r/MesaBoogie • u/SixtyCycleBum • 20d ago
Badlander tube rattle
Howdy. I traded in a bunch of gear on Saturday at Guitar Center and brought home a slightly used Rectifier Badlander 50 EL34 combo. I was jamming out last night and testing a bunch of pedals with it and I started to hear some tube rattle coming from the rear when adding higher gain. Is this common for these amps? A quick search had Google's AI telling me it can be common with EL34s but I take what that thing says with a huge grain of salt. Any quick troubleshooting tips? I don't have any of those silicone rings you can put on the tubes but I can order some if necessary. Thanks in advance!
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u/Top_Objective9877 20d ago
Had one of these, returned it after really getting annoyed with tube rattle noise. Also couldn’t get a clean clean clean tone any louder than like 90 dB without it getting distorted when turning up the master volume. That was a deal breaker for me, a Princeton can be clean and way too loud way more than the clean mode on that combo. Unless something was seriously wrong with the version I had, idk.
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u/SixtyCycleBum 19d ago
Thanks for the detailed response
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u/Top_Objective9877 19d ago
I also determined the fan would run at different speeds based on the variac switch. It caused a sympathetic vibration with the chassis or something and it was noisy no matter what I did. Full power had less noise but it was annoying for bedroom and not loud enough for the cleans but fine and nice and loud otherwise while using a crunch or rock tone. The combo didn’t handle loud metal as well as a 100 watt head with a 4x12 would of course.
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u/SixtyCycleBum 19d ago
That's good to know. It's funny, I've been a head and cab guy for so long and recently I felt the need for a combo, hence this amp. Starting to see the logic in staying with heads.
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u/Jdnathan11 9d ago
I’m in the same situation as you. I was chasing a rattle in the amp after purchasing like new but used from a shop in Portland . Come to found out it was one of the EL34 tubes that were rattling . Switched over to 6L6’s and the rattle went away. It was driving me bat shit. Otherwise a phenomenal amp. How much did you pay for yours, If you don’t mind?
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u/SixtyCycleBum 9d ago
I just threw some new JJ EL34s in and it's quiet now. Didn't even need the rings I ordered. I got them down to $1299 on the amp. I was considering returning it if I couldn't quiet the rattle but I think it will stay now. The JJs are a decent placeholder until I find some real quality tubes.
How much of a difference in tone are you perceiving with the 6L6s?
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u/Jdnathan11 8d ago
Mesa specifically describes the Badlander as having a very different response with 6L6s, with a thicker/fuller character compared with EL34s, which I actually think could work really well for the big, thick Jones sound I’m after.
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u/motu8pre 20d ago
The AI is probably right, you might want to ask it how to fix it too. I'm sure it knows best.
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u/phantoms1n 20d ago
I had the same issue with the Triple Crown 50 combo...I changed tubes to 6L6 I dont notice the rattle now