Dyne eating tubes?

elvis · Aug 31, 2011

OK, so I fired up my Dyne at practice and the PI tube went. Last weekend I completely retubed, and almost immediately got a weird buzzing/rustling sound from the amp. At first I thought it was my new 4x10 cabinet. It's gotten worse, and I traced it down to V5, after trying V7 again, and V6, since it seemed to be on the clean channel only. That was a brand new tube! Now I did have a tube go bad after 10 minutes recently in my F50, so it may be the same deal. These are all Mesa 12AX7s. I'll keep playing, and hopefully the Dyne will run OK now. The F50 seems fine after a few weeks.

That's a lousy failure rate for $20 tubes.

Yes, I know there are lots of other brands, and cheaper brands, etc. I have tried a number of them, but always wind up going back to Mesa tubes. Recently I put a set of JJs in my SP, and they were mediocre. I HATE Groove Tubes. I have had consistency problems with EH. I go to Mesa because I always seem to get the same tone and gain from them (when they don't die young).

Anyhoo, anybody else replacing bad preamp tubes in their Dyne?

YellowJacket · Aug 31, 2011

Doesn't Mesa have like a 3 month warranty for their tubes!?

screamingdaisy · Aug 31, 2011

So far as I know Mesa's still using JJs as their preamp tube, and if internet opinion is any measure JJ's quality has been sliding down hill the last 3 or 4 years.

I personally preferred it when they were using EHX preamp tubes, but New Sensor lowered the specs on their tubes and they started dying in the cathode follower positions of their various amps.

That said, tube sellers can only test for whether the tube works or not. There's no test for how long the tube will actually last. It's why Mesa has a warranty on their tubes... for $20 that specific tube may not last 6 months... but for $20 they'll guaranty that you'll get a tube that will last for 6 months.

elvis · Aug 31, 2011

I'll have to look into the warrantee. I've just been throwing them away

J.J · Sep 1, 2011

reported tube failure for the ED around here is about that same for the other Mesa amps. I have not had a failure in 8 months and am using mostly the original pre amp tubes.

If there is something wrong with a tube often it will fail in the first few hours otherwise they will usually last for years.

I may just be lucky, but I have not had any total failures of mesa tubes yet. I did wear out some EL84 tubes in my Express after about 12 months of constant use though. Besides the odd pop or crackle they were still working fine.