There are sublime cover bands?I blew an amp once.... Wasn't cool, shit sucked and it was a nice amp. An MIA Classic 30.....its a cathode based amp so no bias needed and I'd always swap GTs and JJs no problem.
Transformer melted as well as shit on the board. And I had more than enough power too using an Eminence Screaming Eagle....
I used NOS Russian tubes I got on Ebay. People on the Internet/Forums said it was fine but they red plated and didn't notice and by the time I did it was too late. Shit sucked because it sounded great and buddys used it for their Sublime Cover band and they loved it more than their amps and PA. It sounded tits. Always would crank the shit out of it and nothing would ever go wrong until I used those NOS Russian tubes on Ebay people would recommend.
It was supposed to be military grade and robust and everyone said they were safe.....I got the EV versions which cost more and were supposed to last forever and sound great. Shit blew up my amp.
At least I got it for 300 bucks used after winning money at the Casino. But when that shit blew no one was going to replace it for me even though many online and on forums said the tubes were safe.
Maybe other than that the stupidest thing I did was use a 12 volt for my Hardwire CM2 because I thought it could handle it as it had an internal voltage doubler. Nope..... That was me just being an idiot.
Probably the worst was the Classic 30 so after that I just don't use shit that isn't from a reputable source/brand, don't just take dudes word on whatever or anything and just follow the spec sheets/official data and common sense.
Cool thing about the amp was that once I actually left it on for 2+ hours going to In-N-Out, it was feeding back loud as fuck that whole time and never blew up. It only blew up when I used those Military Russian tubes everyone recommended from forums on eBay. This was way way back I must have been a teenager.
To this day I always check my amps for red plating on the tubes after some long sessions
I was breaking in a speaker with the amp too and pushing it hard but I always cranked it..... My friends would crank it and use the head all the time for their band and they loved it so much the guitar player ended up getting a Mesa..... I even left it plugged in feedbacking for an 1+hour by accident..... It never red plated or anything then.
I did put blankets over the cab but it was a 112...... This was a head version of the Classic 30. Put it in a separate room too.....
Maybe I was hard on it, maybe it was the Russian tubes werent from a reputable dealer...... Just random from eBay.....before then I'd never seen red plating anything maybe light orange at best. These things were nuclear, pure red.
The tubes were the only difference really and I didn't crank it any more or less than I did any other time. As said I left this on for 1+ hours by accident feedbacking one time and the whole neighborhood was balking and nothing happened, no red plating, no smoke nothing even after hours of gigs my friends would use it for in their Sublime Cover band. The amp would be blasted and keep up with a PA and a full band and sounded glorious.
All in all IMO and IME it's just best to use reputable brands and buy from reputable dealers and just use gear as it's intended.
Since I still crank amps, do stupid shit sometimes like run music through them at full blast, nothings happened using reputable tubes from reputable dealers.... All in all IME and IMO its just best to use reputable brands/dealers and using amps/gear as intended and I haven't had any issues just following common sense and it works for me
Beautiful. Mine was a very yellow amber like Shawn Lane’s.
Yeah don't mean to sound like a broken record and just coming in to share why I'm kind of over protective with my gear. I loved that amp and well it just makes me not take gear for granted especially now that it cost a lot and it's harder to come by.
Wow that's scary it should be a safe mismatch. I've done this too and didn't have problems but sometimes you don't know but usually as said it isn't dangerous. If it's like 16 ohm tap into 4 ohm load and vice versa then that is pure danger.
I've done this too by accident and I was so embarrassed. Nothing happened but you don't want to mess around with stuff like that at all.The dumbest thing I ever did was play thru my Splawn Quickrod with no speaker load. They were Small Blocks, which is Scott's take on a Greenback. I'm whacking at the strings and messing with knobs and then I realized my friend plugged the speaker cable into my FX return by mistake (we were swapping heads around). But no tranny's were blown.
Personally, I think it would be impossible to blow one of these trannys
Man it still blew my power tubes and a fuse .
If youre stepping down and crank it from 2:1 ratio it may not be all that safe then possibly or a safe mismatch.
I feel you.
), the guy wouldn't budge... $1900 ish... Now they're 2-3 times more expensive IF you can find them.
Damn, that hurts even me reading it. Hope we get a chance to run it back one day.I feel you.
Around that time I could buy a IIC+ for around $1700 in Europe, but even then I thought, 'nah, too good to be true'. Two days later the thing was sold and I saw a HNAD post from a local guy on a Mesa Boogie forum.
Same with a Hamer Californian Elite in Aztec Gold around 2013 or 2014 ish. A grail guitar for me.
I owned two of the cheaper import ones, but this was the one I was really lusting for. Tried to haggle a bit too aggressively (as my cashflow was... 'different' back then compared to today
Looked like this...
View attachment 457147
But last year at least I got a cheap look-a-like for the time being.
View attachment 457148
The costliest mistake I ever made was wanting to play guitar. Wrecked my life.
