Mesa Biasing Really That Easy?

[ShredMAN]

Well, I was talking to a friend about MESA/Boogie amps today, and he told me about how mesa's don't need to be biased. He said You just take out the old power tubes and put the new in, is this true?

[Young Angus]

Re: Mesa Biasing Really That Easy?

Depends on the amp i think. My mesa 50cal is fixed bias so i just replaced the tubes without need for a bias, but im not sure about mesa's other amps, other people will be able to help you more.

[mrid]

Re: Mesa Biasing Really That Easy?

AFAIK, you won't find a factory installed bias trimmer in ANY Mesa amp. That's a big Randall Smith no-no.

[some_dude]

Re: Mesa Biasing Really That Easy?

That's pretty much it.

On most amps, you adjust your amp to suit your tubes.

On a Mesa, you select your tubes to suit your amp.

So, when you order tubes you tell them it's for a (insert model here) amp, and they send tubes that they know fall within that amps particular bias range.

The drawback is that you can't bias your amp hot or cold to adjust your tone. The plus is that you can choose tubes that are hot or cold to adjust your tone. It's also a bonus that if a tube dies on you at an inoppertune moment, you can pop another tube of the same grade and carry on with the show.

Sorry for the rambling, but I'm bored

[Kent S.]

Re: Mesa Biasing Really That Easy?

Well, I was talking to a friend about MESA/Boogie amps today, and he told me about how mesa's don't need to be biased. He said You just take out the old power tubes and put the new in, is this true?

Yeah Randall Smith is rather insistant on that fact ( please read on Mesa's site his reasoning, it makes sense, but so does everyone else ...LOL!)...
If your replace with Boogie tubes, then yeah you're good to go, because their tubes are matched according to their amps.
If you get anything else it depends upon the tube ... case in point ... a friend of mine had (oops ... still does to) a Mark IV ... His tubes were kinda a couple years old, so replacement time ... I told him ... *Man, look just get the tubes from Boogie, they won't cost you anymore than anyone else's...* Does he listen ... NO ... He gets a set of GT's in whatever rating he wanted ... the tech he went to installed them. He can't understand why the amp acts like a totally different amp, and sounds way different. He changed tubes again, to something else, same thing ... only different. He is probably still changing tubes and complaining about it.

[Kent S.]

Re: Mesa Biasing Really That Easy?

That's pretty much it.

On most amps, you adjust your amp to suit your tubes.

On a Mesa, you select your tubes to suit your amp.

So, when you order tubes you tell them it's for a (insert model here) amp, and they send tubes that they know fall within that amps particular bias range.

The drawback is that you can't bias your amp hot or cold to adjust your tone. The plus is that you can choose tubes that are hot or cold to adjust your tone. It's also a bonus that if a tube dies on you at an inoppertune moment, you can pop another tube of the same grade and carry on with the show.

Sorry for the rambling, but I'm bored

And that reveals another truth here, you can use other tubes out there, GT has a tone of ratings as other companies do ... and if you find a set of tubes that have the characteristics that you want, you're good to go. But as far as a direct replacement of tubes, well if you don't use theirs, you don't know what you are getting, and how it will effect your tone ... R. Smith even says that most people that change to some other tube to alter the amps performance, wind up coming back to the stock tubes (per boogs anyway, I guess they keep track of that stuff through registration).

[STRATDELUXER97]

Re: Mesa Biasing Really That Easy?

And that reveals another truth here, you can use other tubes out there, GT has a tone of ratings as other companies do ... and if you find a set of tubes that have the characteristics that you want, you're good to go. But as far as a direct replacement of tubes, well if you don't use theirs, you don't know what you are getting, and how it will effect your tone ... R. Smith even says that most people that change to some other tube to alter the amps performance, wind up coming back to the stock tubes (per boogs anyway, I guess they keep track of that stuff through registration).

This is one thing that always bothered me about Boogies...It helps them sell tubes though...When I had a Tremoverb for awhile...I Put adjustable bias pots in mine....1 for the EL34 side and the other for the 6L6 side...At the time I bought my Tremoverb there wasn't a decent EL34 that was relaible enough to put into this amp..I had better EL34s and 6L6s that I wanted to try that were just alot better than the Chinese(Bottle Rockets)mesa was putting into their amps...I Like to always have the ability to try different tubes so I can make the decision on what I like and dislike...I'm pretty much a Fender/Marshall guy and no longer own a Boogie... I got tired of the overkill buzzy mosquito like preamp tones...

John