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[laxu]

How do power tube changes work on the Mark V? My understanding is that there's two pairs of 6L6 tubes that are biased a bit differently and you are supposed to slap in a set of tubes sold by Mesa, or sold "to Mesa spec" by vendors?

I've got a matched pair of old Svetlana/SED "Winged C" 6L6 tubes somewhere that I'd be interested in testing with the Mark V:90, but no idea if I can just slap them in place of one pair of tubes and leave the other one?

 

[la szum]

Don't trust me, and do more research.... :lol .. but my understanding is Mesa biases
their amps so cold that you are fairly safe plopping in any tube set so long as they
have tested good and are of the same type.

I kind of feel like Ch. 2 Crunch would come alive a bit more with EL34s at 45W.
It's a little stiff and brittle with 6L6s, in my experience. Something I have never
tried with either of my Mark Vs.

 

[EOengineer]

Don't trust me, and do more research.... :lol .. but my understanding is Mesa biases
their amps so cold that you are fairly safe plopping in any tube set so long as they
have tested good and are of the same type.

I kind of feel like Ch. 2 Crunch would come alive a bit more with EL34s at 45W.
It's a little stiff and brittle with 6L6s, in my experience. Something I have never
tried with either of my Mark Vs.

Mesa def has a knack for cold biases, with the exception of the class A pair on some of their simul class power sections. I’ve also read they hit their EL-84s pretty hard in some amps but don’t have first hand experience there.

I only use power tubes that are within Mesa’s range and have had successful purchases from Eurotubes and Dougs Tubes.

Mesa’s tubes are the same stuff everyone else uses with some additional screening up front. They are ridiculously priced so I usually go off menu.

 

[newholland]

Mesa def has a knack for cold biases, with the exception of the class A pair on some of their simul class power sections. I’ve also read they hit their EL-84s pretty hard in some amps but don’t have first hand experience there.

I only use power tubes that are within Mesa’s range and have had successful purchases from Eurotubes and Dougs Tubes.

Mesa’s tubes are the same stuff everyone else uses with some additional screening up front. They are ridiculously priced so I usually go off menu.

insofar as el84s, ive owned two el84 mesas. 50 watters do fine- similar to normal big bottle amps, despite extracting 50 watts outa 30w of tubes! but the dual 84s in my studio 22 got absolutely shithammered and MAYBE made six months of weekly practice with a drummer. that amp ran hot as a hot thing and i can scarce believe it didnt catch fire. mebbe they learned something from those amps and changed strategy!

meantime, did a full retube today on my iib with a set of str448s- plug and play, baby. theyre upstairs cooking in right now. and meantime- word to the wise- dont use jj ecc83s in v1. noisy as a mug. replaced with a reflektor short plate- muuuch betta.

 

[EOengineer]

meantime, did a full retube today on my iib with a set of str448s- plug and play, baby. theyre upstairs cooking in right now.

Every once in a blue moon I’ll see a IIB with the old STR-415 set and I start salivating. My favorite 6L6 for a Mesa.

and meantime- word to the wise- dont use jj ecc83s in v1. noisy as a mug. replaced with a reflektor short plate- muuuch betta.

I don’t recall the JJ ecc83s being inherently noisy but you do have to screen most modern preamp tubes for noise - especially as you call out when using them in V1 with higher gain.

I flat out don’t like the way they sound in any V1 I’ve tried them in, that’s reason enough for me to not use them there. I do like the JJ 803s quite a bit in most V1 positions I’ve tried, FWIW.

 

[spawnofthesith]

All my mesas have Mesa power tubes in them right now, but on my first Mark V I ran =c= EL34s that sounded amazing without any issue. This was also before they updated the manual to say only run EL34s at variac power. I ran them at full power without any problems

 

[newholland]

Every once in a blue moon I’ll see a IIB with the old STR-415 set and I start salivating. My favorite 6L6 for a Mesa.


I don’t recall the JJ ecc83s being inherently noisy but you do have to screen most modern preamp tubes for noise - especially as you call out when using them in V1 with higher gain.

I flat out don’t like the way they sound in any V1 I’ve tried them in, that’s reason enough for me to not use them there. I do like the JJ 803s quite a bit in most V1 positions I’ve tried, FWIW.

yeah- quiet as a tomb everywhere else.. v1, no guey- no bueno.

whadda you use in your iii? the sovteks okay but a lil bit bland! id heard the 803s were prone to microphonics. i had a spax previously, but that turd is toast.

 

[Mikael Dez]

I can't leave well enough alone lol I'm ordering black chassis straps because I just can't abide chrome where it can be deleted. Also ordering a wicker grille with black piping. The only thing left glaring at me is the chrome hardware for the strap

 

[laxu]

I can't leave well enough alone lol I'm ordering black chassis straps because I just can't abide chrome where it can be deleted. Also ordering a wicker grille with black piping. The only thing left glaring at me is the chrome hardware for the strap

Sounds like you might as well go for a whole shebang custom headshell at that point.

Anyone know what those cost from Mesa?

 

[Mikael Dez]

Sounds like you might as well go for a whole shebang custom headshell at that point.

Anyone know what those cost from Mesa?

The headshell is likely out of my budget at the moment and I'd like to build one for it one day probably. I am interested though, how much they'd charge. The grille is 200 bucks, I bet they charge over a grand for a new headshell.

 

[laxu]

The headshell is likely out of my budget at the moment and I'd like to build one for it one day probably. I am interested though, how much they'd charge. The grille is 200 bucks, I bet they charge over a grand for a new headshell.

Damn, that's one pricy wicker grille.

 

[JiveTurkey]

The headshell is likely out of my budget at the moment and I'd like to build one for it one day probably. I am interested though, how much they'd charge. The grille is 200 bucks, I bet they charge over a grand for a new headshell.

Aftermarket headshells are $250-ish I think?

 

[Mikael Dez]

Aftermarket headshells are $250-ish I think?

That's surprising and not good for my wallet to hear.

 

[Mikael Dez]

Damn, that's one pricy wicker grille.

I know

 

[newholland]

That's surprising and not good for my wallet to hear.

theres a couple of guys on the boogie forum and on facebook who make some nice super pro headshells. i was recently quoted $325 for one by a cat in pennsylvania, and turnaround was pretty fast as well. if youre lucky, too, mesa will have rackmount kits once in a while, then you can stick it in an armored 4space unit-- that was always my trajectory, andni have the rack, but havent seen ears in a while.

 

[la szum]

yeah- quiet as a tomb everywhere else.. v1, no guey- no bueno.

whadda you use in your iii? the sovteks okay but a lil bit bland! id heard the 803s were prone to microphonics. i had a spax previously, but that turd is toast.

Get you some 12AX7s, Brother!

 

[newholland]

Get you some 12AX7s, Brother!

oh you know it!

i found me a JAN phillips 12ax7wa that i believe was from my pile of conrad johnson stuff thats a little microphonic, but DAYUM... those jjs and chinese tubes got ZERO on it. theyre quiet but this thing man... transforms the amp back to something great!

 

[la szum]

oh you know it!

i found me a JAN phillips 12ax7wa that i believe was from my pile of conrad johnson stuff thats a little microphonic, but DAYUM... those jjs and chinese tubes got ZERO on it. theyre quiet but this thing man... transforms the amp back to something great!

NICE!!!!!!!!

 

[Mikael Dez]

Since getting my V:35, I’ve spent more time on the clean channel than gain, and that’s never happened in 20 years

 

[laxu]

Looking back at this thread, the Mesa Mark V:90 had been living rent free in my head since like November 2024. I bought one in February 2025.

Can also answer my own question here.

Let's get real about the Mark V toggles, switches and features.

Which ones do you guys use?

Ch1: Fat, no EQ. The Tweed is real nice tho, just needs to be dialed very differently.
Ch2: Crunch, maybe EQ. Mark I mode is good but it needs the EQ so it's limiting.
Ch3: MkIV, EQ. I do like both IIC and Extreme. I wish Extreme was on channel 2, but I guess it's too dependent on the 3rd channel topology.

Which ones get set to a specific option and never toggled again?
Are there any that you feel are not useful?

Probably the only one that feels it's totally parked is the 45W tube rectifier setting on channel 1. Then I can go high headroom diode rectifier with the 90W mode, or 45W tube rectifier.

The big ass channel selector knob in the back seems redundant. I can understand why they went with a 3-way toggle on the VII, and the footswitch just does its thing if you use that instead.

Similarly the loop assign is largely pointless unless set to "all channels" or "footswitch". It should have been some sort of DIP switch matrix where you could set it to be enabled on ch 1 and 3 but not on ch2 or something. I just leave this on "all channels" so I don't accidentally blow my head off by disabling the loop with the channel masters higher.

Not a fan of the preset EQ. I so wish they had done a 3 knob post-EQ for this instead of the adjustable depth. When you want to maybe scoop the mids a bit, you then might not want to emphasize the lows and highs that much.

That said, the things I'd truly miss if I went from V -> VII would be the variac power, tweed mode and global master volume. I'm glad I got the V just for cost reasons, but also because it's more like tons of amps in one - even if you have to reconfigure a lot of stuff to make that happen.