My interest in acquiring a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier grew as I revisited the popular rock music of the 1990s and 2000s. It was a staple in all of the rock concerts that I went to as a kid in the early 2000s: in arenas, in tiny clubs, and on the Warped Tour. After going through all of the punk, emo, nu-metal, and metal albums that were recorded with Rectifiers, I knew that I wanted to have the amp.
With the new 90s Dual Rectifier being released, there were rumblings that the Multi-Watt version would be discontinued. I had been reading up on the Multi-Watt version for some time, but wasn’t enamored with its $2700 new price. I heard about its Lonestar-inspired clean channel, and it’s improved dirty voicings through many different discussion boards and demo videos.
A used Multi-Watt came up on the Guitar Center site at a good price via a tip on a forum and I jumped on it. The amp was just labeled as a regular Dual Rectifier. The tiny details such as the “100W Head” vs the “Solo Head” logo and the wattage switches on front panel required some zooming to discern. Once I received, I saw that the chassis was dated December 2010, so it is an early example of the amp’s run. The previous user had installed STR447 EL34 tubes in the amp.
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| Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier Multi-Watt |
Disappointingly the amp did not power on when I received it. I replaced the bad 4A fuse, but the new fuse still blew with the with a subsequent power on/standby off. This behavior hinted that the rectifier tubes were a problem. I wanted to see if I could get it working again before resorting to returning the amp. I inspected the rectifier tubes and noticed that one had a part that was rattling around. Indeed, one of the 5U4 tubes was bad and was likely causing the amp to shut down. I didn’t want to take any more chances on the tubes.
I looked at a typical 3-Channel Rectifier schematic and noticed that the rectifier tubes were still in the circuit in diode mode. The screen grid resistors were all measuring 1kohm while the amp was off. The resistors looked like they were in good shape, along with the rest of the PCB. I decided to change out all the tubes in the power section, not knowing how old the tubes were.
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| Dual Rectifier with all tubes functioning. |
I put in new STR441 6L6 power tubes and 5U4GB rectifier tubes along with a new fuse. The amp powered up successfully in Bold Mode with the Diode Rectifier selected for all 3 channels.
More to come.
