Mesa Boogie tech support doesn't know squat about their own cabinets

gearJunkie

gearJunkie

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Spoke with MB support regarding replacement of the Jensen Blackbird speakers in my open-back and Thiele 1x12 California Tweed cabinets.

Purchased a pair of MC-90s from them and upon receiving them I noticed they did not have gaskets installed to support front mounting.

Before disassembling the cabs I contacted support once again and the support guy assured me that the cabs are rear loaded.

I removed the rear panel from both cabs and just as I originally expected, they are both front mounted.

Now I'm waiting on a set of gaskets from Simply Speakers so I can properly mount the new speakers.

First time I have ever experienced incompetent support from MB.
 
I’ve been waiting a week and a half for Mesa to ship some rubber feet and a handle - not sure what’s up. They used to be the gold standard for knowledgeable support people and great service.
 
EOengineer said:
I’ve been waiting a week and a half for Mesa to ship some rubber feet and a handle - not sure what’s up. They used to be the gold standard for knowledgeable support people and great service.
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To their credit, I last called them this past Thursday at 12 PM EST and they returned my call in less than an hour. Too bad the info provided was shite.
 
Try getting anything done to a Triaxis outside of sending it to Randal. We had one guy that hated working with it for the UK nobody else had a clue. He didn’t work for the distributors and they would say they had to send it back to the USA and it would take 3 months. If you complained that you needed it they would tell you that you should have two. WTF they already cost nearly double in 240v versions.
I presumed it was better now.
 
With the Triaxis amp guys couldn’t do the electronics and electronics guys couldn’t do the tube side. Amp repair techs need to be good players to even understand the issues. Same with guitars.
 
That stinks. I had a less than stellar (not terrible, just not good either) experience with them when the pcb on my Badlander taco’ed. Was disappointing for sure.
 
It's my first negative experience with Mesa in 30 years, but most of my previous interactions were pre-Gibson. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
EOengineer said:
I’ve been waiting a week and a half for Mesa to ship some rubber feet and a handle - not sure what’s up. They used to be the gold standard for knowledgeable support people and great service.
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I've ordered parts from Mesa 5 times in the past 8 months, and the time between ordering in-stock items and shipping averaged around 5 days, then another week in transit from California to Florida. Not too bad, but I've been spoiled by Amazon one and two day shipping.
 
Iron1 said:
That stinks. I had a less than stellar (not terrible, just not good either) experience with them when the pcb on my Badlander taco’ed. Was disappointing for sure.
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What happened with your Badlander?
 
JiveTurkey said:
What happened with your Badlander?
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The standoffs under the PCB broke, then the force from the springs in the tube caps pushed the PCB down in the middle.

Ended up taking it to a retired, authorized Mesa repair guy and he said the plastic standoffs get brittle (from heat cycling I presume) and break sometimes. He ended up replacing several and making a custom wood one to ensure the PCB never moved again.

Only reason I discovered it was I had a power tube go out and went to replace it only to see all the power tubes were sunk way below the mount plate.
 
Iron1 said:
The standoffs under the PCB broke, then the force from the springs in the tube caps pushed the PCB down in the middle.

Ended up taking it to a retired, authorized Mesa repair guy and he said the plastic standoffs get brittle (from heat cycling I presume) and break sometimes. He ended up replacing several and making a custom wood one to ensure the PCB never moved again.

Only reason I discovered it was I had a power tube go out and went to replace it only to see all the power tubes were sunk way below the mount plate.
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That's nuts! Glad you got it sorted! My (most)local official Mesa "repair guy" turned me off to the idea of having him do any repair work on my Boogie. Which sucks.
 
I went back and read through my repair info. Mesa's tech support blamed the broken standoffs on shipping damage, stating the head must have been dropped. Then, they said if I wanted to send it to them at my expense, they would get a look at it in 2-3 months and let me know what it would take to fix...
 
Iron1 said:
I went back and read through my repair info. Mesa's tech support blamed the broken standoffs on shipping damage, stating the head must have been dropped. Then, they said if I wanted to send it to them at my expense, they would get a look at it in 2-3 months and let me know what it would take to fix...
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The head ships most likely packed into a thick cardboard box, several layers of bubble wrap, in a birch plywood headshell, in a metal chassis, yet that's not enough to keep standoffs from breaking?

Of course they are not going to admit they cheaped out on a part and it did not have the durability it needed. Based on PCB pics, seems they use those cheap ass push pin plastic parts instead of e.g PC motherboard style metal standoffs or machine screw + plastic spacer.
 
laxu said:
The head ships most likely packed into a thick cardboard box, several layers of bubble wrap, in a birch plywood headshell, in a metal chassis, yet that's not enough to keep standoffs from breaking?

Of course they are not going to admit they cheaped out on a part and it did not have the durability it needed. Based on PCB pics, seems they use those cheap ass push pin plastic parts instead of e.g PC motherboard style metal standoffs or machine screw + plastic spacer.
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Yeah, for what Mesa charges for a brand new Badlander, using metal instead of cheap plastic would be my expectation. And there are zero signs of impact on the head anywhere, so they must know the inside isn’t as sturdy as it should be to immediately call it shipping damage sight unseen.

In Mesa’s defense, I did buy it second hand and maybe the original owner dropped it? But, these amps are supposed to endure the rough life of touring musicians…
 
I wonder if the Bean Counters from Gibson are forcing Mesa's hand at some
cost-cutting maneuvers. :idk

This is what Corporate Hydra do. Pinch pennies on every part, because in a volume
business those fractions of a penny per piece add up over time to increased
reduced manufacturing costs, which can lead to increased profitability.

My hunch is they did this with the Mark VII (pure speculation), which is why it has
considerably fewer tubes and features/tones/options than its predecessors, and is
all crammed into a smaller chassis/headshell? Coincidence? Probably.
 
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