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

[a2dconverter]

Hey FenderCat...

Did you replace the Power Tubes with Mesa Tubes?

 

[fendercat]

no i havent replaced them yet mate i just swapped em over one valve was glowing a little reder than the other so i turned the amp on to standby and swapped em around turned the amp back on and they both warmed up together the same both glowing the same and the horrid sound dissapered but i think i will kepp an eye on it and when i get a chance take it back to the shop where i bought it and get them to give me a couple of new ones ,i will put mesa tubes in cos i think they sound fine but then again i havent tryed any other tubes in it so i wouldnt know :?

 

[soundchaser59]

Eventually you will try some Tungsol tubes, they will not fart out on you in 4 months, and you will wonder why you ever put Mesa tubes back in...... might as well email Doug's Tubes or something and start price checking. Nothing quite as gratifying as a reliable Mesa amp with reliable tubes in it.

 

[fendercat]

well hears an update to my problems after about a month the power tubes shat them selfs ,when i took my amp back to the shop he told me that the repair guy was over an hour away and they very rarely ever go there,so he said look dude ,i put two new tubes in there and it sounds fine see how you get on .the amp sounded fine for about a month then started to make that after note sound i have read about on this forum the sound of waves after certain notes .so i thought right i will change the tubes myself ,so i bought two new power tubes and for a bit the amp sounded great ,when i say for a while i have had the amp for a year now and play out with it twice a month and hardly ever at home so to cut a long story short in a year of ownership probably 10 gigs at 4 hours each and maybee lets say 20 hours in the house so lets say 60 hours play time i have gone through 3 sets of power tubes is this normal .....could i have some opinions on this have i had a bad run of tubes or is ther somthing wrong with the amp ? sory for the spelling and grammer ..

 

[J.J]

No, that is not normal at all. For my 5:25 the first power tube set lasted 11 months and that was with 2 hours a day playing at home, a jam and a rehersal each week and at least 6 gigs. Total use would have been around 800 hours. The amp was still working fine too, but when playing quietly at home I started hearing very faint pops every so often. The pops started to get a little louder over time so I just decided to get new power tubes. The second set are still going strong 7 months on.

I don't think there is any way to tell if you have had a bad run with tubes or if something else is going wrong without getting out the test gear. Is there anything physical going on , does the amp get bounced around in the back of a truck or something ?

Still it does sound like it should be looked at by a pro. Hope you get it sorted.

 

[fendercat]

no mate the amp is brand new wine red taurus a beaut it is pamperd i am taking a day off work tommorrow and taking it to the amp dude an hour n a half away the third set of tubes i put in were jjs and they have lasted all of maybee 3 mnths of playing about yeh 4 hours a week if lucky the amp was dead quiet to begin with not a hiss pop crackle nowt and i thought bingo problem solved then slowly the odd bit of poping in the background and then the other day they just went flat and lost all there power and volume so i have put my old valves back in the ones with the ocean sound in them and i am taking it in ....i find i am doing stupid stuff like turning the amp on and trying to convince myself that a weak sounding poping and fluffing tube chewing messa is all part of the deal .i just dont have any faith in it at the mo and feel uninspired by it all i hope is that the amp fixer finds the prob and puts an end to the misery and tubes in perth are not that cheap either secialy when you buying a new pair every 3 months :?

 

[J.J]

Sounds like one of the one of the JJs packed it in, but it could also be any of the pre amp tubes. Did you get a set of JJs matched for the Express ? If not you may have just been unlucky and picked up a really hot set that were to stressed.

When I bought my Express, the demo amp in the shop had no reverb and no else had noticed. The tech pulled out the reverb tube and it was smashed. The point is that the amps have to travel a long way to get to our side of the world and tubes don't like vibration.

Tube prices are crappy to say the least here. You could look into geting a complete new set from Dougs tubes or somwhere. would probably be less than half the price of the Mesa ones here.

I think the long trip to the service shop will be worth it for you. Let us know how it goes.

 

[fendercat]

will do mate but could take a while

 

[FXR]

I send my Express back to Mesa for the same complaint. They said nothing was wrong with it, but switched me from Hot WHT and GRY Mesa OTs to cooler running RED labeled Mesa OTs.

The PI, V4, required replacing too to sound right for me. The amp has been stable and gigged every weekend since.

Oh yeah, and I added a cooling fan which is on all the time. I won't play without it and IMO everyone should add a cooling fan to their Express 5:25.

Also be careful at all times that the OTs are seated. Good luck!

 

[BobR]

If you own a tube amp always have spares! I do ; > )

I dig old glass....Bob