First-time Mesa owner! Questions about retubing

[mindabsence]

Hey guys, this is my first post here. After lurking for a few months and dreaming of owning a Mesa someday, I just picked up a used series 1 rectifier solo 50 head and a 2x12 recto cab - Both are so good of condition they look like they should be on a display floor somewhere still. Making as crappy of money as i do at the age of 16, I consider it a pretty decent purchase that I'll probably hold onto forever (no more going through crappy solid state amps every few months because I never liked the sound I got from them)

Anyways, I have a question about tubing the amp as I'm very new in this field (First tube amp in my 11 years of playing).
The owner I bought it off of said the tubes are over a year old with some fairly heavy usage on them. I'd like to save up a little more and hopefully retube it in a couple months - just to get it good as new for it's new life with me here.

I asked this question in a local musician forum and everyone's telling me mixed results, so I figured I'd take it here which I should have just done in the first place.

It's about biasing. From what I understand on the mesa boogie site, I can just change pre/power amp tubes without the need to pay a technician to bias the amp everytime? I'll be using the same Mesa tubes again whenever I decide to re-do it.

A fellow friend who own's a mesa said he's never biased, through many tube changes, and he has no problems. The guys on this other forum are telling me I NEED to bias it EVERY change or I'll risk blowing the output transformer or something?

Anyways, educate me on tube changes for this head please? I'll forever appreciate it, and probably learn a lot.


Thanks guys, I look forward to posting here more!

EDIT: I'm reading a lot about JJ tubes and stuff too. Is it possible to put these in and not have to worry about biasing? Or should I stick to mesa's?

 

[Brewski]

If you use Mesa tubes, they are plug and play. Mesa tubes all fall into an acceptable range that can be used on Mesa amps. There is no way to re-bias your amp anyway, unless it has been altered by having a bias pot added.

If you use other brand tubes, you will need to be sure that the tubes fall within the range that Mesa sets it's bias. I have Eurotubes my Mesa's. It was less money than buying Mesa tubes, and I like the sound of them. When I bought them from Eurotubes.com, they were checked to be within the range of my amps.

Anyway, congratulations on your first tube amp and I'm sure that you will enjoy it.

 

[recto-robbie]

Hey mindabsense,,,what brewski wrote below is right on,,,to help put your mind at ease, if and when you decide to call eurotubes or dougs tubes, make sure and tell them what amp you are buying tubes for,,they will probably ask anyways. Both of these tube dealers are respectable and do good business and know their stuff. What they do is find tubes for you that match and fall under the same specs Mesa tubes do so there is no need to bias the amp. Also in case you dont know, your preamp tubes do not need to be matched, nor is there ever any worry if you want to just swap them around as often as you want with different makes and models. Thats how people usually start of trying to find their sound.
Of course you can always just order all your tubes from mesa but be prepared to pay more. Also you will notice that eurotubes sells only JJ's tubes. Dougs tubes I find is nice for preamp tubes because he offers a wide variety,,,,,,good luck,,,well be seeing ya here