Marshall B150 never met expectations

[toobuy]

Greetings

I have purchased this combo in 2004 with great joy. I had been using it on stage till 2008. Then I dumped it to storage room until now.

When I look back, I remember I have never got the sound and power I expected from it when I consider the brand and the size of the amp. Only god knows how much pain my back got from it.

Since I decided to get into music again, today for the first time I removed the screws and wanted to look inside. I saw a valve 12AX7 and saw some stains. Then I remembered that a waitress had spilled some alcohol onto it when I was playing on the stage years ago. But the amp kept running since then.

I made some research and found out that preamp valves have 3-4 years of lifetime.

Now I have 2 ideas,
1. The stain is on the circuit part. I might clean it somehow.
2. Replace the valve with a new one. internet also says that Russian valves are crap (mine is russian)

I finally want to get some value from this amp, which gets 9.5 over 10 in some websites.

What can you advise me. I always get a cloudy bass tone which is very annoying with my stingray5. I wanted the bone tone but I couldn't get it for years. Maybe I dont know how to tone it but even i try the settings from the manual, still crappy sound. It was the same with my TRB1006.

please help me to recover my amp!

thank you very much.

[toobuy]

can't get any answers?

[Clammy]

I'm really not familiar with that particular amp, but I can tel lyou that some of the best current production 12ax7s are Russian. My favourites are Tung-Sol.

Current production 12ax7s aren't too expensive, so try out a few brands. Some people like JJs, some swear by Chinese made ones, such as Shugang. Check out http://thetubestore.com (or other similar sites). They have a wide selection,a nd descriptions that can help you choose which ones to try out.

Cheers!