mesa preamp tubes are...

[oneamongthefence]

Traded emails with Doug from dougstubes.com and he told me that mesa is sourcing jjtubes now. So the mesa 12ax7's that you can buy from say guitarcenter are in fact jjtubes. This information was really helpful to me(a noob when it comes to tubes) so i thought that i would share it here. given this information i think i may try the following in my tremoverb.
v1-tungsol
v2-undecided/perhaps highgain jjecc83
v3- penta
v4- penta
v5- shuguang 9th gen (which he also told me is the exact same thing as penta oddly enough)
v6- undecided/perhaps sovtek

Anyways, i don't know much about tubes but am learning as i go and found this information to be very helpful in deciding. I hear the jjtubes can be muddy or dark sounding and that i shouldnt put those in my tremoverb, so i'm glad i didn't just order a bunch of mesa 12ax7's from guitarcenter and actually did some research.
On a side note, if anyone has any suggestions for my v2 and v6 i'm all ears.

 

[espboogie123]

The JJ ecc83 for v2 and a balanced Sovtek LPS for v6 would be ok. JJ tubes tend to be slightly muddy in all amps, not just mesas. But they are good in bright amps for instanced like a Peavey XXX/JSX which are already bright mid heavy amps. But this is a tendency when you use all JJ pre tubes, like in all spots like v1,v2,v3 etc.

 

[K-Roll]

hi, here is my two cents..

I am from Slovakia, the home of JJ tubes what we do here is, that we do not even order JJs directly from factory because 99% of the time - you get a pile of **** that sounds like a broken hifi.. even if you pick extra to meet your requirements
so, even if Mesa is selling JJ tubes with their logo printed out, it is not the same.. the process of handpicking and all that measuring and stuff is what makes that huge difference.. thats why i do not trust JJs as a company
I bought 2 matched 6L6 quads directly from JJ and dozens of ECC83s and they sounded like ****.. Then I bought a set of TADs by tubeampdoctor, which is pretty much the same and they sounded 4 times better, lasted for 3 years without failures.. but it is higly likely that the JJs which are being exported to you guys to different states are night and day compared to what we can buy here directly at the factory.. sometimes it is worth for me ordering these from a totally different country and it's still cheaper

 

[screamingdaisy]

When Mesa used EHX preamp tubes it was somewhat popular to switch them for JJs to tame the gain and round out the tone somewhat.

Now that Mesa uses JJ as stock tubes it's popular to switch them to Chinese to brighten the amp up and add a more aggressive bite to the tone.

Go figure....

 

[fluff191]

I bought Dougs tube set and ended up throwing away the JJ and putting in an EH in V2 and a Sovtek LPS in V1.

I think I will always be totally against JJ preamp tubes. :lol:

 

[FXR]

hi, here is my two cents..

I am from Slovakia, the home of JJ tubes what we do here is, that we do not even order JJs directly from factory because 99% of the time - you get a pile of sh!t that sounds like a broken hifi.. even if you pick extra to meet your requirements
so, even if Mesa is selling JJ tubes with their logo printed out, it is not the same.. the process of handpicking and all that measuring and stuff is what makes that huge difference.. thats why i do not trust JJs as a company
I bought 2 matched 6L6 quads directly from JJ and dozens of ECC83s and they sounded like sh!t.. Then I bought a set of TADs by tubeampdoctor, which is pretty much the same and they sounded 4 times better, lasted for 3 years without failures.. but it is higly likely that the JJs which are being exported to you guys to different states are night and day compared to what we can buy here directly at the factory.. sometimes it is worth for me ordering these from a totally different country and it's still cheaper

I'm not too impressed with the Mesa testing or the tubes.

The tops came off of two brand new JJ 12ax7 tubes when installing them, the little glass tip. Even when we've knowingly installed the tube covers with the spring crooked, that has never ever happened on any other tube, ever. ( been handling tubes since decades ago.)

The Output tubes can't be much better. Burned down three sets in about 4 hours each including red plating on a fixed bias amp.

But, Mesa says it might be the amp on the OTs. We'll see when she comes back. My Express 5:25 is the culprit and the wife is not happy about that investment having been so much trouble and expense in time and money.

 

[droptrd]

hi, here is my two cents..

I am from Slovakia, the home of JJ tubes what we do here is, that we do not even order JJs directly from factory because 99% of the time - you get a pile of sh!t that sounds like a broken hifi.. even if you pick extra to meet your requirements
so, even if Mesa is selling JJ tubes with their logo printed out, it is not the same.. the process of handpicking and all that measuring and stuff is what makes that huge difference.. thats why i do not trust JJs as a company
I bought 2 matched 6L6 quads directly from JJ and dozens of ECC83s and they sounded like sh!t.. Then I bought a set of TADs by tubeampdoctor, which is pretty much the same and they sounded 4 times better, lasted for 3 years without failures.. but it is higly likely that the JJs which are being exported to you guys to different states are night and day compared to what we can buy here directly at the factory.. sometimes it is worth for me ordering these from a totally different country and it's still cheaper

I'm not too impressed with the Mesa testing or the tubes.

The tops came off of two brand new JJ 12ax7 tubes when installing them, the little glass tip. Even when we've knowingly installed the tube covers with the spring crooked, that has never ever happened on any other tube, ever. ( been handling tubes since decades ago.)

The Output tubes can't be much better. Burned down three sets in about 4 hours each including red plating on a fixed bias amp.

But, Mesa says it might be the amp on the OTs. We'll see when she comes back. My Express 5:25 is the culprit and the wife is not happy about that investment having been so much trouble and expense in time and money.

Ie had bad luck with mesa branded tubes too. Lots of failures for me. I do better with Dougs tubes or Eurotubes or Valve queen doing the testing

 

[KH Guitar Freak]

Love those Mesa Russian 2s here...

 

[FXR]

Love those Mesa Russian 2s here...

So do I. But despite telling Mesa what I have, they send what they want to send. Both with OTs and Pres.

When I complained they acted like they did me a favor. I disagree.