Time to test out MESA Customer Service

JeffB

Let it B
Went to go play my new PRS last night, and amp is "dead".I hardly have any hours on the amp at all. worked fine last time I played it.

When I say dead..I mean...turns on...lights up...switches channels, etc...no sound. At all. No signal at the input jack for the guitar cable. Thought it was the speaker /speaker connection(still may be, but) in fiddling around I ended up cranking the master to about 1 oclock and started hearing crackling and seeing some flashing behind the amp...Looked around the back and kept turning the volume back up and down and the 6L6's were going ballistic...like blue lightning inside them.

Any hope it's just a tube issue? (even those are warrantied for 6 months). And I've never had a tube just fry/die like that. Fine one day, totally dead next time I plug in.

Ugh...I've had such poor luck with amp reliability lately...
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

I had a similar issue with my older Dual Rectifier. I took it to my dealer and they sent it to Mesa. I got it back within a month, I don`t remember exactly how long, and it was better than before. I bought it new and something fried inside but Mesa took care and gave me 100% customer satisfaction. BTW, no charge and my dealer took care of the shipping.
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

I'd almost guarantee it's a tube issue. That's the beauty of tube amps.....the majority of the problems can be solved with a tube change. Solid state.......nope. When tubes go, they can go immediately. Good Luck.
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

Were ALL of the power tubes doing that, or just some?
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

cool, lightning in a box

>.<

man, good luck with the amp
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

I think you should just get a replacement.
This amp is brand new!!!!

Edit: tubes or no ... that's Mesa's (and your dealer's) problem, not yours. YOU shouldn't be penalized for the fact that their QC suxx.
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

TwilightOdyssey said:
I think you should just get a replacement.
This amp is brand new!!!!

Edit: tubes or no ... that's Mesa's (and your dealer's) problem, not yours. YOU shouldn't be penalized for the fact that their QC suxx.

I gotta agree with this.. I would just return it and get another one. There's not way I would wait a month to play an amp I already paid for.
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

Fatty said:
I gotta agree with this.. I would just return it and get another one. There's not way I would wait a month to play an amp I already paid for.
+2
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

Thanks all for the comments. I'm gonna bring it by the dealer this w/e and see if they can at least try some new tubes and if that doesn't work, give me another amp... (and yes both power tubes were doing it..it WAS actually quite cool to look at , LOL)

Love the friggin amp, but I'm gettin really sick of all my gear crapping out on me...2 guitars..now 2 amps....yeesh :yell:
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

JeffB said:
Thanks all for the comments. I'm gonna bring it by the dealer this w/e and see if they can at least try some new tubes and if that doesn't work, give me another amp...

No, no, my friend... Cuz if you keep frying tubes who do you think's gonna pay for them?

I had a customer with a Dual Rec that was having the same problem. I wanted to just swap out amps and fix it but he INSISTED that he wanted to try new tubes first. I explained to him that I wasn't about to put store stock of fresh tubes into an amp like that, and I told him that if he wanted to retube the amp and try it again he was gonna have to pay for it... he agreed to pay for the tubes, and then I reminded him that this might be an expensive mistake. He ignored my warnings and sure enough flushed $120 down the drain when the amp fried all six power tubes about 5 seconds after turning it on.

Just get the amp swapped. Fast and easy way to replace everything. ;)
 
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Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

If it gets to that point, I think you'll find that Mesa's support is top notch. I had a little problem with an amp and they treated me like I was a legitimate musician.
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

B2D said:
No, no, my friend... Cuz if you keep frying tubes who do you think's gonna pay for them?

I had a customer with a Dual Rec that was having the same problem. I wanted to just swap out amps and fix it but he INSISTED that he wanted to try new tubes first. I explained to him that I wasn't about to put store stock of fresh tubes into an amp like that, and I told him that if he wanted to retube the amp and try it again he was gonna have to pay for it... he agreed to pay for the tubes, and then I reminded him that this might be an expensive mistake. He ignored my warnings and sure enough flushed $120 down the drain when the amp fried all six power tubes about 5 seconds after turning it on.

Just get the amp swapped. Fast and easy way to replace everything. ;)

MESA has a 6 month warranty on tubes, so it should be at their or the dealer's expense..the amp is not even a month old.

Will see what happens
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

If all the tubes went at once I'm guessing that they aren't the problem...
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

JeffB said:
MESA has a 6 month warranty on tubes, so it should be at their or the dealer's expense..the amp is not even a month old.

Will see what happens

Thats true they do have a tube warranty... i forgot to mention that this guy was running EH tubes... he didn't want or like Mesa tubes.
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

Something's gotta be wrong with the amp... there's no way that the tubes could do that by themselves.
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

Falstaff said:
If it gets to that point, I think you'll find that Mesa's support is top notch. I had a little problem with an amp and they treated me like I was a legitimate musician.
:laugh2:
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

FretFire said:
If all the tubes went at once I'm guessing that they aren't the problem...

They still are glowing and look OK. Amp comes on, etc. But when I crank the volume I get the light show :shrug: sigh....

Forgot to mention too that you can "hear" the amp when I crank the master above 12 oclock...just not through the speaker...if you put your ear to the top of the combo you can hear the gain...like someone wasn't wearing their headphones and they were really far away and you could kinda hear something

Also, I was smart enough to check to make sure the speaker mute switch wasn't on :D
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

Mesa has always bent over backwards to keep me happy, including sending me out a brand new speaker even though the exsisting speaker was a year out of warrantee. Take it back where you got it and try some new tubes. If that doesn't do it get a new amp.

A few years back Mesa got a bad batch of 500k pots and I went through 3 different 2:90 power amps before I got one I was happy with. I never had a problem swapping them out and I had one of them for quite awhile. Don't let the retailer give you a hard time about it either, the customer service is wrapped up in the price of the amp. You paid big bucks for an amp that works properly and Mesa will make sure you are happy irregardless of whether or not the retailer wants to deal with the problem.

Mesas phone # - 707-778-6565

Sometimes it comes in handy, I keep the # in my cell phone just in case.
 
Re: Time to test out MESA Customer Service

Thanx for the info Robert. I've got a email in to the dealer about it (they are local but have a live help website for customers). Will see what happens. Hopefully it's just the tubes or they will be able to exchange.
 
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