Odd Occurrence

[elvis]

Sadly, hand-built amps are like Harley-Davidsons (I've had both). They ALMOST work right. When they do work, they look & sound great.

Sorry to read about your problems. I'll bet it's a loose connection that opens due to heat expansion. I think if it were vibration it would happen more ofte.

 

[Old BF Shred]

Wow that does suck.
But intermittent problems can be a bear! (Reference my earlier post; I "suffered" for 15 months!).
I would give the local shops another chance, though...will save you a fortune in shipping! And they are eliminating the problems one by one....Mesa will start from square one.....
Whatever you decide, I wish you luck and can honestly say: Been there, done that! :wink:
Just remember, even the best may make an occasional lemon; how long do you think that Asian made Jet city 20 would last?
Take care!

 

[rwil]

I wait most of my life to get my hands on a Mesa Boogie and I get stuck with a Lemon! :x

Yeah that does suck!
I like lemon when mixed with olive oil, basil, dijon mustard, garlic & shallot, sea salt, well mixed and poured over a fresh mixed lettuce. Can be awsome.., but not when something like an amp...
Sorry, maybe not the moment to be kidding, but only try to put a little smile on your face! :|

 

[Newysurfer]

Well she took a dump again.
My 5:25 Express worked good for 1 practice. Took her to a gig last Sat night and in the middle of a song she died again!!!
Fiddled w/ power and standby switches and she powered up again, but shortly after down she went again. Happened 3 times in a 2 hour gig.
I'm sending her off to Petaluma today for the techs at the Boogie plant to give her a thorough going over. She's really unusable for perfroming as it is now.
I'm a little disapointed at my experiences w/ my first Mesa Boogie product.
Jeez, I wait most of my life to get my hands on a Mesa Boogie and I get stuck with a Lemon! :x
I hope the manufacturer can find and fix my problem. Sounds like this is my last option.

hey pappy - why not ask for a new amp.
Nothin to lose and they'll probably agree :mrgreen:

 

[Pappy]

Just remember, even the best may make an occasional lemon; how long do you think that Asian made Jet city 20 would last?

I hope the JCA20H lasts. I may be run out of Boogie Board land for saying this, but it's a great little amp for the $$$ (So far) :?:

hey pappy - why not ask for a new amp.
Nothin to lose and they'll probably agree

I did and Mesa B. was like "We need to take a crack at it first."
They seemed very evasive concerning an out right amp replacement.
I haven't got around to reading the wording on the warranty

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers!

 

[bigdawg]

I thought it was on thsi site I read it but theres a fix for this - if its the same thing.

A few guys complained of exactly the same thing - amps returned to mesa couldnt find anything wrong, problem persisted. Took the amp to a local amp tech, turns out the fuse holder wasnt connected to well and when the valves warmed up it was enough to expand the connection and cause a short. The time it was out was enough for it to cool down again and off it went again.

 

[Pappy]

bigdawg : One local shop allready replaced the fuse holder and it still cuts out.
I mentioned it earlier in the post. Both local warranty shops failed to fix my problem. For $28.00 shipping , I insured it and sent it back to Mesa Engineering.
If the factory can't find and fix it, I'll lobby for a new amp.

 

[bigdawg]

apologies, didnt read the whole thread through, kinda skim read it...

 

[Pappy]

No problem, bigdawg.
I appreciate all the board members concern and advise!

 

[Pappy]

The Saga continues..... :!:
I got the call from the M.B. factory telling me that the only thing they could figure out concerning the intermittent power loss problems w/ my 5:25 Express, was that the power cord plug in receptical on back of my Express was bad. They replaced that part and are including a new power cord. They said they're sending it back in a day, or 2. When I asked how a power cord problem could account for my amp losing power, but come back when I turned the power and stand by switches on and off a few times, they could not give me an answer.
They said to try it out and if the power loss happens again, they would investigate further. I do hope it's fixed, but I'm a little skepical. :roll:
I will stress again that customer service and communication w/ the Mesa Engineering staff has been very satisfactory. I do feel as if they care about their customers. They called me and kept me up to snuff on what was going on and I never got the runaround about anything. They have been up front and straight forward about everything.
As I said I hope it's finally fixed and I'm not stuck with that 1 in 10,000 Mesa Boogie Lemon!!! :lol:

 

[EtherealWidow]

**** dude. Good luck. Do you have another amp to try and tide you over? I know that when I waited 9 months without an amp the acoustic was alright, but I always missed an amp.

 

[Pappy]

Yes Widow, I was using a Jet City 20 watt head through a 1x12" cab loaded w/ an Eminence Texas Heat. Actually sounds pretty **** good for a $300 Chinese amp, but not nearly good, or as versatile as a Boogie! Anyway...........
Got my little 5:25 Express back yesterday from the M.B. factory repair dept. packed nice and proper in a sturdy brand new Mesa shipping carton (which I'm keeping, just incase....), freight prepaid and insured by M.B. :shock: ! Took her out of the box, put her up on the kitchen bar, turned her on and let her warm up for 20 min. Plugged in my 76 LP Deluxe and like after the last repair :roll: I put her through a grueling work out. Using all 4 modes with a lot of knob tweaking at fairly high volume in both 5 watt and 25 watt settings. All seems fine now. Never cut out, or died once. She sounds real good, but I will save my final judgment until this weekend. We are playing a private party Saturday and it'll feature my little 5:25 Express. I will bring the JCA20H just in case the Boogie craps out on me. After all my trials & tribulations w/ this amp, it'll take me some time for me to trust her w/o a back up.

 

[EtherealWidow]

Yeah dude I can imagine. I'm glad I can trust my amp for now. Although I'll need tubes by the end of the year just cause this thing gets cranked so much. Don't want a new years light show in my amp. Hope the show goes well.

 

[cottoneyedjoe]

Was the problem with the effects loop?

I wished I had of seen this last week. The effects loop intermittently causes a loss of volume due to the way the circuit is wired. I had this issue when I first purchased my 5:25.

You take a small patch cable and plug it into the send and return jacks. It will correct the issue. The volume drops will not happen anymore and the amp will run just fine. These amps have a habit of vibrating quite a bit. What happens is that the send jack works itself loose causing a loss of volume (just like one cable would be plugged into the send jack, but no return causing an incomplete loop....)

They can fix this by adjusting the effects loop or you could use a small patch cable like I did. I haven't had an issue since.

 

[JUS]

Was the problem with the effects loop?

I wished I had of seen this last week. The effects loop intermittently causes a loss of volume due to the way the circuit is wired. I had this issue when I first purchased my 5:25.

You take a small patch cable and plug it into the send and return jacks. It will correct the issue. The volume drops will not happen anymore and the amp will run just fine. These amps have a habit of vibrating quite a bit. What happens is that the send jack works itself loose causing a loss of volume (just like one cable would be plugged into the send jack, but no return causing an incomplete loop....)

They can fix this by adjusting the effects loop or you could use a small patch cable like I did. I haven't had an issue since.

This is exactly right. I just had the same issue. Mesa replaced the send and receive jacks and added a transistor to my effects loop to simulate a closed loop condition when unused. They told me that some time after my amp was produced, they started adding this to all express amps.

 

[Pappy]

The repair techs @ the Mesa Engineering factory said it was the power cord connection. They replaced the receptical on the amp and the cord itself.
I haven't had a problem since getting it back from them 2 weeks ago.
This includes practice and 1 actual gig.
Hopefully it's fixed, but if it happens again I'll try your suggestion before I send it back to Mesa Boogie for diagnosis and repair.
Thanks for the tip!

 

[Pappy]

Well.... almost 2 weeks in from the return of my 5:25 from the Mesa repair facility in Petaluma and all is well! Almost daily playing at bedroom levels, 2 full band practices, and one 2 1/2 hour gig and no problems!
Looks like the repair worked...so far. We'll just wait and see.
During practice and the gig I was holding my breath waiting for the Express to shut down, but it didn't happen. A few times since I got the Boogie back my fellow band members have commented, "Man, that guitar is sounding sweet tonight." Yes, I have some nice guitars, but a big part of that "sweet sound" is attributable to the Express.
Let me tell you, it's great to have this little amp back and in good health. Thanks again for all the advise, tips and concern from all my Mesa Boogie brothers and forum members!

 

[hotraman]

Well.... almost 2 weeks in from the return of my 5:25 from the Mesa repair facility in Petaluma and all is well! Almost daily playing at bedroom levels, 2 full band practices, and one 2 1/2 hour gig and no problems!
Looks like the repair worked...so far. We'll just wait and see.
During practice and the gig I was holding my breath waiting for the Express to shut down, but it didn't happen. A few times since I got the Boogie back my fellow band members have commented, "Man, that guitar is sounding sweet tonight." Yes, I have some nice guitars, but a big part of that "sweet sound" is attributable to the Express.
Let me tell you, it's great to have this little amp back and in good health. Thanks again for all the advise, tips and concern from all my Mesa Boogie brothers and forum members!

This was a long thread, but worth the read considering I just bought a Express 25:5 today.
Thanks for posting and I'm glad that your rig is working now!
Love the tone this amp puts out.
Its great to hear that Mesa gives great customer service.... that's rare these days!

 

[Pappy]

Everything still A-OK. No problems. No power loss. Whatever the Mesa tech guru's did to it in Petaluma worked!!!