Help Picking Out a Full Retube Kit

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msuscorpio

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I've been having issues with noise and admittedly I haven't kept good track of how long my tubes (pre and power) have been in there. I have some gift cards for musicians friend and was hoping to put together a good mix for the Mark V considering what they sell. Any suggestions?
 
I should add that I'm looking for tonal balance. Nothing super high gain. Heck I use channel 1 a lot more than either of the other 2.
 
I'd stick with Mesa branded tubes. I do in my Mark V and the V:25. I tried rolling preamp tubes and tried new production Tung Sol, Chinese from Groove, Mullard reissues, and came back to the Mesa (JJ) set.

I did put SPAX7's in all preamp slots on both heads. Dead quiet, and the Mesa branded JJ's actually sounded better to me than all the others. I did it as much to build spares as anything, but they are very quiet.

In my Marshall, I far prefer the Chinese 12AX7's by far.
 
V1 - Tungsol 12AX7
V2 - Sylvania 12AX7
V3 - Sylvania 12AX7
V4 - Stock mesa 12AX7
V5 - Stock mesa 12AX7
V6 - Stock mesa 12AX7
V7 - Sovtek 12AX7 LPS

That's my tube layout with JJ EL34 ii power tubes. Works really well for my tastes. Might experiment with putting a stock mesa 12ax7 back into V2 to give ch2 some more bite as the Sylvania's are quite smooth and the stock mesa's are a bit sharper. Need to re-read the manual to figure out what roles V3 - 6 do to suit the Sylvania's best or maybe just stick with the mesa's.

The Tungsol in V1 and the balanced Sovtek in the PI position sound great.

Overall, I have a fair balance between the channels like this. Hope that helps.
 
Well just to update this....I did a full retube witha custom set i picked out based on a bunch of googling and product availibility. I ended up with this...

V1 - Tung Sol
V2-6 - JJ's
V7 - Mullard

Power Tubes - GT Matched Quad of EL34's
Rectifier - JJ

I went with the EL34's mostly our of curiosity. This is my 3rd set I've used including the stock set and they've all been 6L6 so far.

I replaced all the tubes and made sure to flip the bias switch to EL34 and fired it up. I went straight into the head from my guitar without any effects loop or footswitch plugged in. Unfortunately my crackling noise problem was still present. As I coninued to play and flip through the various channels and wattage modes the amp becain to dip in volume every now and then. I checked the tubes and V10 and 8 were red hot! Then it finally blew a fuse. I replaced that and fired it back up a day later. The crackling was still there but it didn't appear to be overheating. In any event, something isn't right and I figured it's better to have someone who knows what they are doing troubleshoot it so i took it to the closest mesa authorized service place. I won't know what's up for at least a week and a half. Anyone care to guess what's going on? I'm thinking power supply or transformer troubles.
 
Mesa now says too run el34s in variac. That might be why your tubes were running hot. I hope you like the variac setting :cry:
 
Great....I just did a search and came across this thread. http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=72546&hilit=variac Thanks for the heads up.
 
msuscorpio said:
I should add that I'm looking for tonal balance. Nothing super high gain. Heck I use channel 1 a lot more than either of the other 2.

I would NOT stick with Mesa tubes- they are rebranded JJs for the Mark V - they're good - no issue with them.
It's just you can do better for much cheaper imo.

http://www.dougstubes.com/guitar-amp-tube-kits/mesa.html

I recommend Dougs tubes - he has specific tube kits for Mesa amps but for Mark V I suggest you email him direct & ask his recommendations for the specific tone outcomes you'd like.
He'll recommend you a mix of tubes brands that might include some JJs.

All of them will be cheaper than Mesa tubes and they won't be his most expensive either.
He tests all his tubes and his power tube pairs are always matched.
Despite the marketing hype & the stamp crap Mesa does no different to any good tube retailer.
Doug has got the best range of tubes at the cheapest prices I've seen.
I have no affiliation - just a happy consumer of dougs tubes for 20 years :)
 

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