Damn it! There is nothing wrong with my Boogie Mark IV!

J

JimAnsell

Well-known member
Welp, i just paid a lot of money for some piece of mind i guess.

I sent my boogie mark IV to mesa because i had some tubes red plate and blow a fuse a few times. they were all just old mesa tubes that were sitting around here.
I'd been meaning to retube it, but i didn't want it to burn a set of new tubes if there was something else wrong. So i shipped it to boogie and they gave it a look, and couldn't get it to fail. They said i probably had tubes with thin pins that weren't making good contact. So they tightened and cleaned everything, Mike B gave it a once over and made sure everything was as it was supposed to be. noted that the caps appeared to be changed in 2019 (i did them in 2020 during the covid lock down), burned in a new quad of 441 greens and its on its way back. There was a big dent in the rim of the chassis that was already there. they thought it came in damaged, and they bumped it out for me :) They also reflowed soldered on a joint that was bad on the 750 slider that was causing it to cut out. All of the work i could have done myself, and just bought a quad of tubes, and paid 1/4th of the price of this whole thing and not been without it since like november.:doh:

So with the new set of tubes, shipping both ways, an hour of labor, it set me back like 500 (shipping out there was like 150). I only paid 800 for it back in the mid 10's.
I got to have Mike take one last look at it before he retires, and have it in writting, which i guess is worth the money if i ever decide to sell it one day.

Still the same great service and quick communication that mesa always had. just with a gibson logo in the email as well. :dunno:
 
They're still very reasonable price-wise, and service is fantastic.

It just sucks that it's so expensive to ship an amp there & back. I'm glad I got Mike B under the hood of my mark III while he's still there.
 
I had my Mark IVa head serviced about 4 years ago. Mike B did the work as I specifically stated only him. I didn't care how long it took. I paid close to $350 at the time. If I'm spending that kind of coin, then I want it serviced by Mike B.

Well worth the money for a re-cap and other things back up to spec. That amp prior was flubby but sounded good. When I received it back after the work done. Wow! Killer amp.

BTW, I thought Mike B was no longer working on Mark IVs. How did you get your amp serviced by him?
 
Frehley12 said:
I had my Mark IVa head serviced about 4 years ago. Mike B did the work as I specifically stated only him. I didn't care how long it took. I paid close to $350 at the time. If I'm spending that kind of coin, then I want it serviced by Mike B.

Well worth the money for a re-cap and other things back up to spec. That amp prior was flubby but sounded good. When I received it back after the work done. Wow! Killer amp.

BTW, I thought Mike B was no longer working on Mark IVs. How did you get your amp serviced by him?
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Hes very much still there according to the person at boogie i'm dealing with. i didn't even ask for him, but according to everything in the emails it was him who checked it out and left the tech notes. i just figured if something was up and the board needed to be pulled ANYONE at boogie is doing that shit before i try. the few vids on the net of people doing that are frightening.
 
Frehley12 said:
I had my Mark IVa head serviced about 4 years ago. Mike B did the work as I specifically stated only him. I didn't care how long it took. I paid close to $350 at the time. If I'm spending that kind of coin, then I want it serviced by Mike B.

Well worth the money for a re-cap and other things back up to spec. That amp prior was flubby but sounded good. When I received it back after the work done. Wow! Killer amp.

BTW, I thought Mike B was no longer working on Mark IVs. How did you get your amp serviced by him?
Click to expand...
He is definitely still working on MKIV's. He did all the work on mine as well and I got it back a couple weeks ago. Same as Jim, I didn't specify Mike B to to work on mine, but he must still be the go-to for all the old Marks.

Same experience as yours though: my MKIV sounded good going in and is an absolute fire breather with more punch and clarity after Mike B went through it...
 
JimAnsell said:
Welp, i just paid a lot of money for some piece of mind i guess.

I sent my boogie mark IV to mesa because i had some tubes red plate and blow a fuse a few times. they were all just old mesa tubes that were sitting around here.
I'd been meaning to retube it, but i didn't want it to burn a set of new tubes if there was something else wrong. So i shipped it to boogie and they gave it a look, and couldn't get it to fail. They said i probably had tubes with thin pins that weren't making good contact. So they tightened and cleaned everything, Mike B gave it a once over and made sure everything was as it was supposed to be. noted that the caps appeared to be changed in 2019 (i did them in 2020 during the covid lock down), burned in a new quad of 441 greens and its on its way back. There was a big dent in the rim of the chassis that was already there. they thought it came in damaged, and they bumped it out for me :) They also reflowed soldered on a joint that was bad on the 750 slider that was causing it to cut out. All of the work i could have done myself, and just bought a quad of tubes, and paid 1/4th of the price of this whole thing and not been without it since like november.:doh:

So with the new set of tubes, shipping both ways, an hour of labor, it set me back like 500 (shipping out there was like 150). I only paid 800 for it back in the mid 10's.
I got to have Mike take one last look at it before he retires, and have it in writting, which i guess is worth the money if i ever decide to sell it one day.

Still the same great service and quick communication that mesa always had. just with a gibson logo in the email as well. :dunno:
Click to expand...
it's almost the equivalent of taking your house to the electrician because you got a bad light bulb:D

But i know the situation where you don't want risk the new tubes.
Next time you can only change a pair at a time (less cost than shipping if it goes wrong).
 
I sent my Mark iv in last March for a weird issue. It would lose all gain and volume after about 15 minutes. Sent it in Mike changed a few resistors and some dlrs. Got it back played it twice and did same thing. Took it to a local guy in December and he hasn't touched it yet because he knows it's a pain in the ass repair. Probably going to have to send it back to boogie which is going to cost me another 300 shipping and whatever their bill is. Or I may just unload as is. Sucks because it's a great amp.
 
$500 for a full once-over by Mike B including some resoldering, chassis straightening and a set of new tubes doesn't seem over the top to me. It's nice to have a top-notch Mark IV ! Congrats !!
 
Mark IV is good.

I still regret selling mine to my ex (then girlfriend). She didn't deserve that thing, and I let her have it for the sweet deal I got it for. I even got her a cab too.

I want my Mesa cab back, Megan!
 
japetus said:
Look at it on this very positive side like you said....You now have a Mark IV serviced in 2025 that, in a lot of peoples eyes, raises the value of it tremendously if you ever were to sell.
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This, serviced by Mike B in 2025. Paid $1,300 and sold for over $2k. Win
 
Chris6870 said:
I sent my Mark iv in last March for a weird issue. It would lose all gain and volume after about 15 minutes. Sent it in Mike changed a few resistors and some dlrs. Got it back played it twice and did same thing. Took it to a local guy in December and he hasn't touched it yet because he knows it's a pain in the ass repair. Probably going to have to send it back to boogie which is going to cost me another 300 shipping and whatever their bill is. Or I may just unload as is. Sucks because it's a great amp.
Click to expand...

Did you contact Mesa back regarding this? Warranty on repairs?
 
Frehley12 said:
Did you contact Mesa back regarding this? Warranty on repairs?
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No. Mike told me it would be $300 to fix failed LDRs and some leaky caps and that would fix issue. He said there are 27 LDRs total and no guarantee they wont fail unless I changed them all for an additional $600, so $900 plus return shipping. I chose the cheaper fix assuming it would last longer than a few weeks.
 
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