Mike Bendinelli at MESA/Boogie No Longer Doing Mods **UPDATE**

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Gibson has bankrupted itself at least twice.
I have no confidence they won't do it again.
 
Those guys have been doing it for 40 years.. I bet he wants to puke every time some kid calls to get the C+ mod on his 10th handed sold finger fucked and raped amp.. LOL
 
Inearthed said:
My guess is like stop doing the IIC+ mods for the Mark series and then in like a year do a “heritage” or “classic” series which has a flagship model in a IIC+ with all the goodies for like $4k+ new, fancy headshell, COA, etc etc etc - have Metallica & Petrucci play it and boom they’ll sell a shit ton. I’m honestly amazed that Mesa hasn’t done anything like that yet
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They tried something like that with JP2C. Great amp, but, not quite like the IIC+... too much stuff happening in that kit, IMHO. :dunno:Maybe someway, somehow, they’ll be able to recreate those OG trannys. But, EPA regs have pretty much blocked that from happening. Stopping mods is likely not some master plot to give way to a new (old) innovation,.. it’s the fact that the man who has been doing them for 40 years deserves some time to have a break.
 
[ Donnie B. ] said:
I didn't think there was the same need to replace those that there is with the larger high voltage ones???
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you need to replace the 2 big brown ones on the mark IVa board because its widely known that when they die, they emit a residue all over that part of the board that is difficult and time consuming to remove. Plus there is a whole fix to that spot that involves adding a small heat sink to that ic chip right near it, and rerouting a few components.
 
I sent a Mark III into Mesa that needed a new preamp tube socket and some cap work beyond just those big electrolytics.

Mike said all together he had to spend 4 hours on the amp, and I assume most of that was pulling the board. Yikes.
 
Inearthed said:
My guess is like stop doing the IIC+ mods for the Mark series and then in like a year do a “heritage” or “classic” series which has a flagship model in a IIC+ with all the goodies for like $4k+ new, fancy headshell, COA, etc etc etc - have Metallica & Petrucci play it and boom they’ll sell a shit ton. I’m honestly amazed that Mesa hasn’t done anything like that yet
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They will cause the market is going to keep declining ya know sort of like the demand for fly fishing rods. Lost art
 
JimAnsell said:
you need to replace the 2 big brown ones on the mark IVa board because its widely known that when they die, they emit a residue all over that part of the board that is difficult and time consuming to remove. Plus there is a whole fix to that spot that involves adding a small heat sink to that ic chip right near it, and rerouting a few components.
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My Mark was squealing, feeding back and was just totally unplayable on channel 3. Sent it out to Mike and he spent over 3 hours replacing those caps and cleaning the board cause those leaked. There were parts that were so bad he had to reroute traces and solder them. Amp sounds better than ever but I wish I would have changed them earlier. Total mess.
 
cardinal said:
I sent a Mark III into Mesa that needed a new preamp tube socket and some cap work beyond just those big electrolytics.

Mike said all together he had to spend 4 hours on the amp, and I assume most of that was pulling the board. Yikes.
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Wouldn't be surprised if Bendinelli has a junior grade tech pull the boards & put them back in for him and he just does the "surgery".
 
Samhain said:
Wouldn't be surprised if Bendinelli has a junior grade tech pull the boards & put them back in for him and he just does the "surgery".
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Agreed. Those two brown radials in the IV, they're not in the III. Any specifics about them? The 5 axials I swapped are
the same though and seem to be a standard for the older Marks.
 
phil b said:
My Mark was squealing, feeding back and was just totally unplayable on channel 3. Sent it out to Mike and he spent over 3 hours replacing those caps and cleaning the board cause those leaked. There were parts that were so bad he had to reroute traces and solder them. Amp sounds better than ever but I wish I would have changed them earlier. Total mess.
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Uh oh this post makes me worried. My MK IVa is with Mesa now. When I sent it in I had similar problems with CH 3. Squealing and a strange siren type sound above 2.5 on the MV. Also at the same spot, about 2.5 the EQ light above it would flicker (could be seen on foot switch also). I couldn’t hear the EQ kick in because of the squeal/siren/whooshing stuff that began to happen. Very strange problem. I tried some De-Oxit in the MV knob and the EQ on/off switch above but no help so I sent it in.

I believe my amp hadn’t been used much in recent years by the previous owner who was an older gentleman that apparently was entering an assisted living home. So they were selling off his amps and partcasters. I did not pull out the chassis but I wish I had now. I did see “MB” written in sharpie on one of the transformers.
 
[ Donnie B. ] said:
Agreed. Those two brown radials in the IV, they're not in the III. Any specifics about them? The 5 axials I swapped are
the same though and seem to be a standard for the older Marks.
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There was a thread here about them a while back. Mine were 25+ years old & Mesa had put out a PSA thru the grapevine about them exploding. And once they take a shit on a PCB its way more money & mess to fix.
Its not that i didn't want MB to the do the work. I highly recommend that but i hate shipping tube amps across the country it makes me a nervous wreck to the point i just won't do it unless im selling something or have a roadcase and for my MK IV i didn't have a case.
Between the ampwork/buying a case/shipping and everything i was looking at spending $1000 at least and wasn't in the budget.
 
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Samhain said:
There was a thread here about them a while back. Mine were 20+ years old & Mesa had put out a PSA thru the grapevine about them exploding.
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Exploding is right! If you look you can see how the top of the caps have a cross-hatch relief cut in them to insure they blow upwards.

cap.jpg

Samhain said:
i hate shipping tube amps across the country it make me a nervous wreck to the point i just won't do it unless im selling something or have a roadcase and for my MK IV i didn't have a case.
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I bought a used JP-2C I had to send in for repair and I figured I'd make it easier on everyone so I removed
the amp chassis (and tubes) and then wrapped the entire thing in bubble wrap. My experience with amp damage in the
past has always been to the wood cabinet so I took that out of the equation. I didn't try it but I bet the wrapped chassis would
have bounced if dropped - I used THAT much bubble wrap! :D
 
[ Donnie B. ] said:
Exploding is right! If you look you can see how the top of the caps have a cross-hatch relief cut in them to insure they blow upwards.

View attachment 74535

I bought a used JP-2C I had to send in for repair and I figured I'd make it easier on everyone so I removed
the amp chassis (and tubes) and then wrapped the entire thing in bubble wrap. My experience with amp damage in the
past has always been to the wood cabinet so I took that out of the equation. I didn't try it but I bet the wrapped chassis would
have bounced if dropped - I used THAT much bubble wrap! :D
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This. Mesa has plenty of tubes to test run your amp with as they service it. I’ve always sent the chassis without tubes to them.
 
Yes I also sent it without tubes. Not worth the hassle of having UPS or whoever smash them.
 
Samhain said:
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Not quite.
I have 4 Engineers in town. My go to guys, known them for years.
Nobody would do a cap job here on my MK IV.
Matter of fact nobody would touch it with a 10 foot pole.
And i knew not a question of if but when it would need work.
I didn't want to "hafta" send it to Petaluma but that was my choice.
Plus i have other amps and traded the MK IV for a Les Paul.
Ive seen that amp sell 2 other times the last year.
It gets around. And MK IV prices keep going up.
As for Gibson i wouldn't let Gibson change a set of strings if someone paid me let alone farm out amp work.
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That sucks, a good tech should be able to work on it. You having four local techs and none will work on it sucks. I’ve played my IV for most of my playing days and have had to repair it twice; two different techs in two different states, both did it without complaint.
 
We’ve hit the era where no more IIC+ Conversions are no more. What’s out there is what’s left. As if the IIC+ wasn’t already one of the most coveted AND best amps ever made, now they will be next level!
 
I wonder if Mesa would still do a loop mod to my MK IIb. I know that a IIC+ conversion is off the table as they ran out of boards a while back.
 
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