Road King II - Very low volume output

Schulzy · Jun 17, 2010

Hey.

I mentioned in another thread not long ago that i got my hands on a RK II over here in Western Australia... its a US 110v model and i got it with a 500va rated step down transformer to run it in our 240v here in aus... For the past few weeks ive only been playing it really low level in my bed room and for the first time cranked it today.

I realised that if i crank it to full volume its not loud at all.... Its about how loud my 3ch DR is with the master volume at 9:00 (Ran both with loop bypassed) I tried both channel 3 and 4 on the road king... And tried both 6L6's and EL34's via progressive linkage so that should rule out a power tube issue.. I also swapped preamp tubes from my dual rec to the road king.... also made no difference.

I have been told the 500va rated transformer doesn't supply enough power to run it fully as Mesa reccomends a 1000va rated transformer.... Do you think this is the reason its extremely quiet?... or another more serious issue?... Would this be a symptom of a dying Output Transformer?

Schulzy · Jun 18, 2010

Ok well spoke to a tech today... He thinks its the step down transformer... He says mesa's in aus never seem to run right on step downs... I'm now just worried about any possible damage done having been run under powered by both me and previous owner.

So its either spend $400 - $500 AUD on a quality 1000va step down... Or $800 on a genuine 240v conversion and any repairs needing to be done aswell.

KH Guitar Freak · Jun 18, 2010

Just do the conversion IMO...

enuenu · Jun 19, 2010

Schulzy said:
Ok well spoke to a tech today... He thinks its the step down transformer... He says mesa's in aus never seem to run right on step downs... I'm now just worried about any possible damage done having been run under powered by both me and previous owner.

So its either spend $400 - $500 AUD on a quality 1000va step down... Or $800 on a genuine 240v conversion and any repairs needing to be done aswell.

I was always suspicious of step downs. No reason, just seemed too good to be true. There are so many 110V Mesas here in Oz it is crazy. I lucked into a used 240V DR. I was actually considering buying a used DR on USA ebay, having it shipped to Voodoo in NY, have them do the 240V conversion and then have them ship it to me. Can you believe that I would still be way ahead of the attempted robbery we usually suffer from down here?

worfenstein · Jul 16, 2010

Hi there. Did you find out what the problem was?

I have the same issue/problem, but with a 3 channel dual rectifier. The thing is that before, I figured it was a tube related issue (V4 and V5 were bad). I just changed the tubes and everything worked as usual. But now, I got it back from my amp tech, who just changed pots that were damaged with original mesa pots(channel 3 volume and bass), but the second I tried it it wasn't as powerful as before. Even the channel 2 is more powerful than 3 (still overall output is weak). If I do the loop bypass thing the amp goes louder but that accentuates the difference in volume between those two channels. I use a 650 watts step down transformer, but it is the first time the head is doing that with good tubes (I swapped new tubes also, V4 and V5 at first, then all of them; also, a different set of power tubes). I don't know what the hell could have happened. It was perfect -with the exception of the volume knob in 3rd channel- before changing pots. Any ideas would help. Thanks.

user 19640 · Nov 2, 2013

I have a Road King I, and I also use a step down transformer. Suddenly some of the channels have a very long "dead spot" on their Master knobs before they get to normal volume. I almost have to turn to 9 o'clock before anything happens...

Also I find the Presence knobs to be a bit uneven, and extremely "sudden" when getting close to maximum..

Could it be tube related, or the pots ?