I got me a Mesa back in the ‘90s because it sounded (and sounds) superb. I’ve had to learn how to work on it myself because paying a real tech to do it is prohibitive. I curse Randall Smith with every breath while I’m elbows-deep in it, but when I play through it and the angels dance on my eardrums, it’s worth all the swears.
Nearly bought a Mesa many, many years ago and never knew until recently from watching these vids from Brad and Lyle et al just how close I came to making a dreadful mistake. What would be good to see would be a "top ten" list of amps based on build quality, put together by the guys who have made a career out of fixing amps and who really know what is good and what is not. Sure there are some great sounding amps built like an Austin Allegro inside but having a head start on knowing that what you plan on buying has a life expectancy longer than a mayfly would be a fine thing indeed.
Nice videos Brad! I've been following you recently on youtube and I really enjoy the humour mix with the knowledge you give. Greetings from Ecuador, South America.
I see the thumbnail and I can just hear the CHAMPIONNNNS 🙌. With each new Mesa video from you and Lyle, I keep thinking I should sell my Trem-o-verb head while it's still relatively hum and buzz free. I've had the dumb thing since 2006 (purchased used) and it's the sound of 90s / early 2000s metal and death metal so it has some sentimental value to it
Piss it off, mate. While it's still alive! There are much easier / better / cheaper ways of getting better than that tone. Sell it, buy a BE-OD pedal and almost any other clean amp and use the rest to buy beer!
@@BradsGuitarGarage Lately I've been using the Misery Index Amptweaker pedal into my Friedman Dirty Shirley Mini / Mesa 2x12 cab. Sounds killer and that pedal can handle a boost into it too for a little more 🤘. Definitely temping to sell it since they seem to be held in high regard by some. Definitely worth some beers or maybe some upgrades for my Datsun haha
Backing up what Brad said, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that whenever you're about to work on something that requires major disassembly, *take pictures, make notes, draw diagrams and mark things with tape and a Sharpie*! It took me a day and a half of working on an old McIntosh MA230 hybrid integrated amp to make it it functional again after some moron bought a recapping kit and attempted to do the work himself. In addition to miswiring the power supply, he cut a bunch of wires from the tone controls and rotary input switch to the preamp board in order to get it out for recapping (rather than removing the faceplate and unbolting the controls), and then he spliced the wrong wires back together. After fixing the power supply, I brought the thing up slowly on a variac with current limiting: it passed signal but hissed like a cobra on one channel and the treble boost/cut control worked backwards!
Yep, those Panasonic radial film caps are fantastic. The Vishay MKT1813 axial film caps are great too. They're both and order of magnitude smaller than film caps from 20-30 years ago. That PCB could have been half the size if Mesa used a higher quality, correctly rated, smaller cap and resistor in every position. It wouldn't be a Mesa though ;P
Nowadays, orange drops make more sense in point to point wiring where you might need the extra length of the body as well as the long leads in order to span from one tube socket to another or terminal strip to tube socket. For PCB mount I'd rather use those Panasonic film caps. We also primariy use Panasonic electrolytic caps at the audio shop I work for. Good stuff!
@@goodun2974 Panisonic and Nichicon radial electrolytic caps are what I use in PCB amps. Just depends on what’s available at the highest voltage/temp rating.
@@matthewf1979 , I am using radial Panasonic electrolytics on terminal strips in the Heathkit W5M monoblocks I am rebuilding; not to mention lead re-dress and stripping out a lot of unnecessary looping of hum-field wires through sensitive areas (also removing dropping resistors from "unused" terminals of the rectifier socket and putting them on the terminal strips). Designing a PCB is a little bit beyond my computer skills and capabilities, especially when I don't even have a PC or laptop anymore, just a smartphone. I don't mind dealing with point-to-point wiring, to a certain point😁; but when there are two components or three wires located directly above the part of the circuit you need to get to, that's when I start to get cranky.....😖 As I mentioned in another comment thread here, I don't really like double- sided PC boards for snap-in type caps because they can be a pain to remove even if you have a vacuum operated solder suckered station like I do at work. Solderwick doesn't really work well in that scenario. Otherwise, as long as the filter PCB is mounted in such a way that it can be removed without unsoldering a mess of wires, I'm okay with it! You wouldn't happen to know of anyone who sells dual-section can caps for clamp mounting (or even twist-lock) with the grounds for both sections brought out separately so that they can be used in series for higher voltage capacity or for voltage doublers, would you? A capacitor like that would have made life easier for me in recapping a McIntosh MA230 integrated amp with voltage doubler power supply that someone else had made a real mess of.....
If Australians aren’t thinking of The Night Rider when they look at the night sky, what the f*^k are the doing? That Boogie was brought by The Bronze, full of treachery
Wow Brad, that sure looks a mess...You would thing the Messa crew would have put more thought into it's servicing at the point of design..Crazy, but great work man..Ed..uk..😀
I just don’t get the “thought process” on mesa layouts. Having to desolder 50 things to lift the board, shoehorning resistors underneath capacitors, everything unnecessarily crammed together. Hats off to you and Lyle for falling on the sword with shit like this.
Brad, the rust on the transformers is that a concern to you? I have a 2000-09 triple Rec I got a few months ago power and output transformers are rusty.
I would think as long as your getting output , and the transformer itself is not buzzing you should be fine. If you can look at the guts of the amp and see corrosion in multiple places that should be worrisome, but if it's just on the transformer I it should work normally.
@@SHREDTILLDEAD 10-4. When I got it I’ll looked all over for some obvious issue. All I working aside from one tubes plate voltage being higher than the other 6.
@@DJ33 I think those non toroidal transformers have materials that protect the inner windings from the elements, and that the sign of an issue or old transformer is buzzing from the transformer itself ( not through the speakers ) but you'll actually hear it physically vibrate. I would just make sure you have matched tubes that run according to the bias. The way it was explained to me was mesas like el34 that run colder with the bias circuit and 6l6 that run hotter to work with the bias circuit. I just get mine from eurotubes they know all about each tube they send and you can explain for what amp to them. If the plate voltage is higher than what it is supposed to be my guess would be a tube issue ,but would not hurt to have all the resistors checked too. Also I would ask around , the range of voltage over the correct plate voltage may not matter if it's not much. Sometimes just easier to email mesa with the specifics and they are usually pretty good at getting back with you.
@@SHREDTILLDEAD thanks , it's all setup on 34's the way it came. I swapped , reconfigured and no matter which one goes in the same higher reading. It's almost double the rest.
You might want to look into a cleaner I found. Its called MaxPro contact cleaner. The best I have found. Been doing this for over 40 years and this really works well. I have not seen condenser poop crawl up the can like that.
Just bought one of these lol. Luckily mine has none of those carbon comps, and has been recapped, and all tubes checked for specs. These are practically unshippable unless they remain upright in a rack at all times.
Just watched the video with auto caption because I need to be quiet. In some parts about every third or fourth word wasn't translated....I'm never buying anything from Mesa Boogie. Love your work!
That is going to be an expensive repair. I used to think really highly of Mesa amps until I started watching repair videos and saw how they have abundant design flaws and are clearly not made with serviceability in mind. It is a shame because some of them do sound really good (JP IIC, Mark IIC, Mark IV, triaxis, and some revisions of the Rectifier / Tremoverb).
What's bound to cause more confusion is that WD40 now makes something they call "Specialist Eectronics Cleaner". I haven't tried it and I don't know what the ingredients are or if it's any good. But you can guarantee somebody will be talking about it online t, or actually using this new WD40 in videos, and people who don't know any better will think that it means they can use ordinary WD40 from the garage or garden shed on their electronic devices.
If you go to the auto parts store to buy a replacement headlight, they always try to sell you a packet of "bulb grease" to go with it: silicone dielectric grease that looks like clear heatsink grease for mounting transistors. And if you use it it will actually cause more problems than it solves. Yes, it might conduct some heat away from the bulb base into the socket, but it will also exacerbate corrosion. It's not a conductor, it's an insulator!
@@BradsGuitarGarage, Brisket? Shouldn't that be mutton, or spring lamb in a couple of months, for you blokes? 😁 (I'm rather partial to lamb myself; the Greek side of my family often cooked a lamb on a spit for Easter. I've got some locally-sourced lamb sausage and kebab meat in my freezer).
@@BradsGuitarGarage, have you seen EEBlog's video about the *massive* Jaycar warehouse sale in Sidney? Parts, components, power supplies and such going for pennies on the dollar. Wish I could go! You could easily spend several days there, digging out bargains...
The vast majority of Jaycar stuff is utter trash. Ultra-low quality, silly gimmicky products. Their componentry and hardware are pedestrian at best. For a tinkerer, there may be a few low value gems in the rough. Nothing I'd put into service on a serious job, however.
I don't think it's just that, mate. There must have been some kind of unintended electrolyte to make it this bad or all other similar amps would be coming in with the same reported horrible mess.
