Using mesa tubes vs other tubes?

[metallicat]

ok so i think i'm gonna just retube my recto. and my buddy says the i really need to get mesa tubes. but there alittle on the pricey side so what about a retube kit eurotubes? will it hurt my recto if i dont use mesa tube?

 

[MetalMike]

no it wont. because bob from eurotubes uses tubes that are in the specs that mesa uses to rate their tubes to be used in the amps.

so as long as the person your buying tubes from knows they are going into a mesa then you should be fine and cause no harm to your amp.

 

[Newysurfer]

Having tried new tubes recommended by www.dougstubes.com I'll never return to Mesa stock tubes. They sound much smoother, delivered more gain and cut amp hiss.

Mesa tubes are poor by comparison and cost 3 times more. All the hype Mesa Corp talk about their tubes is a load of S#&% IMHO. They're using low/mid quality tubes in very expensive amps - counter productive and stupid IMHO

 

[SCOTTY]

Ok so I am a relativly new Mesa owner. 1 year. Is it really all hype? Is Mesa pulling our chain? I was goimng to retube soon and was going to go with all new Mesa tubes. Is this a mistake?

 

[MF]

Mesa tubes are poor by comparison and cost 3 times more. All the hype Mesa Corp talk about their tubes is a load of S#&% IMHO. They're using low/mid quality tubes in very expensive amps - counter productive and stupid IMHO

They aren't expensive where I buy them. If i remember correctly i paid just over $20 per matched pair when i retubed about 6 months. I can't comment on quality though cause the DR is my first tube amp, and i retubed it as soon as i got it. Maybe the Mesa tubes do suck, but they sound pretty good to me. Maybe i'll experiment on my next retube.

 

[JW123]

Mesa tubes are consistent in my opinion, Ive used a bunch.

Currently in my Triple I have Mullards in the 12ax7 positions, in the power tubes I loaded it with EL 34s Mesas, Sounds great to my ears.

My Roadster has a mix in the preamp tube department, I have some old RCA and Sylvanias in it and Mesa 6L6. My Roadster still has that faint hiss sound I dont like.

My Subway Rocket has some NOS tubes in the preamp slots and Mesas in the power section.

I think for the average person with average amount of money in your pocket chasing tubes is a crap shoot, the Mesas are geared to the amps and are consistent in my opinion. Ive spent over $400 for 12AX7 tubes that were supposed to be the Holy Grail of tone. They didnt sound much better than the ones that I gave $17 for. If youve got money to spare go for it, but if your the average person stick with the Mesas.

I believe most people get on here talking about certain tubes and how good they are just to justify buying them, I know I will be flamed like hell for this cause I have friends in my area that spend hours fucking around with tubes, but when I get over there and listen, I just dont hear what all the fuss is about. I think most people should spend more time and technique and equing their amps than messing with the tubes.

I say this cause if you are a new musician there are way more important things than chasing tubes and spending a fortune on them.

If I come to your house and have an hour or so to play with your amp, I will sound the same on it as my own rig. If not I'll line pedals up in front until I get what Im after. I think you need to decide what you want to sound like instead of chasing some guys tone. I could play on Eddie Van Halens personal rig and still not sound like him, and you know what Eddie could play on my rig and he wouldnt sound like me either.

Good Luck but focus on fundamentals of playing before you get into this area, unless you just have a lot of money laying around.

Remember what sounds good to me may not be your cup of tea and what sounds good to you may not be my cup of tea either.

Tone is subjective.

 

[JW123]

Mesa tubes are consistent in my opinion, Ive used a bunch.

Currently in my Triple I have Mullards in the 12ax7 positions, in the power tubes I loaded it with EL 34s Mesas, Sounds great to my ears.

My Roadster has a mix in the preamp tube department, I have some old RCA and Sylvanias in it and Mesa 6L6. My Roadster still has that faint hiss sound I dont like.

My Subway Rocket has some NOS tubes in the preamp slots and Mesas in the power section.

I think for the average person with average amount of money in your pocket chasing tubes is a crap shoot, the Mesas are geared to the amps and are consistent in my opinion. Ive spent over $400 for 12AX7 tubes that were supposed to be the Holy Grail of tone. They didnt sound much better than the ones that I gave $17 for. If youve got money to spare go for it, but if your the average person stick with the Mesas.

I believe most people get on here talking about certain tubes and how good they are just to justify buying them, I know I will be flamed like hell for this cause I have friends in my area that spend hours fucking around with tubes, but when I get over there and listen, I just dont hear what all the fuss is about. I think most people should spend more time and technique and equing their amps than messing with the tubes.

I say this cause if you are a new musician there are way more important things than chasing tubes and spending a fortune on them.

If I come to your house and have an hour or so to play with your amp, I will sound the same on it as my own rig. If not I'll line pedals up in front until I get what Im after. I think you need to decide what you want to sound like instead of chasing some guys tone. I could play on Eddie Van Halens personal rig and still not sound like him, and you know what Eddie could play on my rig and he wouldnt sound like me either.

Good Luck but focus on fundamentals of playing before you get into this area, unless you just have a lot of money laying around.

Remember what sounds good to me may not be your cup of tea and what sounds good to you may not be my cup of tea either.

Tone is subjective.

 

[edward]

Lots and lots on this in the archives ...may I suggest you grab a beverage and soak in the comments

Long story short: Mesa tubes aren't the best, but they are tested, offer consistent/predictable performance, and are warranted against failure for (I think) 90 days. They are a good choice for a "baseline" tone ...how your amp was "designed" to sound, so to speak. But if you are patient and willing to experiment, you can achieve some changes (improvements ) with other tubes ...some of which will cost more, but not necessarily.

Edward

 

[metallicat]

just orderd a dual recto retube kit from eurotubes!

 

[JW123]

Let us know how they sound, Ive never used EuroTubes, they generally have tubes from the Russian Factorys. I like ole USA tubes when I can get a deal.

 

[ANIMATED SUSPENSION]

M/B tubes have a 6 month guarantee and go through more tests than just matching. Eurotubes only sell JJ tubes (Slovakia) as far as I know. I tried 'em once and didn't like 'em !!

 

[Murphy Slaw]

Mesa Tubes are fine. Mine are almost 9 years old. I'm going for a record.

Murph.

 

[Newysurfer]

Mesa uses Chinese tubes and yeah - they are consistent - consistently ordinary. New Mesa power tubes in Australia cost $70 to $80 each and preamp Mesa tubes here are in the $30-40 range - each.

Dougs and Eurotubes sell far better Russian ones for betweeen $10 and $18. Give em a try - most people find em much better

 

[ANIMATED SUSPENSION]

Mesa uses Chinese tubes and yeah - they are consistent - consistently ordinary. New Mesa power tubes in Australia cost $70 to $80 each and preamp Mesa tubes here are in the $30-40 range - each.

Dougs and Eurotubes sell far better Russian ones for betweeen $10 and $18. Give em a try - most people find em much better

The Mesa 12ax7's in my 2007 MKIV are Russian 2's (a mix of Tung sol re issues and EH !) in my Single Rec they are Russian 1's (look like EH)
Eurotubes only sell JJ's which are Slovakian, their preamp tubes are only average but the power tubes are pretty good.
The new Mesa STR440 6L6 is Chinese and is better imo than the old Russian STR430 (EH)
The Russian Winged C is probably slightly more detailed though. You have to remember that you pay extra for Mesa tubes because they are tested more thoroughly - not just matched so you could get any old crap - and they're guaranteed for 6 months. Good value ? Not really because also here in the UK they're £50 a pair for the power tubes but I wouldn't use anything else in mine. But if you saw the prices of the Mesa amps here it's a small price to pay for piece of mind ! Groove Tubes would be my second choice, other than that it's a crap shoot. You should buy preamp tubes that are tested for gain, noise and microphonics too. New production tubes are very inconsistent and you need to make sure you get the pick of the bunch - which costs more obviously.

 

[Newysurfer]

Mesa uses Chinese tubes and yeah - they are consistent - consistently ordinary. New Mesa power tubes in Australia cost $70 to $80 each and preamp Mesa tubes here are in the $30-40 range - each.

Dougs and Eurotubes sell far better Russian ones for betweeen $10 and $18. Give em a try - most people find em much better

The Mesa 12ax7's in my 2007 MKIV are Russian 2's (a mix of Tung sol re issues and EH !) in my Single Rec they are Russian 1's (look like EH)
Eurotubes only sell JJ's which are Slovakian, their preamp tubes are only average but the power tubes are pretty good.
The new Mesa STR440 6L6 is Chinese and is better imo than the old Russian STR430 (EH)
The Russian Winged C is probably slightly more detailed though. You have to remember that you pay extra for Mesa tubes because they are tested more thoroughly - not just matched so you could get any old crap - and they're guaranteed for 6 months. Good value ? Not really because also here in the UK they're £50 a pair for the power tubes but I wouldn't use anything else in mine. But if you saw the prices of the Mesa amps here it's a small price to pay for piece of mind ! Groove Tubes would be my second choice, other than that it's a crap shoot. You should buy preamp tubes that are tested for gain, noise and microphonics too. New production tubes are very inconsistent and you need to make sure you get the pick of the bunch - which costs more obviously.

If Eurotubes only sell JJ's I think you're better off shopping at http://www.dougstubes.com/ .They have a wide range of tubes (including JJ's) and the one's recommended to me by Doug are of 6 different brands. They made a big improvement to my 5:50 so I'll never return to Mesa tubes - why would I pay 3 times more to get inferior tone. Mesa Corp now states they only use their stock Chinese tubes. May have been different in the past but not now. So Mesa Corp claim they test them for quality control - big deal - so does Dougs. The prices of Mesa tubes are a joke - blatant profiteering IMHO.

 

[boogietone]

I can't say I really like Mesa 12AX7's. But they'll do in a pinch. I usually go NOS in the preamp. For power amp I try to stick with Mesa. But it's Mesa's older power tubes. STR-415's and STR-454's for 6L6's and STR-450's for EL34's. I can't find 415's very often so I only have 454's at the moment which are just Mesa tested SED winged C's IIRC. So, when I can't find 454's I go with SED's from Dougstubes. Long story longer, Mesa preamp tubes no, older Mesa power amp tubes yes. I did not care for the STR-430's or 440's. 440's I thought were better than the 430's though.

 

[soundchaser59]

There are tons of views on this topic, so do your research. I thought I knew something when I posted on another forum, but someone came along and had better facts, and I had done some research before that. Facts - reliable facts - on tubes and tube manufacture are not easy to come by. The guys at Mesa are friendly enough, they will suggest tubes if you pin them down and spend your own dollar on the phone call. Having said that, my opinions are:

1. With Mesa tubes you are paying mostly for consistency. They are not the best, they are relabeled, but from what manufacturer is anybody's guess.

2. I dont think I have ever really been able to tell the difference between one Russian made tube and another Russian made tube......BUT.......even non-musicians are able to hear the difference between Russian made and Chinese made tubes. Do some homework and some tube swapping and you will, if you are like me, end up preferring Russian tubes, no contest.

3. The guy on the other forum made a good point about preferring the Winged C brand, which is (if I understood correctly) the Svetlana tubes renamed to sell legally in the USA.

4. I'm currently using TungSol's preamp tubes and they are fine, I've used Sovteks with no issues, I did not like the Ruby's (Chinese relabel?) as they were harsh. As far as I can tell, EHX, JJ, TungSol, Winged C, and Sovtek are not Chinese, but I'm not sure about the JJ's. It's hard to keep them straight when I dont buy them more than once a year. My amp is new enough I still have the Mesa power tubes running.

Again, if your ears are like mine, you will end up avoiding the Chinese made tubes.

 

[livewire78602]

The tube Dougs tubes has are JJ's 6L6GC for Mesa heads. They are 114.00 for six power tubes. Mesa sells six 6L6GC str's for 126.00, thats only 12 dollars more and come with a 6 month guarantee!! Also tubes are made by the bunches, lots and lots overseas. Every batch has some bad ones or are very different values in many ways, the reason why you get a guarantee with Mesa is they test and match all the tubes they sell, they test them first to make sure they pass specs, then match all values closely, this is how they can guarantee them. Other tube sellers dont sit down when they get them and do all this testing and matching then rebox them to sell, they count on whats on the box, what the manufacture told them, this is crap.

 

[thirstypirate]

This is quoted directly from DougsTubes site (http://www.dougstubes.com/services.htm). Unless they are blatantly lying or falsely advertising then their tubes are properly tested for the intended useage.

"What we do (in one sentence)

We offer quality tested current production & NOS vacuum tubes for guitar amplifiers and high-end audio applications.


Our Services
Every tube gets:


1. Burned In
2. Tested
3. Matched

» Burning In

All power tubes are burned in for 24-48 hours using a pair of Maxi-Burn rigs that each burn in 30 tubes at a time. Burning the tubes in stabilizes the tube, which ensures a more accurate reading for when we match the tubes.

» Testing & Matching

Preamp Tubes

Every tube is tested on a Vacuum Tube Valley dual triode characterizer. We guarantee that every preamp tube we offer is tested thoroughly for proper gain, low noise and microphonics, and overall quality.

Power Tubes

Like the preamp tubes, every power tube is thoroughly tested under conditions that recreate the circuit for which it is intended. Power tubes are matched for plate current draw and transconductance using a Maxi-Matcher digital tester, or our Multi-Matcher(which does 30 power tubes at once). All power tubes are tested for microphonics, durability, and overall quality."

 

[label thief]

At eurotubes they have spent thousands of hours researching what grades of power tubes and what preamp tube gain factors work well in different positions. Dougs tubes offer one normal lineup that they recommend for every amp using five preamp tubes which is a sovtek tungsol for V1 and this is the same tube as the sovtek LPS which they recommend for V5 and sovtek EH 12AX7. The JJ 6L6GC’s come in just as many grades as SED, Svetlana (which are now sovtek) and the =C= tubes. Mesa amps like the Dual Rec’s and Roadster’s need hotter grades of 6L6’s. The JJ's have a very deep tight low end, a natural harmonically rich mid and a smooth sweet high end with a nice sparkle that's not brittle, I switched from mesa tubes to these when i was ready to sell my roadster for something else.. and it made all the difference. IMO Mesa tubes really give dual recs the bad name for being flubby and dull sounding.