NAD: Mesa Mark V:90 1x12 combo

[newholland]

aw man.. i tried longplates in mine hoping itd sound better. it did not. it just howled i prefer the non spax versions everyplace.

12ats in the PI have been okay in my mesas, but not my favorite. too dry and kanky. 5751s definitely sound good in v1 to my ear, but id literally never use an at in a driver position. just awful harmonics. but i havent had much success tube rolling any of my mesas save for power tubes.

 

[EOengineer]

if you want MODERN gain tones, i aint gonna disagree. i think that v is what gets you there. i know the 'metal' tones i'd get outa my eqless version arent what most modern metal dudes would want without pullin all the pulls and goin ham on gain. itll chug, in the interwebz lingo, but probably not in a way thats as pleasing to modern ears

I’ve heard perfectly brutal high gain metal tones from non GEQ Marks. My comment wasn’t aimed at any particular style or genre though, I was just suggesting that if the tone isn’t recording with as much girth as you want, and mic placement isn’t the issue, then push the lower bands on the GEQ up.

 

[newholland]

I’ve heard perfectly brutal high gain metal tones from non GEQ Marks. My comment wasn’t aimed at any particular style or genre though, I was just suggesting that if the tone isn’t recording with as much girth as you want, and mic placement isn’t the issue, then push the lower bands on the GEQ up.

i gotcha! ive found that to be absolutely true as well. when i record the iib, my eq isnt what id chose to practice in front of :lol: not sure if its an artifact of evms at suboptimal volumes (which i suspect) or its a quirk of mesas lil bitty box, or just the effect of doing it bandless in isolation with a lack of.perspective on cut in a mix (which i also suspect)..

 

[laxu]

I’ve heard perfectly brutal high gain metal tones from non GEQ Marks. My comment wasn’t aimed at any particular style or genre though, I was just suggesting that if the tone isn’t recording with as much girth as you want, and mic placement isn’t the issue, then push the lower bands on the GEQ up.

It's absolutely mic placement for me as the tone in the room and even putting ears at speaker level sounded huge.

 

[laxu]

Found my stash of tubes! Tomorrow I'll try some preamp tube swaps and see what's in the amp now.

My stash:

• 2x Svetlana/SED "Winged C" 6L6GC powertubes. Matched pair.
  • Says "Matching 40.2 / 46.5" on the box. Do you think these might be 60/70% dissipation bias values?
• Svetlana/SED "Winged C" 12AX7.
  • It's a bit darker sounding from what I remember so might be a good fit.
• TAD 7025 WA "Highgrade/Premium Selected".
  • This should be low on microphonics so could be a good V1 tube.
  • It's apparently rated similar to the Mesa SPAX7.
• TAD 12AX7A/ECC83-C "Premium Selected".
  • FFFuuu...opened the box and inside was an Egnater branded Groove Tubes GT-ECC83S...which apparently is a JJ ECC83S.
  • TAD recommends this for V2+ positions.
• JAN/GE 5751 NOS.
• ElectroHarmonix 12AX7.
• JJ ECC803S.
  • Good candidate for V1 for tone, but prone to microphonics.
  • I found it helped add some nice sparkle to the clean channel of the Bogner Goldfinger I had.
• 2x Groove Tubes GT 12AX7M.
  • These were the "Mullard clone" they made ages ago. They were notorious for high failure rate, but mine have worked without issue.

I swore I had a Tungsol 12AX7 and a JJ ECC83MG but the boxes were empty. I might have left them in the Bogner Goldfinger when I sold it as they seemed like easy to get tubes at the time.

 

[laxu]

Took out the tubes that were in the amp.

• Mesa 5U4GB rectifier tube.
• TAD 6L6GC STR 1842 powertubes.
• TAD 12AX7A-C Selected in V6 (ch3 last gain stage and fx loop return driver) and V7 (PI).
• TAD ECC83WA Selected in every other slot.

So good stuff for powertubes, ok stuff everywhere else.

Hard to find info what the preamp tubes are but the WA is apparently a Chinese clone of the Sovtek 12AX7WC. Understandably not too expensive tubes, there's so many. As long as it's not JJ ECC83S I'm ok.

 

[laxu]

Tube swap done and I then spent a lot of time just riffing with the the 1x12 combo on its own. Didn't even hook it up to my 4x10.

• Swapped the V8/V9 inner pair (45W mode) of powertubes for the Svetlana/SED 6L6GCs.
  • According to the vendor I bought the tubes from in like 2007, Mesas tend to be biased so cold you can use a pair of tubes without issue.
  • Saw no red plating or any other issue. Sounded great.
  • Need to compare them against the TAD tubes to check if I can hear a difference.
• V1 (all channels): TAD 7025 WA.
  • Low microphonics, TAD V1 recommendation, similar to Mesa SPAX7 are the reasons why I went with this.
• V2 (ch2): GT 12AX7M.
• V3 (ch1/2): GT 12AX7M.
  • Reasoning for V2 and V3 was "well Mullard is kinda the Marshall tube, so maybe these clone-ish tubes will help with ch2.
• V4 (ch3/reverb driver): TAD 12AX7-C.
• V5 (ch3/reverb return): Svetlana/SED 12AX7.
• V6 (ch3/fx return): JAN/GE 5751.
  • I just wanted to try the lore of "put a 12AT7 in this slot" but don't have one, so 5751 at 30% less gain was the next best thing.
  • Still need to put a 12AX7 back in here.
• V7 (phase inverter): TAD 12AX7-C.
  • It's hard to say but this might be a balanced tube so should do well in the phase inverter slot, not that balanced is actually needed.

The difference in sound is just huge. With the tubes that were in it, the combo was super bright and aggressively midrangy. The ch2 seemed under gained even with gain on max. I had the GEQ sliders set so that 2200 Hz and 6600 Hz were under the midway line to combat the highs and mids.

With this new tube setup, I can easily use the typical V curves on ch3 with no issue, and the amp sounds as bright as you'd want, but not uncomfortably bright. The mids are no longer kicking me in the head. Ch2 now has a good amount of gain and I like the sounds of Edge/Crunch a lot now. The ch1 Tweed mode also sounds a lot sweeter now.

My guess is that the TAD ECC83WA tubes aren't that great, and maybe V2 had something wrong with it. Usually tube changes are subtle fine tuning rather than "this now sounds so much better to my ears" transformative.

 

[laxu]

I also learned that I can leave the EQ on footswitch setting and toggle it as I please and the output/solo still work...I don't know why I thought otherwise, maybe because of that hard bypass function.

Anyway, I tried putting a TAD ECC83WA into V6, and swapped the TAD tubes back to the inner slots.

There it was again, a much more in-your-face midrange that feels like it slaps you in the face with a bit of volume.

I waited about 5 minutes for the tubes to cool down and quickly swapped the SEDs back in. That restored the sound to its previous glory where the sound is sweeter, but has some of that nice sizzle up top.

Maybe the SEDs end up biased different or something, but I much prefer this sound. It's surprising how different it is.

Maybe if you are a balls to the wall metal player you would like the TAD quartet with a bigger cab, but they do no favors for the combo. 90W mode with a SED/TAD combo sounds great though.

 

[la szum]

Nice work.

 

[newholland]

interesting! i can see why ecc83s might not be anybodys first choice. they seem to to okay work as a peripheral driver or a PI- i have three working- and they sound just fine and relatively indistiguishable from the mesa chinese issue 12axs, but in v1, absolutely hard no i may end up giving the TADs a whip in a paycheck or two... need recovery time after two full retubes mans gotta eat as well ...

 

[laxu]

interesting! i can see why ecc83s might not be anybodys first choice. they seem to to okay work as a peripheral driver or a PI- i have three working- and they sound just fine and relatively indistiguishable from the mesa chinese issue 12axs, but in v1, absolutely hard no i may end up giving the TADs a whip in a paycheck or two... need recovery time after two full retubes mans gotta eat as well ...

Yeah retubing this sucker is going to be very expensive. 7 preamp tubes, a rectifier and 4 power tubes.

I think for some of the slots whatever honestly works, I'd spend the money on the first few preamp tubes and the power tubes.

The TAD 7025WA looks the same as the tubes that were in the amp so it might be just another Chinese tube just tested for lower microphonics. V1 is the most annoying to swap because you can't see where it goes.

 

[newholland]

Yeah retubing this sucker is going to be very expensive. 7 preamp tubes, a rectifier and 4 power tubes.

I think for some of the slots whatever honestly works, I'd spend the money on the first few preamp tubes and the power tubes.

The TAD 7025WA looks the same as the tubes that were in the amp so it might be just another Chinese tube just tested for lower microphonics. V1 is the most annoying to swap because you can't see where it goes.

holy cow.. :lol: thats a metric shitton of tube! good lord is that into money. wrt negotiating that- i think that my drive was same as yours- get it most of the way there with solid power and dial it in with the important ones. i think v1 and PI are the biggies from my tinkering. it seems practically impossible that some tubes 'dont matter'... but sure seems the case! i just need a couple more non microphonics and then start playing duck duck goose

 

[laxu]

holy cow.. :lol: thats a metric shitton of tube! good lord is that into money. wrt negotiating that- i think that my drive was same as yours- get it most of the way there with solid power and dial it in with the important ones. i think v1 and PI are the biggies from my tinkering. it seems practically impossible that some tubes 'dont matter'... but sure seems the case! i just need a couple more non microphonics and then start playing duck duck goose

I don't think I've ever noticed any difference swapping PI tubes. Also later gain stages seem to be ok with just about any tube.

 

[la szum]

FYI: Buy more tubes sooner than later. That price is only going one way.

 

[newholland]

I don't think I've ever noticed any difference swapping PI tubes. Also later gain stages seem to be ok with just about any tube.

possibly a remnant of when i was using smaller wattage amps and blowing up the power stage- definitely depends where the dirts coming from! it sounded different on my mkii but coulda been completely in my head.

 

[laxu]

possibly a remnant of when i was using smaller wattage amps and blowing up the power stage- definitely depends where the dirts coming from! it sounded different on my mkii but coulda been completely in my head.

Fair, I've been mostly using higher output master volume amps for a long time so the PI rarely if ever distorts on those.

In any case, the first few preamp tubes to me are the most dramatic difference.

 

[laxu]

Adventures in Mark V land continue. Will our hero sound like James Hetfield or like Fred Durst soloing?

Took the wheels off the combo (turn it on the side, take them off..super quick!) and lifted it on top of my 4x10. Then hooked up both cabs.

Sounds huge! I think the combo speaker manages to dominate the sound a bit but the 4x10 really fills in the tone nicely.

I also tried pushing the amp with a Boss SD-1 model from the Hotone Ampero 2. That worked really well! Might need to get the real deal, or some more upscale version.

The difficulty with this amp us that it's hard to settle for a single sound on any of the channels.

 

[la szum]

The difficulty with this amp us that it's hard to settle for a single sound on any of the channels.

Those Track Loc Mesa Casters are great!

 

[la szum]

And once you know where those sounds are ---- after exploring and experimentation----
then you know how to get back to them pretty easily.

For me, those are amps that reward time and attention, and can be a bit unforgiving
to those who are conditioned for instant gratification, and/or unfamiliarity.

 

[laxu]

I've had some difficulty getting used to the character of the amp. It always sounds more dry than the Marshall based rigs I've had so high gain doesn't sound and feel like I'm used to.

Until I notice I can easily get infinite sustain for single notes.