Mark III

[heavy101]

New Member here, been lurking quite a while

Bought a Mark 3 Blue Stripe locally here in Michigan Last year. When i bought the Mark 3 it seemed flubby and Lead was awful but chaulked it up to the original set of tubes in it and planned to ship to Mesa to have it tuned up. Right away found the resistor hanging above V6 output tube was smoked when got home and opened her up, explains why he insisted on As Is. Live and learn, it's his own Karma problem now.

Sent it off to Mike B and since I got it back it has never sounded right. Rolled tubes, did everything to rule out the Amp. The Lead will sound good but within 5 minutes of playing it turns to Flub. This explains why it passed the play test but still upsets me that it was sent back to me like this. In Mike's defense this was right before the roll out of the pedal line so he didn't have much time to give me on the phone. I let him know my displeasure at not getting a opportunity to request a + mod. When I got her back the + mod was done included with the tune up cost.

My dilemmia here is I know Mike is a good guy but don't really want to send it back again if this is what I get, quite turned off of dealing with anybody there except for the woman who answers the phone and Mike.

Can anybody help me with what might be causing this to happen?

 

[Rick Mark2A]

Wow bummer. Seeing as how Mesa charges a premium price for their service you should EXPECT premium service. That sounds completely unacceptable and you should demand they fix the situation. I would be on the phone with them as soon as possible to get it straightened out.

 

[igfraso]

Talk to Mike.
He is your best friend when it comes to servicing your amp.
Something might have happened during transportation after he serviced it.

 

[MkIII Renegade]

Mike B. is highly respected at Mesa and has been around forever. I have no doubt he can get to the bottom of it, although it you already paid, they should take care of it on the house.

I sent my MkIII to him a few years ago and he basically restored it (had a tired transformer and a few other issues) and did the R2 and Reverb mods for me. Totally satisfied with my experience.

 

[heavy101]

Thanks for the help guys, I'm going to give Mike a call tomorrow & see what happens from there.

Talked to the Mesa tech here in Michigan yesterday, Art of Art's Audio. Level 2 tech. He was really
cool to talk with and made me feel like I could trust him. So if it comes down to it,he can take a
look at it. He also told me that modding this amp was something he gets permission from George for
and it's all recorded. Very Cool.

He did say it was extremely unlike Mesa for this to happen and I should trust Mike and George.
Feel allot better now about my Mark III and the future, here's to keeping fingers crossed!

 

[dbone]

Sorry to hear this, it is understandably a bummer.
My experience with boogies service however has been very good over the past 20 years.
Who knows what happened maybe they missed something maybe something got jarred durring shipping maybe something just failed. The good news is it can be fixed because its a boogie.
Give them a call I am sure they'll help sort it out.

 

[Authorized Boogie]

All you need to do is give us a call - if you have any problems after a service, we'll definitely look into it and take care of it. In most cases like this, something happens during return shipping. FWIW, amps are play-tested for more than 5 minutes before being sent out, usually 20-30 minutes - as all channels, modes, and settings are gone through thoroughly.

Our Service Manager Rich Duvall should have been notified right away, instead of feeling like there were issues with trust, etc. Mike B wasn't really involved in the pedals, so there is no reason they would have taken up any of his time.

Give us a call!!! 707-778-6565. Rich's ext is 324

Thanks!

 

[heavy101]

My apprehension at contacting MesaBoogie HQ was unfounded, they helped me get my Mark 3 sounding right.
It wasn't Mike B's or even UPS's fault, even after rolling out two full sets of tubes finally got tubes in the preamp
that were functioning correctly. It sounds beautiful now!

No more buying tubes at GC

Mesa is right when they say 90% of their calls are usually remedied with tube exchanges on our (customer)
end.

The reason I didn't contact Rich right away was if it was shipping issue, wouldn't really want to turn around
and ship it right back out again. Felt that I was screwed.

Knowing that one has this kind of support should influence one's decision of amp to buy right behind the tone.
If you are working musician that is.

Mike B is a hoot to talk with and he knows his ****, Thanks Mike for all your help and time.

 

[heavy101]

Have a unfortunate update for my amplifier,

She has become a tube eating monster, this is the main problem all along. It will sound wonderful for about a week and
then just chew up both pre and power tubes. What I don't understand is why both sets of tubes are going down,
usually it is one set or the other. I'm going to take it to my local authorized tech as I can't afford the shipping back
and forth to Petaluma.

Keep everone posted with what is found for future troubleshooting sakes.

 

[Markedman]

From what I've read here on the Boogie Forum, Mark III's are all completely different monsters. My supposed tame black dot has so much gain I rarely go above 7 even for the most dramatic music, anymore is totally uncontrollable and unwanted, this coming from a guy who turns the gain on absolutely everything else to 10 and wants more, including my Mark IV and every Marshall I've owned. I'm sorry to here about your problems, your first instinct was right on but I applaud you for not giving up and keeping what I consider to be the best amps ever from a possible trash bin death.

 

[heavy101]

Merry Christmas Everyone,

Got my Mark 3 repaired and it turned out to be the screen resistor above the other output tube that needed to be replaced.
When it really warms up after about an hour is when it shows signs of failure. This explains why this went undetected for two
amp techs. The first one replaced the obviously blown one when first repaired but not the other. Which I have since found out
to be pretty normal to replace both when one smokes. I did make it clear that this was done when setting
up the repair and is on the invoice as well.


This has taken over one year to ferret out and finally get fixed, this is the only amp I would ever do this for.
Happy to know it wasn't my imagination, tubes or shipping.