express 5.25 dies after 4 days or 3 hours of play time

[fendercat]

I am gutted ,i finaly made the purchase of a lifetime ,told my wife i was buying the amp of my dreams ,an express 5.25 ,and it sounds fantastic.however 4 days after taking it home from the shop(i live in perth western australia) it died.I was playing the welsh national anthem on my strat on the 5 watt setting on the burn channel at bedrooom volume when the sound dissapered,it worked on the clean channel but none of the other channels ,and not on the 25 watt setting either .i took it back to the shop,and the guy who sold it to me was gobsmacked so its gone for repair ,after 4 days of use .i was under the impression that boogies were rock solid reliable amps .I should get it back this week some time but it has left me with a dubious, worried feeling ,i have been assured that the guy who repairs boogies in Perth is the mesa massiah but i cant help think i am in for a whole lot more probs .I am going to give it a try ,and stick with it but once its fixed any problems and the amp goes back to the shop and they will have to sort me out with somthing eles or my money back ,all i hope is that my boogie does what its supposed to do and that is to give me many years of reliability and spine tingling tone

 

[StevenL]

Hey man. What does "gobsmacked" mean?

My 5:25 had a bad power tube and two holes in the speaker when I got it. I've heard several tales of bad boogies out the starting gate. But...it's usually pretty minor or Mesa will take care of you. May have knocked out a tube or two or something jarred loose during shipping. I wouldn't let it bother me much. You'll eventually get it right even if you just raise hell and get another one.

I put a new 10" speaker in mine, a Weber Blue Pup, and stuck in some more power tubes and it's been rocking with out a hiccup ever since. Haven't even changed the preamp tubes yet and it still sounds killer with fresh power tubes. Seems those poop out after 6-8 months or so.

Take Heart my friend. All will be well!

 

[J.J]

Welcome to the fickle world of tubes !

I would almost bet that you have a tube problem, tubes are fragile and can suffer all sorts of mechanical problems. When I was buying mine, the demo amp had no reverb, I was the first to notice apparently. When the tech cheked, the reverb tube glass was broken. It seems the boat travle to Oz is unkind to tubes !

I have been inside my 5:25 and am happy to say they are very well made using high quality components.

The only issue I am having is finding out the real output power ratings. They seem a little overstated.

 

[soundchaser59]

Did it have "Mesa" tubes in it when you got it home from the dealer? The dealer I bought from had changed the tubes before I bought mine. When I brought mine home it had JJ and EHX and Sovteks in it, but no Mesa tubes. That's probably why I never had any problems. After I learned that the amp was supposed to have all Mesa tubes in it when purchased, I "complained" to the dealer and ended up getting two sets of new Mesa tubes, one from the dealer and one from Mesa, and both sets had defects right outa the box. I bought new JJ and new TungSol and have not had one problem since.

You shoulda retubed it as soon as you got it. Judging from everything I read and from what has happened to me, 99% of problems with brand new Mesa amps are caused by the tubes.

Frankly, I'm surprised the dealer didn't just retube it on the spot while you wait. If it works, you buy the tubes. (Mesa tubes would be on warranty, but then you would just have the same problem again in a few days or weeks) If not, you wait while they send it to the auth repair. I hope they dont keep you waiting weeks or months to get it back.

 

[fendercat]

yeh well ,i was in work today but my wife was home and the guy called from the shop and said that he took it for repair and they said it was a valve problem ,i dont know yet cos i didnt speak to him and you know what women are like they forget to put things like oil in the car :roll: but she did say that the guy said its nothing bad .i am sort of familliar with tubes ,i own a fender deville,and a twin reverb ,they are both great but to loud .....and thats it loud not powerfull ,the twin is to glassy and revealing ,any mistakes and they show up like dogs balls ,so when i heard the boogie i was blown away with its responsive playability its great i will pick it up this week and see what happens i might even ask nicly and use a bit of revers pcsycology to see if i can get it re tubed with for free :wink:

 

[soundchaser59]

If warranty rules take over, then they will retube with Mesa tubes. If you can get them to retube with some nice Russian valveskis, that would be ideal imo...... :mrgreen:

Let us know how it comes out, and what settings you like for tones.

 

[Anonymous]

I went 10 years without having ANY tube problems (other than wearing out), and just last week had a fairly new EL84 go "pop" in a hifi amp of mine. I had become pretty complacent. Luckily, I have a pretty large stock of tubes at home, so play goes on... But this is a good reminder to buy backups for all your amps.

And in all seriousness, if you find a set of tubes you like the sound of, buy two or three sets. I wish I had done this back in the days of Ei tubes--I loved their KT90's and EL84's. Relatively cheap, harmonically rich, and as long as you bought them from a good source that culled the junk, reliable. Unfortunately, they no longer make tubes, and I'm kicking myself as the EL84's were cheap as heck, and there's nothing out there today like the sound of a Ei KT90 in a hifi amp!

Hope you get back to playing soon!

 

[sted]

That amp has travelled a long way mate! I wish they would ship tubes seperately and set amps up at the dealership or even the distirbutor.
Your tubes will be warrantied for 6 months mate, no worries, if they go again then make sure you use Mesa tubes or you will invalidate your warranty!
I wouldtn worry too much about this, tubes are consumables at the end of the day!

 

[soundchaser59]

Your tubes will be warrantied for 6 months mate, no worries, if they go again then make sure you use Mesa tubes or you will invalidate your warranty!

Just to be clear, using other brands of tubes in your amp does not invalidate the warranty on the entire amp. It just means Mesa will not replace your tubes for free.

 

[EtherealWidow]

Your tubes will be warrantied for 6 months mate, no worries, if they go again then make sure you use Mesa tubes or you will invalidate your warranty!

Just to be clear, using other brands of tubes in your amp does not invalidate the warranty on the entire amp. It just means Mesa will not replace your tubes for free.

Is that it? Hot ****. It seems I and **** near everyone else have misunderstood that.

 

[MrMarkIII]

To quote from the "Limited Five-Year Transferable Warranty":
"This warranty becomes void if any tubes other than genuine Mesa tubes are used."
Sorry, not trying to start any trouble.

 

[soundchaser59]

Your tubes will be warrantied for 6 months mate, no worries, if they go again then make sure you use Mesa tubes or you will invalidate your warranty!

Just to be clear, using other brands of tubes in your amp does not invalidate the warranty on the entire amp. It just means Mesa will not replace your tubes for free.

Is that it? Hot ****. It seems I and **** near everyone else have misunderstood that.

That is exactly how it was explained to me on the phone by the amp tech at the authorized Mesa dealer in Omaha.

How come somebody from Mesa never asnwers these questions on here?? Every other major amp manufacturer seems to have a "forum representative" posting selective replies on the bigger forums...... why not Mesa? So now I have to call Mesa, then call Omaha and tell the authorized amp tech he was wrong?

This shouldn't even be a question. This question should be answered in the manual in no uncertain terms...... unless the Omaha guy is right and Mesa just words it that way to "encourage" you to buy their tubes. Then it's just simple and deliberate obfuscation....

It's a **** shame to have to say "deliberate obfuscation" and "Mesa" in the same sentence.

 

[MrMarkIII]

I know I'm possibly nit-picking, but "the amp tech at the authorized Mesa dealer in Omaha" is not Mesa. I'm sure he's a great tech, but he's not Mesa. I'm not sure I'd trust the word from anyone at Mesa unless it was Bendinelli or West. I will try to find my scanner and post the warranty.

 

[soundchaser59]

Well, here it is from the horse's mouth.....

The printed warranty is what they publicize, and it is generally speaking accurate and correct.

However, the folks at Mesa are reasonable and they know that there are cases where we may have problems that have nothing to do with the tubes.

They are especially concerned about problems that can be caused by power tubes going bad. If the board is burned, tranny ruined, or something like that which may be caused by a power tube shorting out, etc., they will not cover those kinds of problems if the offending tube was not a Mesa tube.

On the other hand, if you have a bad pot, defective speaker problem, or some problem that obviously has nothing to do with the tubes, then they will take that into account and most likely will cover the repair. It must be clear and conclusive that the problem has nothing to do with the tubes, but they do and have covered repairs where the amp did not have Mesa tubes in it.

The warranty period on Mesa tubes is 6 months.

 

[Anonymous]

That's perfectly reasonable. Thanks for posting.

 

[fendercat]

ok got it back,it didnt need repairing the guy in the shop didnt realise that the second pre amp valve in the chain is for the crunch blues and burn channel so he thought there was somthing wrong and didnt think of checking it so it has had a re tube with new mesa valves and sounds like a busy intersection at finishing time in an asian county or a small italian fishing village when the boats come in with their catch ,or a pub in cardiff when wales are playing engerland in the rugby and are winning ............in other words full of life and tone and promise bloody great

 

[soundchaser59]

AWESOME!! Congrats! Glad no major repair was involved!

As much as the "new Mesa tube" problem raises its head, I would think Mesa would try something different for sourcing their tubes......?

 

[fendercat]

ok here is my latest dilema ...when turning my amp on to stand by there is a small amount of back ground noise that is constant it sounds like wind blowing on top of a mountain.then when the amp is powerd up and playing some of the notes dont decay properly and have a wooly floppy decay ,I noticed that one of the power tubes is glowing a little reder than the other so i swaped them over and the problem diminished quite a bit ,,,,but because i know that the noise was there in the first place on certain note on the neck i can still here it .but if i hadnt known i probably wouldnt have known ....so i think that one of my power tubes is on the way out does this seem about right if any of this makes sense cos i have had a few :shock: 8) :wink: any info would be cool

 

[EtherealWidow]

Yup. Sounds like power tubes. One of them redplated. There is another very recent, very similar thread in which a guy described his sound as "the ocean coming through his speaker." For him it was 2 preamp tubes though.

 

[fendercat]

thats it yeh i was trying to think of the sound as well and i was going to say like dragging the palm of your hand across a dry window but the ocean coming through the speaker is simmilar .the amp is less than 6 months old from the shop so i can get two new ones i fink so good oh