Tube Replacement Question

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ESPMX220

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I have a very rudimentary question for the experts that my local store who sells Mesa's cannot, or doesn't want to, answer concerning tube changeouts and my amp. I bought the amp used from a guy who had a few different ones and said he just didn't care enough to try and play them all anymore. It's a Dual Rec. Roadster combo and he had said that he bought it new and had never replaced any of the tubes but said he thought it was time for a new set and priced it accordingly. Not having had any experience with a tube amp previous to this one, I couldn't really tell a whole lot of difference in sound when I replaced tubes. I bought just a set of Mesa branded tubes and there were a couple of tung sols in there too and the guy at the counter said it didn't much matter and just to plug them in there and enjoy.

Well it all still works but reading further into this stuff, it sounds like there are a million or so variations that the tubes can be installed and probably a million more brand choices that will influence the sound. The bottom line is, would I benefit from taking this in to my Mesa repair place and having them do all this "bias" testing and such?
 
Question is: Are you happy with your sound??

Rebiasing a Mesa amp will be some endeavour 8) Mesas are fixed-bias with a factory set-and-forget bias circuitry tailored to Mesa-spec tubes.
If you´ve put a set of Mesa power tubes / Rect tubes in there, you´re good to go. Hopefully the power tubes were of the same color grade.
Any *good* tube vendor can provide almost any brand of tubes within Mesa or Groove Tubes specs. Middle of the road would be Mesa-green / Groove Tubes 5 .... Just tell them what amp the tubes are for (Tube Depot, The Tube Store, Doug's Tubes, Eurotubes, KCANOSTubes,.....)
Preamp tubes (12AX7, ECC83....12AT7 for the reverb and maybe PI) don´t need to be biased/matched....

Back to the initial question: Are you happy with your sound?? If you have a positive answer go crank your amp and rock!

If you wanna experiment....Leeeeets get ready to tube roll....read through this forum/tube related threads, read through the internet.....enjoy

But (imho) once the drummer enters the room, all those little differences in sound/tone between certain tube brands are gone :twisted:

Crank it!
 
I get headaches even thinking about what the million different types/brands of tubes would do to my tone :idea:
 
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