You guys think stock tubes are garbage? 2nd place to Marshall Silver Jube RI

[DustyCat]

Seems like I'm always late to the party, but the fact remains that I got a Marshall Silver Jubilee Reissue when it first came about about 2 years ago and have yet to change the tubes yet (So Still Stock Tubes).

Meh...for the price tag I dunno...not writing anything off just yet, but I'm so much happier with my used JCM 800 with footswitchable reverb.  :headbang1:

But my satisfaction with this 25th anniversary reissue special deal with Mr. Jim Marshall's own signature on the front panel is less than 100%

Kindof wish it had:

1) More Gain
2) Reverb
3) Footswitchable reverb

Is it the stock tubes? Can I expect better with a set of MESA's???
Should I replace the preamp tubes as well?

It's good...good tone, decent clean, good equalization but it still sees second place against my USED JCM 800 2203. 

 

[mayfly]

Changing the tubes won't really help with the basic tone of the amp.  and it certainly won't add reverb 

Trust your ears.  If one amp sounds better, keep it and sell the other.

 

[swarfrat]

You're not happy with your Jubilee head in part because you want more gain, but you are happy with a stock JCM 800 head? Jubilee is basically an 800 with more gain IIRC.  Regardless, If you ship it to me, I'll waive the $300 recycling fee.

 

[stratamania]

Buy an overdrive and reverb pedal.

 

[Cagey]

Tubes are a very old technology, and are only manufactured on old machinery in a couple/few decrepit plants by political prisoners in very poor countries, namely Russia and China. As such, the yield is very poor, and they produce more scrap than useful product. Of the product that is at least marginally useful, it's sold to different jobbers/distributors who test and filter them down even more, and private label them for resale.

Most of the articles/reviews you read about tubes where they tout this brand or the other as more this or that achieve their results anecdotally. In other words, they'll use very small sample sets and draw conclusions from those, when it's beyond possible and more like probable that they they don't have a good example part to work with. There's a video on YouTube somewhere showing Bugera's manufacturing plant in China where they make those amps, and when they get to the stage where they're populating the thing with tubes, they test them right on the spot before installing because they have a roughly 75% failure rate right out of the box. You can imagine how good the remaining 25% are that they actually use.

So, are Mesa tubes better than JJs or Rubys or [insert brand name here]? Flip a coin. You'll get as good an answer as anybody else can give you.

Unless a tube has actually failed, you have as good a chance of making the amp sound worse by replacing tubes as making it better.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Tube are the shiznit, nothing sounds better, blah, blah, woof, woof, the thing, the thing. But, they're a major league pain in the ass for a lotta reasons. Save your pennies and buy a good modeler. You'll be glad you did.

 

[DustyCat]

You're not happy with your Jubilee head in part because you want more gain, but you are happy with a stock JCM 800 head? Jubilee is basically an 800 with more gain IIRC.  Regardless, If you ship it to me, I'll waive the $300 recycling fee.

The feel is much different. Maybe there's something to breaking an amp in over decades/replacing the tubes which is why I posted this thread, maybe not.

I just don't seem to get enough sustain out of the Jube, and the gain is much sharper/crispier/articulate. Not hearing any Slash tone from Guns and Roses from my Jube. The JCM 800 2203 feels more liquid and open. On the plus side of the Jube, it sounds great for rhythm/riffs.

 

[DustyCat]

So, are Mesa tubes better than JJs or Rubys or [insert brand name here]? Flip a coin. You'll get as good an answer as anybody else can give you.

Unless a tube has actually failed, you have as good a chance of making the amp sound worse by replacing tubes as making it better.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Tube are the shiznit, nothing sounds better, blah, blah, woof, woof, the thing, the thing. But, they're a major league pain in the ass for a lotta reasons. Save your pennies and buy a good modeler. You'll be glad you did.

The reason why I touted MESA tubes as superior is because I attended a clinic by a MESA representative and he said their quality control is much higher than other brands. If selling rejected tubes to other manufacturers wasn't a clue, their story is that you don't have to rebias the amp if you buy Mesa tubes.

I was just considering a $1,500 piece of machinery that might have cut corners on replaceable tubes because of a possible mindset that the tubes are going to have to be replaced at some point eventually.

 

[Cagey]

I have no doubt their quality control is high, but they're not manufacturing the tubes. They're just binning them, like everybody else does. They buy them from the Russian plant or the Chinese plant, just like everybody else, and they have their own standards about what they'll call "acceptable". Those that aren't become... something else. Rubys? I don't know. I'm sure they're not throwing the losers away like Bugera does because they're probably not getting any or very few outright failures - they've already been binned once. The fact a tube works at all makes it worthwhile to somebody.

Besides, what would you expect a Mesa rep to say about Mesa products? :laughing7:

One other thing to consider, although it might not apply here, is that you don't have to break in amps so much as you do speakers. They definitely change character over time. There are companies out there who rely on that as part of their business model - "Scumback" comes to mind - so a new amp/speaker combination is going to change as it gets broken in.