Heartbreaker help

[boogieman75]

I am learning about the cascading preamp design that mesa uses and I am wondering if this is related.

I was home alone one day and I decided to fire up my heartbreaker before a gig to try and hit some poweramp tube distortion and I cranked the level (Master Master) and the master of one of the channels (I think it was lust) It sounded like crap and I noticed the amp volume started to cut and sputter. Is that a safety precaution or is there something wrong with my amp? I played it at low volumes the other day and it sounded fine. I am using 6v6 at the moment.

I am thinking I pushed too hard for those couple of seconds, but I was trying to find out if that kind of behavior is typical or if I should have it serviced before gigging with it. For the gig I used my Dual Rec head plugged into the HB 2x12 cabinet and it sounded fine.

Any suggestions?

 

[boogieman75]

bump for hump day

 

[nosajwp]

Does it sound ok at low levels? If so, it sounds like either your PI or power tubes need replacing.

 

[Tweeked]

A couple of thoughts:
Make sure you have the bias switch set for 6v6/6L6.
The amp should be in tweed mode.
If you are using the fx loop the channel(master) volume controls the
send level to the fx ,maxed out this will send too much level to your
fx processor.
Make sure the tubes are good.
I try to keep the master and preamp volumes the same,
for me too much of one or the other results in bad sound.
The HB dosen't have the cascading preamp like the old MK series,
one channel dosen't affect the other.(the reason I got a HB instead of
an old MK1 or 2)Both channels are independent of each other.

Hope this helps.Good luck!

 

[boogieman75]

Thanks for the responses guys. That's interesting about the cascade preamp. I thought all mesas had that. A few months back it was re-tubed with this setup:

V1 - Tung-Sol reissue 12AX7
V2 - High gain JJ ECC83S
V3 - Penta Labs 12AX7
V4 - Penta Labs 12AX7
V5 - JJ ECC83S
V6 - Shuguang 12AX7C9
V7 - Mesa 12ax7

And I ordered a quad of tung-sol 6V6 from the tubestore. Bias switch is set to 6v6/6l6

I noticed that with the tung-sol reissue in V1 that the volume was dropping out in tweed mode. I called my mesa dealer, mesa themselves and they said that the tube in the cathode follower spot blew and that I should swap it with a chinese 12ax7. That problem was solved.

So is the cathode follower in the heartbreaker V1? I was a little confused about that. Any good recommendations for the PI slot? I am using a mullard CV4024 in my dual rec which sounds sweet.

It sounds good at lower levels. That's why I wondered about clipping If I was pushing the amp too hard. I decided on 6v6 because I swapped out the C90 with a vintage 30 and scumback m75 25 watter. But I figured I should be able to crank that up to get some power tube distortion with 6v6's in 60 watt mode.

Thanks!