Well Boogie oogie oogie..

  • Thread starter Thread starter mixsit
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mixsit

Well-known member
Yes folks, after a brutal life -on the road for well over three gigs, uncounted (2..) rehersals this LoneStar Special is kaputski.
I'm setting here fitting this guita track in and hear this sputter'. Turn to see light flashing out the back reflecting of the rack. Look back to see the rectifiier tube doing a little show. Tap on the top- and dim go all the tubes. Main fuse.

No hey that's cool. I can frikin AutoTune a bunch of vocals instead of playing guitar like i planned anyway. :o

Shit happens.
 
Up date, it turned out be the bad rectifier tube only.
I inquired about Mesa’s quality control along the way (one of our local amp gurus http://www.tubesonicamps.com/ that would have taken the repair had it bee other), the upshot in general is they’re very well made, most of the problems are tubes.
Presumably the first several hours is a big go- no go window for tube troubles.
(I’ve been out of this for a while since I went from the Twin Reverb in 80 ’something to the Pearce so I have some re-grooving to get back up to speed on this stuff. :D

Out.
 
Glad to hear it was the tube. I have been eyeballing one of those for some time now.
 
Thurgood said:
Glad to hear it was the tube. I have been eyeballing one of those for some time now.
Click to expand...

Yeah, not done yet it turns out-
..be back with details, but tonight I'll be running 30watt mode only..
 
Boogies have problems, and some are within their control to 'fix', while others are completely out of their control. Boogie just buys Russian or Chinese tubes, and the quality and consistency is out of Boogie's control. Even with their supposed Robo-Tube tester, you'll get bum tubes, especially Chinese rectifier tubes. Russian power tubes can also be pretty flaky. Actually, they aren't 'bad', but at high voltages and/or current they can be a crapshoot, and that is under Boogie's control. You're sort of under their shake down to use 'Boogie' tubes, since they don't have adjustable bias. If the voltages were lower, or you could adjust the bias, I have a hunch 'regular' Chinese tubes would last a long time and perform quite well in any Boogie.
Anyway, that's my 2¢. There isn't anything wrong with the design of the amp per se, but they just don't account for the crappy QC of tubes out there today and as a worst case scenario alter how hard the tubes are run.
Just a side note; go on and ask me about EH EL34's. :mad:
 
Been meaning to update here..
Phase two' was Mesa using an apparently undersized voltage dropping resistor for the lower power modes. Switching to '5 or 15' watts the thing would just fade to quiet—
Our Mesa tech here was informed of this mistake from the factory about the same time as the first tube failure.

That was fixed, and while in the shop during ring out' a second crap rectifier tube died!
Since then I've got a few gigs on it (once in 30 watt only' mode :rolleyes: (and an old 'Mil spec rectifier now) everything seems to be settled in.
And I still love the amp. Sweet clean, funky, dirty, yeah yeah ! :)
 
mixsit said:
Been meaning to update here..
Phase two' was Mesa using an apparently undersized voltage dropping resistor for the lower power modes. Switching to '5 or 15' watts the thing would just fade to quiet—
Our Mesa tech here was informed of this mistake from the factory about the same time as the first tube failure.

That was fixed, and while in the shop during ring out' a second crap rectifier tube died!
Since then I've got a few gigs on it (once in 30 watt only' mode :rolleyes: (and an old 'Mil spec rectifier now) everything seems to be settled in.
And I still love the amp. Sweet clean, funky, dirty, yeah yeah ! :)
Click to expand...

Good news. I haven't played them extensively, and while I'm hardly a crazed metalhead it really just doesn't offer the sort of gain structure that I'd occasionally want in a one-size-fits-all amp, but if I were looking for a blues/rock backup amp or something, I'd be hard pressed to think of a better line. The first Lone Star I played was I think the only time I can EVER recall plugging into an amp and spending a half hour twisting dials before it even occurred to me to check out the gain channel. :)
 
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