Just got my MKIII back from Mesa!

[boogietone]

Had it serviced, some caps replaced and some wires fixed along with some new STR440's. I thought it sounded good before. Holy crap that thing screams now! And to echo what most everyone says, their customer support is top notch. Mesa rawks!

 

[RR]

Their service must be top notch service if they sent your amp back to Kodiak, AK!

 

[boogietone]

I'm sure the shipping was included. Unfortunately, there's no one around here that can do that stuff and I'm not yet comfortable taking a soldering iron to my amps yet! At least at Mesa I know the work was done right.

 

[TheHysteria]

I'm sure the shipping was included. Unfortunately, there's no one around here that can do that stuff and I'm not yet comfortable taking a soldering iron to my amps yet! At least at Mesa I know the work was done right.

How much did everything cost in whatever dollars?

 

[boogietone]

How much did everything cost in whatever dollars?[/quote]

$278 USD was the grand total on a MKIII blue stripe short head w/EQ and no reverb.

Work included:

-replacing AC power cord
-replacing cooked resistors
-worn out STR430's replaced with new STR440's
-replacing bias caps
-replacing Direct Out jack and associated wiring (previously removed by last owner)
-cleaning and a few other misc things.
-fixing some messed up wiring (previously done by last owner)

And $85 of the total cost was in shipping-Ouch!
But worth it. And that was with the chassis removed from the cabinet.

 

[Matt_B]

What was the turnaround time?

 

[boogietone]

What was the turnaround time?

I sent it off late September. It arrived Nov. 13. Alot of that was transit time. It takes a while for shipped items to get here or to send them. Obviously for those that are in CONUS this would go a lot quicker. I would hazard a guess of 2 to 4 weeks depending on how much you need/want done. It is hard for me to say exactly being the remote location I'm in as to how long it would take elsewhere. Your best bet maybe is to call Mesa (707-778-6565). I'm sure they can give you a better idea than I can if you tell them what you need done and where your location is. 8)

 

[Racerboy44]

Mike B. at Mesa recently modded my Mark III and he only had it for a couple of days. When I picked it up he let me come in the back area where he works and try it out to make sure everything was right. He is a very cool guy. You just can't get better service than that! Oh, and the amp is just a monster of fire breathing tone. He modded channel 2 to have more gain and tweaked channel 1 for a better clean sound. He told me that the changes that he made make it slightly more updated than a red stripe.

 

[boogietone]

That's awesome! If I would've known about that gain tweak for R2 and cleaning up R1 I probably would've had that done to. Then again, it already sounds sweet the way it is.

 

[boogietone]

That's awesome! If I would've known about that gain tweak for R2 and cleaning up R1 I probably would've had that done to. Then again, it already sounds sweet the way it is.

 

[Racerboy44]

Yeah, he also changed the line out knob on the back to a volume control for channel 2 so I can balance all channels evenly now. There really is nothing the amp needs now. I a/b'd the Mark III against a Quad Preamp into a Mesa 295 poweramp and the Mark III sounded better. Tighter and more articulate. I think the changes Mike B. made really tightened and cleaned up the sound of the amp. I have to really overdue it with the gain to get any muddiness at all.

 

[boogietone]

I also have a volume mod for R2 and it does really to balance out the channels. I'm very happy with my amps tone and gain. I got my MKIII after hearing Danyeo's clips of it against a backing track along with the Crispy Cream pedal. I got one of those to which I really like. Gotta give credit where credit is due-Thanks for that clip Danyeo! As far as muddiness, it is the same for my amp. Really over doing it with the gain it'll get a little muddy. But it already has plenty of gain long before that even happens. My clean channel is difficult however to get a nice clean out of. I have to back off my guitar's volume quite a bit. Gives me another excuse to buy another Mesa! He-he-he!

 

[psychodave]

Mike B. at Mesa recently modded my Mark III and he only had it for a couple of days. When I picked it up he let me come in the back area where he works and try it out to make sure everything was right. He is a very cool guy. You just can't get better service than that! Oh, and the amp is just a monster of fire breathing tone. He modded channel 2 to have more gain and tweaked channel 1 for a better clean sound. He told me that the changes that he made make it slightly more updated than a red stripe.

Did the added gain on R2 change the lead tone? How much more gain was added? 8)

 

[Racerboy44]

Whether the changes to the clean channel or the added gain to R2 made any difference to the lead channel is hard to say. I mean the tone of the amp in all channels slightly improved most likely due to Mike modding the clean channel. From what he told me, only extra gain was added to R2. The additional gain to R2 is significant but not drastic. Just enough that I can use it for heavier rhythm tones now.
I told Mike I didn't want to make major changes to the amp that might change the tone or character of the amp. Only minor improvements that would make it better. I mean we all bought these amps because we like the way they sounded so you don't want to mess up a great thing.