who makes mesa boogies tubes?

[karpathion]

just curious who they get them from.

[Sludgenutz]

Re: who makes mesa boogies tubes?

They get them from all over. Whether they are Russian or Chinese, Mesa Boogie's philosophy is reliability. They prefer plug-and-play reliability for their customer's amps, and pretest their branded tubes to fit their philosophy. If a tube supplier starts wavering in reliability, Mesa may switch suppliers.

Tonewise, whether Mesa's philosophy mates with the tone requiements of the end user, is another matter.

I happen like my Ruby/China relabled Mesa power tubes.

[some_dude]

Re: who makes mesa boogies tubes?

Off the top of my head...

STR-417 6V6 - TAD 6V6GT
STR-425 5881 - Sovtek 5881WXT
STR-440 6L6 - TAD 6L6GC-STR
STR-447 EL34 - Electro-Harmonix EL34
STR-450 - NOS Siemens EL34
EL84 - Electro-Harmonix EL84EH
12AX7 - Chinese
SPAX7A - Sovtek
12AT7 - Chinese
5AR4 - Shuguang 5AR4
5UG4 - Sovtek (black base) or China (brown base)
5UG4B - Electro-Harmonix 5U4GB
5Y3 - Sovtek?

[phil_104]

Re: who makes mesa boogies tubes?

EL84 - Electro-Harmonix EL84EH

That's funny, caus I am a big EHX fan, and was wondering how they would sound in my mesa, lol. Guess I already know.

[Texas Swamp]

Re: who makes mesa boogies tubes?

Yeah I keep with the Mesa powertubes. Now I have been thinking of trying out the goldpin 12ax7's and 12at7 from EH.

[krankguitarist]

Re: who makes mesa boogies tubes?

The "russian 2" tubes I pulled out of my roadster look a lot like a Sovtek 12AX7LPS.

[some_dude]

Re: who makes mesa boogies tubes?

The "russian 2" tubes I pulled out of my roadster look a lot like a Sovtek 12AX7LPS.

They were, but they switched to Chinese made 12AX7s a couple of years ago.

Some people rag on them because they're chinese, yet others seem to think they sound really good and "9th generation Chinese tubes" were getting a lot of recommendations on the internet for awhile.... recommendations that seemed to die off after the arrival of the new Tung Sol 12AX7

Myself, I'm undecided on the subject. I have one amp loaded with Tung Sol and another loaded with Mesa branded Chinese, but I've never bothered to swap them and compare.

[PVFan]

Re: who makes mesa boogies tubes?

They get them from all over. Whether they are Russian or Chinese, Mesa Boogie's philosophy is reliability. They prefer plug-and-play reliability for their customer's amps, and pretest their branded tubes to fit their philosophy. If a tube supplier starts wavering in reliability, Mesa may switch suppliers.

Tonewise, whether Mesa's philosophy mates with the tone requiements of the end user, is another matter.

I happen like my Ruby/China relabled Mesa power tubes.

I agree that this is the case with Mesa and that it is subject to change on a monthly basis.

There is a greater disparity of reliability than there are differences in "tone" when it comes to tubes coming from the 4 factories. Quality often means "tone". Some people like the sound of bad tubes. I've read that some recording engineers will often use known bad tubes. Even so bad that they have loose components or are microphonic in order to get a unique sound. On the 4 factories producing tubes for audio applications like guitar amps, the verifiable tube quality (& their respective "tone") coming from each factory changes quickly, with expert opinions that are found on the internet lagging by a year or two. A good way to really know is to talk to a tech who goes through 1000s a month. Only 2 of the factories are making quality tubes at this time, and by the time this thread gets resurrected in a few months, it will have changed again.

Hotly debated topic that I will now leave for others. Right now, I'll take Chinese (relabeled and tested as TAD, Ruby, Mesa), and =C= (original) Svetlanas, and say no thanks to JJs, and no thanks to the other 50 kinds that come from St. Petersburg via NewSensor (Mullard, Tung-Sol, EHX, Svetlana rip-offs, and on and on).

Next tube-change maybe I will re-evaluate after talking to my techs to see what they've been experiencing.

[karpathion]

Re: who makes mesa boogies tubes?

well that helped. looks like i got e.h. el-84s.

[lalunatech]

Re: who makes mesa boogies tubes?

They get them from all over. Whether they are Russian or Chinese, Mesa Boogie's philosophy is reliability. They prefer plug-and-play reliability for their customer's amps, and pretest their branded tubes to fit their philosophy. If a tube supplier starts wavering in reliability, Mesa may switch suppliers.

Tonewise, whether Mesa's philosophy mates with the tone requiements of the end user, is another matter.

I happen like my Ruby/China relabled Mesa power tubes.

Whenever I come across some Ruby tubes I always get "Good-bye Ruby Tubes day, Who is gonna hang a name on you. ..." by Melanie playing in my head!
I'm probably not the only one...

[Zombiwoof]

Re: who makes mesa boogies tubes?

Whenever I come across some Ruby tubes I always get "Good-bye Ruby Tubes day, Who is gonna hang a name on you. ..." by Melanie playing in my head!
I'm probably not the only one...

Ruby Tuesday is a STONES song!. Melanie?. Jeez.....
Al