Anyone else having problems with the longevity of Mesa tubes

[user 1198]

Man, I don't know what is going on, but in the last 10 months I have replaced 6 power tubes and 3 preamp tubes. Two of the preamp tubes only lasted 2 months. The power tubes only lasted about 6 months. One of the tubes that only lasted 2 months was an SPAX7 which is supposed to be Mesa's higher quality tube. All of the tubes died within the warranty period and got replaced for free, which is great, but I'm not feeling to confident with the quality of Mesa tubes now.

The amp is probably on about 1.5 hours a day (every day) on average. I think the Mesa tubes sound good, but I think it's time to try out some other brands and see if they last longer. Anyone else have tube longevity problems?

 

[ibanez4life SZ!]

Never had a single problem with mesa tubes....recently changed to JJs in the power amp, and I'm very very happy! Much better tone!

 

[jbird]

Nope!

 

[JamesD]

I haven't had any problems with my Mesa Tubes either. Sorry to hear your having such bad luck.

 

[ashjn]

I don't think that is common. I've been playing my F-100 for about 5 hours a week, and i'm coming up on 2 years with the same set of tubes

 

[t0aj15]

I've had nothing but problems with Mesa's tubes in four different amps, especially their power tubes. I finally got to the point where I just stopped using them. The amps are great, I've never had a problem with any of them, but their tubes IMO suck.

 

[disassembled]

They don't make tubes just relabel them. All they do is test and screen. Most of the time they weed out the bad ones but shipping, abuse, user error, and just bad luck can play a role in the longevity of any tube from any manufacturer.

I personally would rather not pay Mesa to test and relabel my tubes for me when I can have someone do that while not paying any extra fees. Bob and Doug both do this and seem to have a pretty good business going.

For those afraid to void your warranty here's a bit of advice... what Mesa repair personnel don't see won't hurt them. Just make sure you put in the original tubes when you send it to Mesa in the event you need warranty work done.

 

[hillbillysoulbro]

I see that you have a Lonestar,I too have had nothing but problems with Mesa tubes in my Lonestar,I get 6 months out of them max. I switched to GTs this time, I want to see how long these last.

 

[user 1198]

I see that you have a Lonestar,I too have had nothing but problems with Mesa tubes in my Lonestar,I get 6 months out of them max. I switched to GTs this time, I want to see how long these last.

Just before 6 months is when I had to do my first power tube replacement on the Lone Star. I wonder if they have these amps biased too hot. I'm thinking about picking up one of those Weber bias probes to see the bias point of the amp.

How do the GT's sound compared to the Mesa tubes?

 

[Micah]

Man, I don't know what is going on, but in the last 10 months I have replaced 6 power tubes and 3 preamp tubes. Two of the preamp tubes only lasted 2 months. The power tubes only lasted about 6 months. One of the tubes that only lasted 2 months was an SPAX7 which is supposed to be Mesa's higher quality tube. All of the tubes died within the warranty period and got replaced for free, which is great, but I'm not feeling to confident with the quality of Mesa tubes now.

The amp is probably on about 1.5 hours a day (every day) on average. I think the Mesa tubes sound good, but I think it's time to try out some other brands and see if they last longer. Anyone else have tube longevity problems?

How do you know they went bad? What symptoms do you notice when they "go bad"?

 

[user 1198]

How do you know they went bad? What symptoms do you notice when they "go bad"?

When the power tubes were going bad, the amp was producing some very strange noises (I can't really describe the sound) when playing guitar through the amp. I swapped out the two center tubes and the amp was back to normal. This particular problem happened several times since I have owned the amp (which is about 10 months).

When the reverb tube went bad, it was producing a strange sound that sounded kind of like pop corn popping. This noise wasn't very loud, but was audible through the speakers. I swapped out the tube with a new one and the amp was back to normal.

Another time I noticed my amp was starting to become noisier, producing more hum than normal. It turned out to be the tube in V1. I swapped it out with a new one (an SPAX7) and the amp was back to being extremely quiet.

Two months after I swapped out the tube in V1, the SPAX7 completely died. The symptom for this was that the amp would not produce any sound at all. I swapped out the tube and the problem went away.

Throughout this all, Mesa has been very helpful and has replaced the tubes for free, but it's a real pain in the butt to diagnose these tube problems every time they happen.

 

[francric]

If this keeps happening on a regular basis, when do you say it's not the tubes and maybe the amp is shortening the lifespan of the tubes?????

 

[disassembled]

Combo amps will kill tubes faster than a head or rack setup because of the all of the vibration that the tubes suffer. This can be true for all tube combo amps. Groove tubes does the same thing that Mesa does (test and relabel tubes) so you might as well buy from the actual manufacturer rather than paying the middle man.

 

[Micah]

How do you know they went bad? What symptoms do you notice when they "go bad"?

When the power tubes were going bad, the amp was producing some very strange noises (I can't really describe the sound) when playing guitar through the amp. I swapped out the two center tubes and the amp was back to normal. This particular problem happened several times since I have owned the amp (which is about 10 months).

When the reverb tube went bad, it was producing a strange sound that sounded kind of like pop corn popping. This noise wasn't very loud, but was audible through the speakers. I swapped out the tube with a new one and the amp was back to normal.

Another time I noticed my amp was starting to become noisier, producing more hum than normal. It turned out to be the tube in V1. I swapped it out with a new one (an SPAX7) and the amp was back to being extremely quiet.

Two months after I swapped out the tube in V1, the SPAX7 completely died. The symptom for this was that the amp would not produce any sound at all. I swapped out the tube and the problem went away.

Throughout this all, Mesa has been very helpful and has replaced the tubes for free, but it's a real pain in the butt to diagnose these tube problems every time they happen.

Definatly--thats weird--Sorry that happened to you man--Maybe just a not-so-great batch of tubes they bought that tested fine but just didnt have any stamina-- :?

 

[user 1198]

Combo amps will kill tubes faster than a head or rack setup because of the all of the vibration that the tubes suffer.

Yeah, I have been considering buying an empty head enclosure from Mesa to convert my combo into a head for that very reason. I would rather carry two seperate lighter pieces of equipment instead of just one heavy piece anyway.

 

[user 1198]

If this keeps happening on a regular basis, when do you say it's not the tubes and maybe the amp is shortening the lifespan of the tubes?????

Yeah, the customer service rep. at Mesa said that if it happens one more time that he will refere me to a local repair center to have the amp checked out.

 

[tele_jas]

The same tubes have been in my Road King since the original owener got it in November of 2004. I replaced them last weekend with some pretty new GT's 6L6's and some Ruby EL34's and played one set with them..... and put the old boogie tubes back in because they sounded better to me. I play 4 to 8 hours a week every weekend on my RK and have since I got it a year ago, so I've probably put about 600-800 hours on the tubes since I had it counting practices and extra shows and there's no telling how many hours the first owner put on them??

I'm happy with my Mesa tubes

 

[picnic]

Here is what I learned from Doug at Doug's tubes. Mesa for its Lonestar Classic was using relabeled Ruby 430's as the stock power tube. There was a batch that was a problem batch. Mesa upgraded to the Ruby 440 and now uses them as the stock power tube. I got tube gas from a previous retubing thread and spoke to Doug.

He was very helpful. I didn't have any problem with my 430's and have noticed a nice little improvement in my LSC's tone. More sparkle and chime, more harmonic feedback on the drive channel. I gig once a week and play around the house 15 hours a week approx. Good Luck

 

[picnic]

Here is what I learned from Doug at Doug's tubes. Mesa for its Lonestar Classic was using relabeled Ruby 430's as the stock power tube. There was a batch that was a problem batch. Mesa upgraded to the Ruby 440 and now uses them as the stock power tube. I got tube gas from a previous retubing thread and spoke to Doug.

He was very helpful. I didn't have any problem with my 430's and have noticed a nice little improvement in my LSC's tone since I put in the new Ruby 440's. More sparkle and chime, more harmonic feedback on the drive channel. I gig once a week and play around the house 15 hours a week approx. Good Luck

 

[user 1198]

I have the Mesa 440's in my LSC right now and I really like the tone. My problem is that they just aren't lasting long enough. I'm really starting to wonder if it's due to the fact that the amp is a combo and the tubes are getting vibrated like crazy or if the bias on my particular amp was set too high.