For sale Mesa Boogie Bass Strategy Eight:88

BCook said:

Up for sale is quite honestly my favorite amp ever, a Mesa Bass Strategy Eight:88. It has that amazing tone that only real tubes can bring, and oh MAN does it have a lot of tubes. Super versatile amp with lots of features - if you’re serious about looking at this amp you know about it. Why am I looking to move it? Though it’s lighter than many big tube amps, it’s still a heavy beast, and these old bones are ready for a break.
Excellent condition, just came back from service by a Mesa certified repairman with a clean bill of health. Receipt from that attached. Also comes with the foot switch which was originally sold separately. This is the rack mount version, which is actually great because I rack it with the power conditioner I’d be too scared to not use with it.
$1800 plus shipping CONUS, PayPal.
*In the interest of the whole stepping back the weight of my rig, would definitely entertain a trade + cash back to me for a Mesa TT-800. No other trade interests, thanks.*
View attachment 4642314
View attachment 4642315
View attachment 4642316
View attachment 4642317
View attachment 4642318

Click to expand...

FFEJY said:

So this has had 4 of the 8 power tubes replaced? Why? And why weren't all 8 replaced? I see they replaced "3 open plate fuse resistors"; could you please elaborate on this? Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

dbase said:

I'm sitting here thinking .. Al's Diner repaired the amp.. What, you went to Al's Diner for Meatloaf and Mashed Potato's with gravy and got 4 KT88's instead??

Click to expand...

BCook said:

Hi - thanks for the questions. To start with, I won’t pretend to understand the various parts and pieces of tube amps. My instructions to Al were “please give it a full look over, and fix any problem you find,” and then explained the immediate problems I had. The most immediate problem was that I had a loss of output, which turned out to be that the “silent record” relay (which cuts off the power section to allow recording out of the DI without a speaker load attached, which is super handy) was bad. He fixed that, and it’s back to full operation. Second, about 2-3 years ago I apparently lost several power tubes *but this thing is so damn loud I didn’t even know it.* There had been some small puff of smoke and a crackle back then, but when I checked every function it seemed fine and it kept trucking like nothing had happened for years (until this recent unrelated silent record switch issue). When Al dug into it, he found three bad power tubes; when they went, if I’m understanding this correctly, they apparently took their plate resistors with them (and caused that puff of smoke I saw). All these things are fixed, and it’s got a full clean bill of health.
As you can see here, Al is a certified Mesa repair person: MESA/Boogie®
I’m very confident that he’s restored this thing to full, kick ass function. I would not have listed it here otherwise.
The 4 new tubes are Mesa tubes that are made specifically for these amps.
Why just the 4 new power tubes? Well, it’s best to replace them in matched pairs, and 3 were bad (Al gave me back the still good old one for emergencies), so two matched pairs were put in. In Al’s opinion, the other four tubes were in fine condition and didn’t need replacing. And power tubes are *really* expensive right now. I opted to just fix what needed fixing.

Click to expand...

2milehighspike said:

Why do these ALWAYS become available when I can least afford them.........AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Click to expand...

joel406 said:

True that.

I've been wanting one of these. I would have this if I hadn't just bought 2 Powerhouse 410's last week.

Dang it.

Probably the best tube amp...well.... EVER!

These don't come up often and when they do their usually 2X the price you see here. Which hurts even more for me.

Click to expand...