Trouble with Mesa EL84's?

[MegaBoogie]

Curious if anyone else has had trouble with Mesa's EL84's lately. Between my DC-2 and a friends TA-15 we have gone through 5 pairs of them from Mesa directly and they have all had red plating issues. My DC-2 has been running a pair of JJ's for quite a while with no issue. We finally got a pair of Mesa's in the TA-15 that have not yet red plated.

 

[Don]

Did you contact Mesa about this issue? Were the ones that didn't red plate a different rating "color" than the others?

 

[MegaBoogie]

Yea they have been easy to work with and have replaced them each time so far. The different matched pairs they have sent have been different colors each time. I can't remember what each pair was. Usually just one tube will red plate from the pair regardless of which position it is in. One pair both tubes red plated. The current pair i have is GRY Group, Code 10. Only one is red plating.

 

[BillK01]

My brand new Recto Verb 25 came from the factory with one bad EL84 (causing static) - Sweetwater replaced with a new pair and I've been fine since. I called Mesa first and they were easy to work with and said if Sweetwater hassled me to call them back and they'd send me a new pair. Sweetwater didn't hassle me about it and sent me a pair for free.

 

[dodger916]

DC's are know to run hot. My DC-3 is biased at nearly 100% of mpd, waaay hotter than any other Mesa. I had redplating problems too. Tubes from Eurotubes helped, but after spraying the tube pins with deoxit, it hasn't replated since.

 

[amrose57]

DC's are know to run hot. My DC-3 is biased at nearly 100% of mpd, waaay hotter than any other Mesa. I had redplating problems too. Tubes from Eurotubes helped, but after spraying the tube pins with deoxit, it hasn't replated since.

Yep. My DC2 ran hot and I would redplate EL84's, and I had my tech do the bias mod and knock it down a bit. Haven't redplated one since.....

Al