should have been a small white sticker on the bottom plate in red letter saying product of Korea. By law they have to put those on these as thats where they were built, sorta like the big tag on furniture, and clothing and such. None the less it was a nice amp, especially when compared to some todays amps. This was built after the Directed takeover of PPI. This I am sure of. Hope someone close come through for you and fix's your amp for you...🙂
 
#10
cool, thx. it is a nice amp, not the most powerful, but the SQ coming out of that is phenomenal (and if there are other amps that sound nicer SQ wise I would like to know about it!)

so i guess it was made offshore...i know that the owners manual says they were located in phoenix. good ol outsourcing.

sounds like a repair would be above and beyond something simple?

so how do i go about finding a good repair shop then?
 
#12
Unfortunately I do not have a 12 power supply just lying around, and it would be difficult to use my car's power supply.

What is a busbar? Is that anything that I can check through visual inspection, or with a DMM without the amp powered up?
 
#13
The busbars are the metal jumpers. It's not likely that you'll be able to see any of the bad connections. It would also be difficult to find them with a meter.

You'd need to power up the amp and check voltage at several points. When you found that voltage was absent at a point where you should have voltage, you'd trace the problem back until you found the break.

If you don't have the ability to work on it easily, it's probably best that you pay to have it repaired.

If you don't know of a good repair shop in your area, call the local car audio shops to see who they use for repairs. If several shops recommend the same repair shop, they probably do good work.
 
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