subway blues amp sounds dark and dull

[jmichaelbohn]

my Mesa amp has 4 12ax7s and 2 EL -84s and I've got new tubes and put in some lower gain pre-amp tubes but it still sounds dark and dull.....what can I do??? it's probably at least 12 years old.( if that matters. )
I'm looking for it to be more like a fender...(I know...buy a fender...)
more "sparkily"......more like a 6L6 sound..(maybe)....at a loss here....
any suggestions.??????????

[Chuck H]

That amp has a dark speaker, lowish preamp plate voltages, high series resistances, local NFB loops and several low pass filters. All of this makes an amp sound dark. I had a Subway Blues and I felt the same way you do. I actually disliked the amp for anything except dirgy blues tone. So, with much modding, I pulled the stops out of my Subway Blues and it sounds amazing. I play through my own amps now, so I gave the Subway to a good friend who really loved it. He was recently offered a BF Deluxe Reverb. After playing through it he told the guy "I already have that tone".

I disagree with that to be honest. The Subway reverb will never be as good as the Deluxe. But it demonstrates that the tone is there. If your good with a soldering iron I'll post the mods I did. IMHO everyone who owns a Subway Blues should do these mods to it.

Other than that I would say that the speaker, while being a good sounding model otherwise, is dark. Just changing the speaker may give you what you want.

Also, at that amps age it may be time to replace the elecrolytic caps. They're marked "MESA" but they're just off the shelf Vishay/Sprague caps available through Mouser. It's a top side clad PCB but you might have to lift the board anyway to do a proper job. I say don't even bother to lift the board, just clip out the old caps near the can and solder the new ones to the pins sticking out of the board. I know that seems like the lazy way to do it, but Mesa amps have a rep for weak traces, so in the long haul you'll do less damage to the amp with this method.

Chuck

[jmichaelbohn]

thanks that would be great..jmb

[jmichaelbohn]

errrr what kind of speaker????jmb

[Chuck H]

I think the Mesa E50 is similar to the "Black Shadow" they used in the Subway amps. They are made by Eminence. And I think they're just a tweak on the Eminence standard Legend 1058. If you go to the Eminence website they have sound clips. You can hear and compare the 1058 to other 10's there.

Here's the mods... In red. You may need to get the original schem (available at Mesa Boogie Amp Heaven Schematics - Caliber Angel Heart Breaker Lonestar Mark Maverick Nomad Rocket ) for a point of reference.

Chuck

[jmichaelbohn]

thanks ...this should help alot...jmb

[rickstrachan]

Chuck, how do I make the GIF file of the thumbnails print legibly? Rick

[Chuck H]

Just click on the thumbnail, and then click on the image to open it in it's own window. Then right click and choose "save picture as" and pick a target location on your computer. From there you can open it with any viewer and zoom in/out at will.

[rickstrachan]

Thanks, Chuck, that worked great.