New Lonestar Special problem

[CasaRojo]

Hi all. Last Monday I bought the floor model LSS from a local music store. The problem is that the volume drops out by about 30% or so and then comes back and it seems to happen the worse right after I turn on the amp. I spoke with Michael Wolfe at Mesa and he ask me to touch the power tubes. The two in the center were hardly warm so he diagnosed them as bad and said he'd send me out two. Since then I've found that those two tubes don't get warm unless you have the amp on the 30 watt setting. hmmmm... The problem occurs at all wattage settings on both channels and the FX loop hard bypass doesn't affect it. I pulled the EL84's out of my Peavey Delta Blues and swapped them with the LSS and it still has the same problem. The problem seemed to go away for small amount of time after I swapped the tubes but it's back. Possible 5Y3 driver tube?
TIA,
CasaRojo

 

[ylo]

In my exsperience, 90 percent of the problems with Mesas are tube related. Have you tried gently tapping the preamp tubes? Have you tried replacing them one by one?

 

[CasaRojo]

I've replaced 5 tubes with brand new ones and mixed them around. I've written their placement and replacement down so I'd know which came from where. The *only* tube I've not swapped is the 5Y3 and the problem persists if it's in line or not. I'm pretty dissapointed at this point although not totally surprised. I experienced one brand new LSS go belly up while I was audtioning it, heard of another, saw where the covering on three brand new F series amps was aggressivly peeling off, bought four new Mesa/Sovtec EL84's and one was bad and all this at one small store and now my first Mesa has got a big problem. I've worked with this amp for 8 days now and it's becomming totally unplayable. It has to go to service as there's litterally nothing I've not tried... different cables, guitars, configurations etc. and of course new tubes. It's been *very* time consuming. I called the music store and asked for a replacement and he said that Mesa probably wouldn't do that. If they don't, I consider it extremely bad business. I love the sound of Mesa! That's why I paid a premium price for it. I have a Peavey Delta Blues amp I payed less than $600.00 new. It sounds very good for the price and I've not had any problems with it in the eight months I've owned it. The tone is truly acceptable but the Mesa is inspiring. Big difference! I hope Mesa customer service comes through for me. Here's their opportunity to shine.
Thanks for your response,
CasaRojo