Mesa Boogie Walkabout Mega-thread Part 10

[pfschim]

New production is coming to an end, but there are still plenty of units in stock and in the pipeline, and are likely to be for quite some time.

Sorry to hear that the WA is heading towards discontinuation, even though there is plenty of stock in the pipeline.
What a great run this amp has had, just can't say enough good stuff about it.

I have a 2nd gen WA (Silver with black markings, active/passive switch, FX in/out switch) which has been a total workhorse for me since I bought it right after the Walkabouts were announced by Mesa (so, 10 years or more ?). Never caused me a problem, only ever cleaned the jacks/pots once .. just because they were kind of dusty.

It's kind of silly, but since Mesa re-did the last WA version in black, I really wanted one of those.
why? just because it looks so cool

 

[BluesyCat]

Any recommendations for a repair shop in the San Diego Area or southern California I can take a Walkabout head to for repair?
I had Audio Design replace a broken internal fuse folder earlier this year, but the amp now has noisy pots, especially the Master volume pot when the volume is adjusted.
I've considered taking the amp back to Audio Design, but my experience with the shop was disappointing.
They had the amp for over three weeks and it seem to be that they were dragging the feet about repairing it within the time they said it would be completed.
When I received the amp back, it has noise issue now.

Has anyone used any of the following Authorized repair shops and if so, how was their service?
Desert Amplifier Repair in La Quinta, CA
Futara Electronics in Orange, CA
Ampwerx repair in Long Beach, CA
Mesa Boogie Hollywood in Hollywood, CA

Is there any other shops in the area I should investigate?

I have taken my gear to Arisamplification
Aris Amplification
Aris Corkos is a Dentist by day, amp repair and rocker by night

And he is on Facebook
Aris Corkos
Funny, I have taken gear to his dentist office!

 

[Daniel Piper]

Wow - discontinued.

Think of all the flavours of the month since this puppy came out. The walkabout has remained, IMO, the most loved solid state head around here.

What an amazing amp.

 

[kringle77]

Yup. I would imagine the bigger version would sell well too. Especially as people start rediscovering class ab amps like they did with tubes. Nothing like this amp.

 

[adam montminy]

It's kind of silly, but since Mesa re-did the last WA version in black, I really wanted one of those.
why? just because it looks so cool

I had an old silver one and now I have a newer black version that I like even more. The knobs feel much nicer and the para EQ has center detents which I find pretty helpful. Also, the black knobs are much easier to see the marking instead of the little dimples on the silver ones.

 

[joebar]

I picked up a used carbine M3 yesterday to go along with my WA head. In the store, I was really digging the M3 ( played thru a PH410).
When I A/B'd the two through my cabs, they both sound excellent. However, my fretless bass sounded drastically better thru the WA- it has a harmonic sparkle ( even at the low volume) that the M3 didn't have.
I bought the M3 to have more firepower for those times when the WA may run out of headroom. I have heard the M3 is a deceptively loud 300 watts.

My conclusion once again is that the WA is the tone champ again; I don't think you can beat it for sheer tone.

 

[Al Kraft]

I have heard the M3 is a deceptively loud 300 watts.

It is a great amp and really feels like it has a lot more power than advertised - like maybe double. I especially like its "right out of the box" tone and simplicity. My M6 and M9 both seem to need more tweaking from their neutral state to get the same tone as the M3 with everything at noon.

 

[sunbeast]

Any recommendations for a repair shop in the San Diego Area or southern California I can take a Walkabout head to for repair?
I had Audio Design replace a broken internal fuse folder earlier this year, but the amp now has noisy pots, especially the Master volume pot when the volume is adjusted.
I've considered taking the amp back to Audio Design, but my experience with the shop was disappointing.
They had the amp for over three weeks and it seem to be that they were dragging the feet about repairing it within the time they said it would be completed.
When I received the amp back, it has noise issue now.

Has anyone used any of the following Authorized repair shops and if so, how was their service?
Desert Amplifier Repair in La Quinta, CA
Futara Electronics in Orange, CA
Ampwerx repair in Long Beach, CA
Mesa Boogie Hollywood in Hollywood, CA

Is there any other shops in the area I should investigate?

I've had nothing but good experiences with Mesa Hollywood servicing my Prodigy with its few early-adopter pains

 

[sheltjo6]

Thank you everyone for your feedback. Think I'm going to make a road trip to Hollywood in the near future.

 

[sunbeast]

Thank you everyone for your feedback. Think I'm going to make a road trip to Hollywood in the near future.

Definitely call ahead- the shop guy can have some odd hours and time off in my experience!

 

[bumble yeti]

I want an Eagle Scout… I wanna…

 

[Al Kraft]

I want an Eagle Scout… I wanna…

...what if Mesa came up with something that was everything the WA was and had additional versatility...I would have never predicted Mesa doing a class D anything and that worked out pretty well. With agedhorse on the job I wouldn't count out any possibilities.

 

[bumble yeti]

...what if Mesa came up with something that was everything the WA was and had additional versatility...I would have never predicted Mesa doing a class D anything and that worked out pretty well. With agedhorse on the job I wouldn't count out any possibilities.

Andy's said it before, my friend, they can't. The WalkAbout IS the sweet spot. A WalkAbout is a WalkAbout and an Eagle Scout… is a dream.

 

[two fingers]

Any recommendations for a repair shop in the San Diego Area or southern California I can take a Walkabout head to for repair?
I had Audio Design replace a broken internal fuse folder earlier this year, but the amp now has noisy pots, especially the Master volume pot when the volume is adjusted.
I've considered taking the amp back to Audio Design, but my experience with the shop was disappointing.
They had the amp for over three weeks and it seem to be that they were dragging the feet about repairing it within the time they said it would be completed.
When I received the amp back, it has noise issue now.

Has anyone used any of the following Authorized repair shops and if so, how was their service?
Desert Amplifier Repair in La Quinta, CA
Futara Electronics in Orange, CA
Ampwerx repair in Long Beach, CA
Mesa Boogie Hollywood in Hollywood, CA

Is there any other shops in the area I should investigate?

I know the Hollywood store has some good techs, I also know the factory up in Petaluma has a couple of great techs. I have always been a fan of factory service where practical because that's a known quantity. (This applies in general, not just in this case).

I have nothing but praise for the folks at the Mesa factory...fast service and not a problem with any of the repairs/upgrades on three of my amps. I shipped mine from Virginia to the West Coast and will do so in the future when needed. If I lived in California a road trip or short UPS journey would be my first choice every time.

I just sent mine back to the factory for a freshening up.

First off, communication was first rate. That's rare in and of itself.

Second, turn around time was a few days. 2 1/2 days after they let me know they had it, they called back to tell me it was done. The guy who called not only gave me a rundown of what they did, but sent me an email copy. Turns out they cleaned everything and replaced several caps. Then they bunch tested it maxed out for several hours (if I understood correctly).

Third, the price was super reasonable. $95 including shipping back to me. It's supposed to arrive at my wife's office Tuesday.

Where I totally agree with @agedhorse is this. Those guys have seen dozens, if not hundreds, of these amps. They know that sucker inside out. I would trust them over a tech who works in everything under the sun. That's just my view anyway. I'm not saying there are no great techs outside the factory. That would be silly.

Either way, my experience has been great. Of course, once I fire it up and confirm everything I'll report back.

 

[Al Kraft]

Andy's said it before, my friend, they can't. The WalkAbout IS the sweet spot. A WalkAbout is a WalkAbout and an Eagle Scout… is a dream.

I agree 100%, but where there's one sweet spot, there could always be another, and it could be sweeter. That unique interaction between the components that appeared in the WA as quirk of the design probably took a while to fully understand. Now that it's understood but can't easily be replicated, we have knowledge that starts R&D down new paths. Yeah, I'm an optimist, but the things I've seen and been part of in my career tend to lead me to believe there could be some Eagle Scout-like products in our future.

 

[agedhorse]

You guys who are using (or have tried) a Walkabout/Scout for upright might want to check the website for some options.

 

[sratas]

Well guys,
had an outdoor gig-rehearsal last week end, using the WA trough a barefaced bb2, G&L jazz bass. Best tone I ever had bar none. I use flatwounds (La Bella) but I want a bit of grind when I dig in or use the pick, so I eq'd it as follows: gain: 1 oc, bass 11:30 oc, 250 Hz + 1-2 db, 1300-1500 Hz + 2-3 db, 1600-1800 + 2-3 db, treble + 2-3 db, mids from 12 oc to max (I was experimenting). The eq changes are not precise, but I think I'm in that order of things.

The tone was fabulous. The meaty, bold. massively defined bulk of sound. The sound was pregnant. No problem with two screaming middy guitars in open field. Surprisingly, I had no need for more watts at all. I began using the master up to 10 oc, but I was blowing away the venue, so I ended with the master a tad lower than 9 oc, and it was plenty. We do not play loud, and we are very disciplined in this regard, and we do not play large venues, but the WA spits out a healthy power. i can't figure out how to use it with the master turned higher than 10 oc with my band...but I'm sure it sounds glorious that way.

The tone was really cutting, I mean, the fingestyle tone was super defined and the pick was really aggressive. I can't understand how people do think that this amp is full sounding, most of all but maybe without clarity. Yes, I used a good bit of eq (awesome, super effective), but the result was stunning. Got compliments or the lack of criticism by the other members of the band. The singer, without obeying to the BL, sat directly in front of my cab and every time we had a break he was telling me he was in heaven because of the bass tone.

Conclusions:
- the WA confirms to be a great piece of gear
- no, in my opinion it is not so easy to reproduce that kind of tone with other amps
- the 150 watts in real life are plenty if you push a bit the gain to the edge of tube clipping and use a healthy amount of mids, wich, IMO, sound so good in this amp

 

[slofut]

Funny how the WA heads used, are bringing almost the same money as the m-pulse 600's.

 

[sheltjo6]

I Need some information regarding a Walkabout scout 15 combo.

Tonight at band rehearsal, we had two Walkabout scout 15 combos. Both amps had the same settings dialed in, but each combo sounded completely different. One Combo had a mid scooped tone whereas the other combo had a more pronounced mid frequency tone. We cabled each amp to each cab to determine if it was the amp or cab causing the tone difference. We isolated it to the cab.

One Combo is a few years old, the other approximately 10 years old.

Does anyone know of any design changes to the speaker cab or driver?

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

 

[MarkA]

I Need some information regarding a Walkabout scout 15 combo.

Tonight at band rehearsal, we had two Walkabout scout 15 combos. Both amps had the same settings dialed in, but each combo sounded completely different. One Combo had a mid scooped tone whereas the other combo had a more pronounced mid frequency tone. We cabled each amp to each cab to determine if it was the amp or cab causing the tone difference. We isolated it to the cab.

One Combo is a few years old, the other approximately 10 years old.

Does anyone know of any design changes to the speaker cab or driver?

Any feedback would be much appreciated.

To confirm: Same settings on the "Player Control Network" on each cab?

Not sure if Mesa went from ceramic to neodymium (or vice-versa) at some point with the Scouts. Any possibility that one driver was replaced with a non-OEM part at some point?