There is someone selling a Peavey 5150 and they have described the amp as having a crackling sound in the 1st channel. I'm interested in possibly buying this and repairing it because he only wants $400 for it.

I've resorted to ebay as around here the demand for high gain amps is almost nil and the only ones available for going for $900+. Anyone have any ideas what could be wrong with it? Does anyone think it's going to cost a lot of fix or could it just be something simple like new tubes?

It could be as simple a fix as cleaning the volume pot with some parts cleaner. Then again, I had a weird intermittent crackling sound in a tube head once that was really hard to diagnose. I forget what the fix was now. I think it might've just went away after all of the tubes were replaced.

Were you given any more details about the problem?

Nope he's just said there's a crackling and he just doesn't want to take any time or money to fix it so he's getting rid of it for some extra cash. I'm considering this route because people are bidding almost 700 bucks for ones that are beat to hell, but this one is in really good shape just the small problem. If it'll only cost 100 at the most to fix I think it's worth it.

Well, if you find out that the crackling has anything to do with the rotating of any control knobs, I'd say definitely buy it, as that will most likely be easy to fix.
I'm guessing it must be something else though. I would think the guy would know if it's just a dirty pot.

I'm just gonna go for it. The tech dude I know said it sounds like a cheap fix that wouldn't take long. Even if it was expensive I'd have an amp that would last.