Tube Screamer Terror: TS9 Repair

My brother, who was the inspiration for me learning to play guitar, often goes guitar hunting. Whether it's Guitard Center, or a pawn store in the middle of a swamp, my brother will check it out to see what kind of guitars and gear they have. He often texts me photos of cool stuff, and sometimes to ask me if I know what something is, or what it's worth. This particular day he sent me a photo of an Ibanez TS9 tube screamer, saying he was told it was broken. He didn't bother testing it before he handed it off to me to see what I could do with it. I wasn't completely sure what was, or could be wrong with it before I got my grubby little hands on it, but I soon found out.

Well there's your problem! If you search TS9 repair online, this seems to be quite a common issue with the TS9. The PCB only has this singular anchor point and is otherwise free floating. This wouldn't be an issue if the pedal was only powered by a battery. The problem being the power jack is a point of force, although not much, but over time repeated plugging and unplugging of a power source put a certain amount of strain on that singular point. Another possible reason could be if the pedal takes a hard bump on the front while it's plugged in. Clearly it doesn't take much for that small section to simply break.

The odd thing is I had no issues with this pedal. Was it broken? Technically yes, but it did function. A little bit of solder to bridge the points that were broken, and add a slight bit of strength back into it, and it was good to go. I also cleaned up the pedal a little bit, now it functions completely and looks nice. I already built myself both a TS808 and TS9 clone, so this one will be going back to my brother to do with as he sees fit, but not before I take the chance to A/B my TS9 clone circuit beside the genuine article. It's not every day that I have the chance to do that.

I did the A/B test of my TS9 clone circuit and the genuine article and I have to say they're pretty close. I think the "proud papa" syndrome of having built mine makes me like it more, but they're not much different. Mine seems a tiny bit louder and has a tiny bit more at the top end of the drive control. I have to say the tube screamer is just an iconic sound, and whether I built one myself or not, I'm glad I have at least one in my tone library.