Jim Carr
Dr. Jim
- Jan 21, 2006
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- fEARful Kool-Aid dispensing liberal academic card-carrying union member Musicians Local 72-147
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Mesa M9 mega thread
- Thread starter andrew
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Any chance anyone might have an e-mail address for the service or customer service department at Mesa? I would just like to date my M9, ser # 147, if possible and hate to bother a busy department with such triviality. Unless someone here might know? Thanks.
Jim Carr
Dr. Jim
- Jan 21, 2006
- 16,223
- 7,613
- 76
- Disclosures
- fEARful Kool-Aid dispensing liberal academic card-carrying union member Musicians Local 72-147
I have yet to receive an email from Rich Duvall or anyone in Mesa CS. I did get one confirming a purchase of a preamp tube from the on-line store, but I doubt that will help.
Honestly, they have an old-fashioned receptionist (Debbie) and do things by phone. It works very well, IMHO. Call them and ask about the date and see if they recommend any retrofits. BTW, so far mine is fine!
Chef
In Memoriam
Jim Carr
Dr. Jim
- Jan 21, 2006
- 16,223
- 7,613
- 76
- Disclosures
- fEARful Kool-Aid dispensing liberal academic card-carrying union member Musicians Local 72-147
Allen, you are like the sweetest and gentlest soul.
If I go on it will sound insincere, which it is not.
Thanks for what you do!!!
Jim Carr
Dr. Jim
- Jan 21, 2006
- 16,223
- 7,613
- 76
- Disclosures
- fEARful Kool-Aid dispensing liberal academic card-carrying union member Musicians Local 72-147
Chef
In Memoriam
I speak French fluently but I still don't know what he means???
Does "the 2nd part" imply the that the evil sound is back, or that the love affair with the suitcase nuke is renewed a 2nd time??
I gotta chime in here. I am confounded that anyone is having trouble because my experience has been entirely different.
I purchased mine used and my kid plays through it quite regularly. He was on tour for 6 weeks in weather that was around 40C (104F) for extended periods in sweaty nightclubs and at outdoor festivals, known for reliable and stable power supply. He ran 2 cabs for a total of 2 ohms outdoors. He's back in school now so he doesn't use it as often anymore, but he has friends coming through all the time to jam (one cab) and uses the DI often to record.
There have been no issues. There have been no upgrades, with the exception of replacing the tube.
I don't know what else to say.
I purchased mine used and my kid plays through it quite regularly. He was on tour for 6 weeks in weather that was around 40C (104F) for extended periods in sweaty nightclubs and at outdoor festivals, known for reliable and stable power supply. He ran 2 cabs for a total of 2 ohms outdoors. He's back in school now so he doesn't use it as often anymore, but he has friends coming through all the time to jam (one cab) and uses the DI often to record.
There have been no issues. There have been no upgrades, with the exception of replacing the tube.
I don't know what else to say.
As one who deals with customer satisfaction issues in my day gig, I always remind TBers that the reliability of gear is not based on how many have not had an issue, but rather the percentage of owners who have had an issue. Even the worst products have many, many owners who never have a problem. It is all about the incidence of failure that results in a higher probability of having a problem on the gig.
The good news is, it seems Mesa has gotten through all the issues with these, and the newer units don't seem to have a higher incidence of issues than any other quality piece of gear.
Chef
In Memoriam
Lomo: I believe he means "let the second half of the good times roll" as it were.
Lazzie le bon temps roulette? (sp?)
With regard to failures:
Us TB'ers are a united and vocal lot. Certainly, there have been a lot more issues that what is "good, or, probably even normal," but, we're hardly a representative slice of market share.
I'd imagine there are a lot more owners who aren't here, than are here.
There are failures with any product, really. I had both and M6 and an M9 "
issue up" on me; in both cases Mesa stood solidly behind their product. That's the part that matters to me.
Shoot, I've had failures with amps I've never even really heard of failing...I had a brand new Thunderfunk fail on me. I don't know anyone else that had, at that time. Dave fixed it right up, and turned it around pronto-as Mesa did for me on their amps.
Even Mesa's "we don't email" isn't necessarily a bad thing, as by calling and talking to real humans you get a real human relationship with them. Perhaps not as speedy as some things, but, it worked, in my case anyway. And really, when I have a CS issue, I pick up the phone and call anyway. I want to speak to the human in charge of helping me.
Most recently, I had the mute button fail on my MB-Fusion. One phone call got me a quick RA#; I shipped the unit and got it back in about 2 weeks. I think that's fair, and fast given that transit time was most of that. I think this mirrors most everyone's CS experience with Mesa, and is more or less what one should reasonably expect....short of not having issues at all, which would of course be better...
At this point, I'd be pretty surprised to hear of people that were having M9 failures with amps past a certain production date.
As ref point, my M9 is #000579.
Lazzie le bon temps roulette? (sp?)
With regard to failures:
Us TB'ers are a united and vocal lot. Certainly, there have been a lot more issues that what is "good, or, probably even normal," but, we're hardly a representative slice of market share.
I'd imagine there are a lot more owners who aren't here, than are here.
There are failures with any product, really. I had both and M6 and an M9 "
issue up" on me; in both cases Mesa stood solidly behind their product. That's the part that matters to me.
Shoot, I've had failures with amps I've never even really heard of failing...I had a brand new Thunderfunk fail on me. I don't know anyone else that had, at that time. Dave fixed it right up, and turned it around pronto-as Mesa did for me on their amps.
Even Mesa's "we don't email" isn't necessarily a bad thing, as by calling and talking to real humans you get a real human relationship with them. Perhaps not as speedy as some things, but, it worked, in my case anyway. And really, when I have a CS issue, I pick up the phone and call anyway. I want to speak to the human in charge of helping me.
Most recently, I had the mute button fail on my MB-Fusion. One phone call got me a quick RA#; I shipped the unit and got it back in about 2 weeks. I think that's fair, and fast given that transit time was most of that. I think this mirrors most everyone's CS experience with Mesa, and is more or less what one should reasonably expect....short of not having issues at all, which would of course be better...
At this point, I'd be pretty surprised to hear of people that were having M9 failures with amps past a certain production date.
As ref point, my M9 is #000579.
+1 and this supports the point I made above. Actually, TB seems quite indicative of the failure rate of gear, and your issue with your Thunderfunk makes my point above. +1... ALL products have some level of failure. In the case of your Thunderfunk failure, that was a highly unusual thing, and you rarely see a post about a Thunderfunk failure, nor hear about it much in the non TB world.
However, your experience with both of your Mesa Carbine series was matched by many similar posts, suggesting that something was wrong with the early versions of the amps (which was later verified by Mesa, and to your point, dealt with wonderfully and fixed in later units).
Another point, I have little issue with a somewhat high problem rate in the initial run of a product (i.e., a higher than expected failure rate right out of the box for the first 100 units or so). That is the cost of being an early adoptor. However, if that issue is not fixed within weeks, that would be a problem for a company.
Chef
In Memoriam
I know from talking to folks at Mesa that they did have units in the field being worked out as part of R&D before they started production on both of these, and that they were surprised by having the problems they had after release.
I may be mis-remembering this as it's been quite a while since all that happened to me, but I believe that at least some of this was related to a bad batch of fuse holders, thermal relays that performed poorly in the field, but well on the bench; and then having to switch mos-fet suppliers and getting a bad batch (that again ran well on the burn in bench). Bad luck, but, that's stuff's just gonna happen.
I don't think these problems paint Mesa as a company that "builds suspect amps," as I've heard nothing like this about other amps that came out in more or less the same time line; like Big Block 750 or Titan; though I haven't followed threads on those either...
I may be mis-remembering this as it's been quite a while since all that happened to me, but I believe that at least some of this was related to a bad batch of fuse holders, thermal relays that performed poorly in the field, but well on the bench; and then having to switch mos-fet suppliers and getting a bad batch (that again ran well on the burn in bench). Bad luck, but, that's stuff's just gonna happen.
I don't think these problems paint Mesa as a company that "builds suspect amps," as I've heard nothing like this about other amps that came out in more or less the same time line; like Big Block 750 or Titan; though I haven't followed threads on those either...
I would think any company would be 'surprised' if they had a higher failure rate than expected. I am in no way saying that Mesa put out a product that failed at a higher than acceptable rate 'on purpose'. I believe there were quite a few upgrades, included a cooling system fix to the M9, among other things. Again, not a huge issue.
However, Mesa does seem to have more 'upgrades' over the early lifecycle of their products than most other amps (GK seems to have this issue also). There were quite a few posts regarding the discontinued Titan, and my Walkabout underwent three 'upgrade fixes' (it was a relatively early one).
Again, all issues were handled quickly and at no cost to me. I wouldn't have an issue owning a Mesa product again, but I would wait a year into the product production cycle before I would buy one myself.
Time for a new M9 thread Chef.
I had the pleasure of checking out a fEarful 15/6 with M6 the other day when Bjazzman came over for a hang. Man, what an absolute hammer that head is. Seems like 1000 watts to me. While the tone was a bit too upper mid and trebly agressive for me personally, the performance of that head is truly astounding. Massive low end, super aggressive grind.
I had the pleasure of checking out a fEarful 15/6 with M6 the other day when Bjazzman came over for a hang. Man, what an absolute hammer that head is. Seems like 1000 watts to me. While the tone was a bit too upper mid and trebly agressive for me personally, the performance of that head is truly astounding. Massive low end, super aggressive grind.
Chef
In Memoriam
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