Major problems with my Triple Rectifier...please help

[cbsmith]

about 6 months ago, a night before a big show here in Richmond, Virginia, my Mesa triple rectifier wouldn't turn on. I've only had it but a year and a half and bought it brand new from a store locally. I had just practiced with it not more than 4 hours earlier but the amp wouldn't make any noise. The tubes lit up, the front plate showed power, just no noise. I called mesa and went round and round till it was thought that it would be a rare problem of the "mute relay switch" was stuck on. I took it to a mesa repair guy and he couldn't fix it. Yeah, didn't know how to fix it. After talking with mesa again about this I took it to another one and the amp was fixed. Supposedly. Well as excited as I was about getting the amp back I did kinda notice that the amp just didn't have the same balls and girth that it had in the past, but I just assumed it was me and my ears and different rooms and such. Until lately when I haven't been able to get much volume out of it. I still get enough volume for a small room but when I played Saturday night with our band in a large room I was NO WHERE TO BE FOUND. You couldn't hear me. I listened to all the other bands and they didn't have any problem getting enough juice out of their amps.

I've checked my tubes and don't seem to see any problems but it has been about a year since I have changed out the "Rectifier" tubes. Could these tubes keep the amp from fully powering up? I'm at a loss right now over the amp and certainly don't want to switch to something else but I can't continue to go on stage with something that I am constantly worrying about not performing for me. Especially at the cost of the amp. I certainly don't want to go out and buy all new tubes if there is something else wrong with it and given the lack of ability from our local "registered" Mesa techs I have little faith in them at this time. I did order a new set of 3 "rectifier" tubes from Bob at Eurotubes and will have them in by midweek to check them.

Could anyone tell me if there is something I can check to help me out? I'm really interested in hearing more about how the Rectifier tubes work in the gain staging of the amp? Is it like the other tubes where they feed off each other and if those go out then there isn't enough power sent to the preamp tubes and then to the power tubes? Could something in the repair of the "mute relay switch" cause the amp to react this way????

I just need a starting point and I think I'm going to try and place some older 6L6's in the amp and see if maybe I have a bad tube. I did buy Mesa tubes this time and I've heard about a bad batch of tubes so maybe that is another starting point as well.

I'm really nervous about this amp and I have but 2 weeks to get it back to life before we hit with a lot of show dates.

I could really use some help and advice right now.

Thanks,
C.B. Smith
www.separatedmusic.net

 

[RR]

Check in back of the amp it will say "Bold/Spongy", put it on Bold. Then there's another switch for rectifier: "Tube / Diode" put Diode mode. This will bypass the rectifier tubes if you think that's the culprit.

Another, check your speaker cable inputted in the proper impedance jack for your speaker enclosure. A mismatch in impedance will have a signficant power loss.

You did not mentioned if you check the above settings so I'm just taking a wild stab at your problem.

After you check on these, then report back to us :wink:

 

[cbsmith]

Check in back of the amp it will say "Bold/Spongy", put it on Bold. Then there's another switch for rectifier: "Tube / Diode" put Diode mode. This will bypass the rectifier tubes if you think that's the culprit.

Another, check your speaker cable inputted in the proper impedance jack for your speaker enclosure. A mismatch in impedance will have a signficant power loss.

You did not mentioned if you check the above settings so I'm just taking a wild stab at your problem.

After you check on these, then report back to us :wink:

Thanks so much for the help. I will try these options and see if this helps bypass those tubes. I have two mesa cabs, one rectifier 4x12 and another traditional cab. I really only use one of them live and another for studio work and always use the 8 ohm setting into the 8 ohm input on the cab. I even use the little black buttons to keep me from plugging into the wrong spot when in a hurry on stage. I haven't tried the "Diode" mode and will try that immediately tonight.

I have been using the nice Monster Cable 1/4" lines and will check them again just to make sure there isn't a problem there. Maybe there is something wrong with the jack on the back of the 4x12 cabinet.

Even when I do go with the second mesa cab I still plug into the 8ohm spots on the 4x12 cabs but use the 4 ohm outputs from the head as described in the user manual. Is this not proper??? It does make me wonder since this was one of the shows that I did use the second 4x12 cabinet!!!! Maybe I should have the tech take a look at the 4 ohm outputs on the head and see if something is wrong there.

I feel if I know more about the problem BEFORE I take it to them that I will have a better chance at getting it repaired properly. Otherwise, I fear it will just get some half assed work done to it and I'll be back to square one.

Thanks again for the help. I'll let you know what I find out this evening!!!!

 

[Boogiebabies]

Well CB, it sounds like you have the Willie's with your Rec. The mute relay was designed to prevent the amp from popping like the 2001 models. It could easily have been a $ 3.00 relay, but Mesa is also using $ 1.00 pots so I cannot vouch that you have a bad pot somewhere or there is something wrong with the loop. Do you use the solo boost? I would go over the manual again to make sure that your preamp tubes are good. I have had this problem a few times with DR's when the tube for loop goes bad and it sends no signal to the power amp. Believe me, it is not an amp circuit for the meek. I would say there are very few techs who could handle it. I just spent a month trying to find an LED problem in a Road King to no avail. The amp sounded great, but one of the channel lights would not go out. In all of my years of playing and working on Mesa's it has usually been an easy fix or a tube. I just took in a DC 2 with an awful oscillation and the owner was freaked out and thought it was going to be major. Within 10 seconds of pulling the chassis I noticed the loop mix pot was smashed apart. I had the pot in my stock and the amp was fixed in 10 minutes and returned the next day. Sometimes we keep the faith and get lucky.

 

[cbsmith]

Thanks yet again for another helpful post. I'm back after some different trials. I set the amp to DIODE and BOLD bypassing the Rectifier tubes and really didn't get much of a difference. There was a little boost in the gain but still nothing like before. I went ahead and changed all my tubes both preamp and postamp tubes and got a little more of the gain I've been looking for but again not like before.

The amp just seems terribly muddy and little to no definition. This is with the gain set at 3 o clock, presence at 1 o clock, bass at noon, treble at 2 o clock, and master volume at about noon. I have an effects loop that is only set to work on the 1st channel. It is set as the manual states. I noticed something a little strange with it. I decided to take everything out of the chain except the amp and my NS-2 Noise Suppressor. I turned the effects loop to Bypass and the noise was unbelievable. SO much hiss and noise. I turned it back to the channel 1 position on the effects knob on the back of the amp and the noise went away presumably getting caught by the NS-2? This certainly freaked me out but gave me hope that since I"m running the effects loop that maybe the tube that runs the effects loop could be the issue. The only way I can get enough gain and definition is to add an Ibanez Tube Screamer to my chain line, but then it drops the bass way down low. I've never ever had any problems in the past with gain as the Triple Rec would blow me away with just the amp and a nice Boss EQ to contour things out, NOW I'd have to put another amp up to get the same gain and definition.

I've just never heard this amp so muddy before. I even switched guitars as well but there wasn't but just the difference between my Ernie Ball John Petrucci model custom guitar pickups and the EMG81 actives in my Zion.

Could there be something other than the tubes that would cut the gain on the amp down and create such a muddy sound? Could a faulty circuit or something internally be a possible solution to my problem?

I again just want to make sure that when I eventually take it in that I have some evidence or direction for the tech to go in. I truly realize how hard these things must be to work on but it isn't much of a feeling of trust when something like this happens and the tech has no clue as to how to fix it. Its not an indication of his/her skills or anything its just an unnerving feeling thats all!! Very scary from my standpoint.

I'm taking my guitar back to one of the Mesa dealers tomorrow and am going to sit down at lunch and play a triple rectifier that they have in stock and see just what it is that I'm heaing/not hearing. I figure if I turn the amp on and it blows me out of the room with definition and gain and power then I'll have to move away from my amp and figure something else out. I just can't put another $300 in a tube retrofit only to find out it had nothing to do with the tubes. I guess if there ever was a lemon I would find it!!

Sorry for the depression, but this is truly killing me.

thanks so much for all your help, its truly appreciated.

C.B. Smith

Well CB, it sounds like you have the Willie's with your Rec. The mute relay was designed to prevent the amp from popping like the 2001 models. It could easily have been a $ 3.00 relay, but Mesa is also using $ 1.00 pots so I cannot vouch that you have a bad pot somewhere or there is something wrong with the loop. Do you use the solo boost? I would go over the manual again to make sure that your preamp tubes are good. I have had this problem a few times with DR's when the tube for loop goes bad and it sends no signal to the power amp. Believe me, it is not an amp circuit for the meek. I would say there are very few techs who could handle it. I just spent a month trying to find an LED problem in a Road King to no avail. The amp sounded great, but one of the channel lights would not go out. In all of my years of playing and working on Mesa's it has usually been an easy fix or a tube. I just took in a DC 2 with an awful oscillation and the owner was freaked out and thought it was going to be major. Within 10 seconds of pulling the chassis I noticed the loop mix pot was smashed apart. I had the pot in my stock and the amp was fixed in 10 minutes and returned the next day. Sometimes we keep the faith and get lucky.