Preamp tube swap?

[Daxman73]

Has anybody swapped out their preamp tubes yet?...I have the head version and am wondering how the heck you get to them besides pulling out the chassis...Does the front panel come off?...Please help.

 

[lesterpaul]

front panel won't help...take a flashlight and peer through the back..you will see

I am going to try pulling power tubes and setting it on its side(thanks Vic!) before pulling it...better angle for the dangle

 

[Supreeth]

front panel won't help...take a flashlight and peer through the back..you will see

I am going to try pulling power tubes and setting it on its side(thanks Vic!) before pulling it...better angle for the dangle

V1 is the most difficult to get to (I think) since it's behind the transformer. When swapping tubes I'm going to flip the amp and let it rest upside down so that I can easily pull them out. This way it's almost like swapping tubes in a Roadster/Rectifier It shouldn't be an issue with strain on the transformers as they're already fastened at the top when the amp is in regular position!

 

[Nermel]

Yeah not a good idea to try and force a preamp tube in...

When it's right-side-up you have to press harder to force the tube up...I possibly fractured my Marshall JVM410C pcb by trying it that way...

I think Mesa PCB and parts are higher quality, but still wouldn't try it

 

[Daxman73]

Thanx guys...I like the upside-down method...Why must they make it soo difficult to swap tubes when they know we love to experiment!? :lol:

 

[lesterpaul]

..trying to keep our dirty paws outta there!

 

[Anonymous]

trying different tubes is the fun part!!!!!!!!!!

 

[lesterpaul]

just robbed some from my other amp-just pull power tubes and I sat amp on its side(me lefty..) and was able to change v1 with little problem
...and, once again, improvement!if you dont dig the tone right off the bat,after days of tweaking, do some preamp tube homework...like you said, its half the fun
..im slowly getting her there

 

[scott from _actual time_]

i changed V1 to a Tung-Sol reissue. to me it made it sound a tiny bit smoother. i will change the other preamp tubes when i can get around to it. yeah, i had to take off that metal bar and pull a couple power tubes to get at it....

 

[Anonymous]

i changed V1 to a Tung-Sol reissue. to me it made it sound a tiny bit smoother. i will change the other preamp tubes when i can get around to it. yeah, i had to take off that metal bar and pull a couple power tubes to get at it....

+1 that's what is in V1 right now...also i checked the stock mesa and to my surprise, the stock V1 is the same than JJ's, probably is just a relabelled :idea: :mrgreen:

 

[guitardom]

i pulled ALL the tubes and mine and swapped them out. i had a slight hiss on the clean channel that was just annoying. jamming and such it was fine but when i started recording it was when i freaked out. my z was so much quieter. so i went to eurotubes where i had replaced the tubes in my roadking before and made a massive difference and did the same to this amp with an all out high gain 6l6/high gain 12ax7 package. also got a couple kt77's to try out. have not put the kt's in yet but might this weekend. but it has made a huge difference in the amp and brought it to life.

but the road king i could do a full tube swap in about 15-20 minutes. everything was easy to get to, room to work, no hidden tubes. the mark v head is a whole different story. had to pull the metal bar off in the back, then the power tubes, then worked the preamp tubes. because of the layout, had to pull v1-3 all out at the same time to have some room to get v1 back in there then 2-3. then the others could do 1 at a time w no problem. took closer to an hour to do everything.

 

[EtherealWidow]

Someone should go to Doug's tubes and see what sort of advice he would have. Although just make sure that if you needed to send it back to the factory you put all JJ's back in there so your warranty's not voided. :roll: That would suck. :/