Score on Mesa tubes

[zodiac272]

So I went to this old warehouse, downtown chicago, near west side, that's now a recording studio, and part has an electronics shop with spare everything on shelves everywhere. Just loaded with tubes, tranny's computers, and electronics/ music equipment. So I brought in 4 Mesa STR 420's and 4 Mesa STR 440's to test. the guy showed me how to use the tester so... The 420's came out of my 2:90 that were from 1994, and I used it a lot but I guess not as much as I thought. they still tested almost 90%. crazy. the 440's came out of a IIC that i got last summer, and were thought to be dead, but they also tested out at about 90%. all 8 12ax7's were used up... testing at about 65%. I guess it shouldn't be much of a surprise now that I'm writing this since I did use the A channel more. duh. I did use the B side too, and I just randomly grabbed 4 out of the 8 I had on my shelf ignoring the one that was definitely spent. I'll have to test the other 4.

So I was talking to the guy that own's the shop, and asking him about tubes, and he pulls out a matched quad of green labeled Mesa STR-415's. so he goes over to look for them and he is digging for them and I hear tubes smashing on the ground. he's like fu@k!...etc etc. i thought the 415's were destroyed, but they were fine. I asked him how much, and he said $125. ok, um yeah, I'll take them. I also got 2 RCA long black plate 12ax7's for $15 each and another RCA 12ax7a for $15.

so now i'm excited to have a surplus of output tubes now. I also just got 3 pairs of nos sylvania 6L6gc for cheap.


sorry to bore with a long winded story but I'm happy to get some nice tubes, and meet a cool guy that know his sh!t


scott

 

[DaveP]

Isn't' it great to stumble on good tubes. I went into a Mesa dealer on the north side and on the shelf they had 2 duets of EL34 STR450's at the old price. I got them at a further discount because they were sitting there a while. 100 for the quad. NOS. Also I just picked up a near mint condition Mark III that had a set of STR415 and STR416's. They tested as strong as new ones. Jackpot.
Gotta love getting these gems. They are getting harder and harder to find unless you want to pay a fortune.

 

[zodiac272]

hey thanks guys,

yeah modern day treasure hunting. you never know what you will find out there in the most unlikely spots.

scott

 

[lerxst88]

Any chance you got the guy's name? I might know him

 

[zodiac272]

His name is Darrel. very cool guy

scott

 

[lerxst88]

I used to work for him! Good to hear he's still in business.

 

[zodiac272]

that's cool. you still in the area?

 

[lerxst88]

Yeah...sorta. I go to school in Normal but I live out in the northwest suburbs. Darrell taught me a lot but frankly his turn around time is horrendous. Hit me up if youre looking for help with amp mods or just wanna talk boogies!