New Mesa Owner Needs HELP!

[flimz]

I finally was able to purchase my first Mesa! While I should be very happy, Ive run into a problem. Its a single rec series 2 that I got off ebay. Its very very clean, and I had him remove the power tubes prior to shipping. I checked over everything and warmed it up for about 3 or 4 minutes on standby. When I took it off standby it blew a fuse. I bought some new fuses, checked everything, and powered it up again. This time there was terrible static and lightning inside one of the power tubes. So I shut it down.
I wrote the seller a letter explaining all of this. Im aware that tubes can go at anytime, but I didnt even get to play the amp! Leads me to believe that the power tubes were already on their way out. What should I do? I need to buy new tubes to make sure that it was just a tube problem and nothing more. Is this the time to buy different tubes? Or should I just go with the stock Mesa tubes that were in there? Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks.

 

[GD_NC]

Rule #1 - If you blow a fuse, don't replace the fuse until you identify the problem that caused the fuse to blow. In most cases you'll do more damage than good.

If you have a local tech, I'd take it there first. Especially if you aren't familiar with tube amps. It may just be a bad tube or it could be something like a loose part (from shipping) causing the fuse to blow. You can try new tubes, but you might end up blowing another set and waste more money that it would have cost to have it checked in the first place.

I think the tech here charges about $35 to look over it and $50-60 for a full cleaning. Anytime I purchase a tube amp off the Internet it goes straight to him for a tune up.

Good luck!

 

[ESP123]

Lighting is a tube issue... The fuse blowing is probably the result of the bad tube. If your amp is a series 2, also just make sure your bias select switch is set according to the tubes your using. This is usually not an issue as some forums members here play with a mix matched bias setting to the tubes in use all the time.

I second the "don't replace the fuse until you isolate the problem" but you do have to have power to see what that is. Buy a few fuses, turn it on and watch your amp from the back. Same thing, replace the tubes with new ones (since your using a single rec. this is fairly simple). However if your amp catches on fire and things are exploding...run away....very quickly...but not before playing your guitar through it a few more times!

Good luck!

 

[flimz]

Thanks guys for the advice. Im bringing it to my tech tomorrow. Hopefully its just a bad tube. Im also going to have him mod the fx loop to series while hes got it open. Should I replace the power tubes with stock mesas (whats in there now), or go with something else? Since this is my 1st recto, I dont have a baseline tone to judge from. It seems alot of you like JJ's for power tubes.

 

[GD_NC]

I've used JJ's , groove tubes, Sovteks (current using) and M-B's all good tubes from what I can tell. Just make sure they are rated properly for boogies.