A Not-So-Scary Story About Buying an Effect Pedal on an Online Auction

This story takes place in February when it was still cold.

After trying out a particular phaser pedal, I suddenly got the urge to own one. So, I bought a slightly old Japanese-made phaser from an online auction.

The phaser arrived safely, and after opening it up and playing around with it, I thought, “Oh, so this is how this model sounds.” I enjoyed its swooshing sound for about two weeks...

Until one day when the sound cut out for a second...

“Hmm, did I just imagine that?” I thought, and assumed the patch cable might have gone bad. After swapping out the cable, the sound was back to normal. But

I couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling as I went to bed that night.

The next evening, I plugged in the phaser again, and the sound was fine. I bent the patch cable that I had replaced the day before and discovered that it was indeed shorting out and causing the sound to cut off.
Relieved, I thought, “Ah, the patch cable was the problem. It was over ten years old, so no surprise there,” and I played a bit more before going to sleep.

A few days later...

I took the phaser to the studio to play at a higher volume. That’s when the sound cut out again!

“This is really strange…”

It’s weird, isn’t it!?
I wasn’t using the faulty patch cable, so why was the sound cutting out?

Feeling a sense of dread, I went back home.

You see, I had already rated the seller as ‘Excellent’ on the online auction, and more than two weeks had passed since I received the pedal.
It was too late to return it now.

When I got home, with trembling hands, I opened the back cover of the phaser.

I fully opened my eyes and stared inside...

And then I saw it!

The input jack was cracked!
What!? How could this be? I felt like making a voodoo doll of the seller to curse him!

Well, I might be exaggerating a bit, but this sort of thing does happen.

This type of jack is commonly used in Japanese-made pedals and amps, and at my previous job, I often repaired older pedals. It wasn’t unusual to see jacks that had cracked like this in products over 20 years old.

When I removed the cracked jack...

It was indeed broken, and it was almost a miracle that it worked for the two weeks since I received it.

Fortunately, I found a similar jack in my parts box at home and replaced it!

But as I inspected the output jack more closely, it also seemed suspicious, so I removed it too.

Yep, it was cracked as well.

So, I replaced the output jack as well, and the pedal started working properly.

Now, I won’t mention the brand of this pedal because I don’t want to cause any unnecessary negative publicity. It’s not the fault of the manufacturer or the jack itself.
This is just something that can happen with older gears.
By the way, the patch cable really was faulty too, which just goes to show that there can be multiple causes when something goes wrong.

Bonus Story

Here’s another story from when I bought a Telecaster on an online auction some time ago...

When the guitar arrived, I plugged it into an amp and played it lightly. I thought, “It doesn’t sound as good as I expected,” but since I had planned to modify it anyway, I opened up the control plate.

And then it happened.

Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!

I almost screamed, but with shaky hands, I cut off the excess wiring and took a picture of it.

Here’s the picture...

Can you see it?

Yep, that messy soldering job on the volume pot was terrible!

This sort of thing happens too.

A friend once asked me to check his guitar saying, “I swapped out pickups for a set that cost thousands because a famous artist used them, but it didn’t sound good.” When I looked inside, I found the soldering was poorly done, and the wires were loose so they fell off when I pulled them.

When things are in this state, it’s best to replace the volume pot.
Opinions differ on Japanese pots, but I personally like them. I know a repairman who prefers Japanese pots over CTS ones.
The choice of parts is often a matter of personal preference and how they feel the torque when you turn them.

Alpha / ALP-250A

Montreux / CTS A250K vintage style [8055]

As for me, when I buy something on an online auction, I assume I’ll fix it myself if it’s broken. If I had taken the phaser to a repair shop, it would have cost me about as much as I paid for it at the auction. Repairs aren’t necessarily cheaper just because you bought the item cheaply.

So that’s my story of online auction experiences.