Newysurfer said:
Mesa uses Chinese tubes and yeah - they are consistent - consistently ordinary. New Mesa power tubes in Australia cost $70 to $80 each and preamp Mesa tubes here are in the $30-40 range - each.
Dougs and Eurotubes sell far better Russian ones for betweeen $10 and $18. Give em a try - most people find em much better
The Mesa 12ax7's in my 2007 MKIV are Russian 2's (a mix of Tung sol re issues and EH !) in my Single Rec they are Russian 1's (look like EH)
Eurotubes only sell JJ's which are Slovakian, their preamp tubes are only average but the power tubes are pretty good.
The new Mesa STR440 6L6 is Chinese and is better imo than the old Russian STR430 (EH)
The Russian Winged C is probably slightly more detailed though. You have to remember that you pay extra for Mesa tubes because they are tested more thoroughly - not just matched so you could get any old crap - and they're guaranteed for 6 months. Good value ? Not really because also here in the UK they're £50 a pair for the power tubes but I wouldn't use anything else in mine. But if you saw the prices of the Mesa amps here it's a small price to pay for piece of mind ! Groove Tubes would be my second choice, other than that it's a crap shoot. You should buy preamp tubes that are tested for gain, noise and microphonics too. New production tubes are very inconsistent and you need to make sure you get the pick of the bunch - which costs more obviously.