So, I ended up getting a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier head and it's paired with some sort of generic cab. I'm wanting to replace the tubes, but it seems to be like... finding God? I don't know.

I can't seem to find anyone who can tell me which tubes to get, and when I try to just jump on it and buy some I get cautioned about blowing my amp head up. The Mesa Boogie site shows that it uses 4 6L6, 5 12AX7 and 2 5U4 tubes, but when going to buy those "specs" the guy at Guitar Center cautioned me against buying without more info/detail.

Any thoughts on this? Every time I call Mesa the line rings endlessly.

Thanks

Go to Grandma's music. Go to the repair shop and they will answer all your questions.

Easiest thing to do is buy Mesa tubes, then you won't need to worry about the bias setting on the amp.

Yeah was definitely planning on getting Mesa tubes. Thanks for the heads up I'll try swinging by. Grandma's is usually pretty kick ass

Warning!!!(robot waves arms) Must biased together!!! Not at all a Noob DIY job! Without experience on the multimeter that Mesa will be mushu! Cuidado amigo.

i believe that grandmas is a distributor for mesa boogie, and that guitar center is not.


visit harmony-central.com for your particular amp, or perhaps another tone freak site http://www.questfortheholytone.com/

i love them amps, but i am too lazy to carry them around...

You can also check out Eurotubes. They have full retube kits for all kinds of amps, pretty reasonable pricing too. And great customer service. I'm not sure if they offer "Mesa" tubes or not though. I retubed my shitty B-52 amp with some JJ's tubes and it was a huge improvement.

Peace,
B

Sweet, thanks for all the advice guys. I'll probably give Mesa a call and then just head down to Grandma's with info from Mesain hand. And thanks for the caution Whole Other Life I think it can be a DIY job, as long as I pay attention to what I'm doing, haha

Thanks again y'all!

Yeppers! With that "pay attention" qualifier and backed up with right info there is actually very little that's not DIY. Get the goods and dive into the mystery. The essential wrongness about tubes is what makes it sound so right. Isn't that friggin' hilarious? The human condition. Like great art: there has to be something wrong with it for it to be right. (Mona Lisa, La Pieta, Riaci bronze)

As a fellow Mesa player, I can tell you that all Mesa amps have a fixed bias. As long as you pick up a set of matched Mesa Tubes (which are really just rebranded Sovteks or other Russian or Chinese brands selected for their bias), you can do the job yourself IF you know what you're doing and are careful.

WARNING: Remember, capacitors still hold voltage, even after the amp has been turned off - touch a cap lead with your finger or a metal tool, and you could kill yer azz.

Yeah I hear that man. I used to have an old Marshall head, had a friend of mine dig around in it (years and years ago, was in high school and cant recall why) and his watch came into contact with something which ended up blowing the amp head AND shorting out various sockets in our bass players house.

So while I was not killed, I definitely will exercise more caution in the future haha. And I whole heartedly agree that with the correct info in hand, mostly everything becomes DIY :P

Thanks for the input, man. How much you think it'd run to splurge and just have someone install them for me? Wouldn't mind except that I'd like to learn how to do it reliably myself, haha.

Sounds to me like you've had the "smoke test" experience required to do the thing. Takes literally minutes and unless price is meaningless the DIY jobs are always more rewarding. It's always about the learning curve, in this case all the necessary info is on the net. Do the legwork of forum search and talking about it. You'll be up to speed in no time. Fire them irons!

Not that you'll need irons for a retube, that was just a battle cry.

I forget this is a wide open forum, not specific to techs, so this message is not necessarily for you Ty; if you don't know the value of a long, insulated screwdriver, alligator jumpers, a true earth ground, and what bleeding off is, Do Not Muck About Inside Your Amp. Else you'll be the news.

Good idea though, if I can't scare technology into doing what I want the situation usually just ends up bloody and smelling somewhat like sex. (This is especially unfortunate when trying to troubleshoot a laptop at work).

Then again, some customers like you to take charge O.O

Ha! Vicious, angry sex! And the only thing that smokes after is the carcass. ...Umm, sir, I've got some bad news about your..

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I, uhh... Want someone to build that and then sell it to me? Haha

JJ's/Eurotubes are the best. When you call up Bob and tell him what you are using, he can pick out tubes that are correct for the Recto's fixed bias. If you look up reviews on JJ's in your Mesa head, I am pretty confident everyone of them will note an improvement in the tone.

You could also just try putting JJ's in the preamp section. If you are going for a high gain sound, most of your tone is probably coming from cranking the preamp.

Sweet thanks, Thunda. I'll check out their site, think it was linked somewhere up above-ish

Have you played Tech Hero on expert yet? Resetting the gain sat on EVH's Plexi ten minutes before the show is a monster!

Haha, not I. My tech realm extends as far as little mobile devices and computers, haha. My guess is I'd, like you said earlier haha, get turned into the news attempting that :P



I read about a guy in National Geographic the other day, an astronaut, who to fix a problem on the I.S.S. used 66 feet of wire, an aluminum sheet, a hole punch, and some sort of bolted joint thing.

MacGuyver... but in space O.O