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Mesa Strategy and Prodigy discontinued. Also PH cabs.
- Thread starter mikeswals
- Start date
OK, Andy, since you asked. (And since I know little or nothing about amp or cabinet design, I can dream out loud, whether or not I'm seemingly asking for warp drive in a Cessna 172.)
I want a landmark, benchmark bass product that's essentially a bass Twin Reverb. A 212 bin now can easily match the performance of the 215's I grew up with. Incredibly light weight amps with a very small footprint and accompanying weight is a reality. Sophisticated tube emulation (or at the least, a tube front end over SS power) is no longer a pipe dream. Lightweight aerospace-braced cabinets are no longer exotic. Neo speakers have taken a lot of metal out of heavy metal.
In other words, from my rank amateur perspective, everything to do this is in place. All that is really required is a solid melding of these trends in a dependable product with a compelling design. I want the surprising jump of Lotus beating the tried-and-true front-engine roadsters at Indy with a compelling new combination of existing technology and beating them all.
What the hell, even I could cobble together a prototype with a 212 Subway cab with an extended side and a slot to hard mount a D800. It wouldn't be pretty . . . . .
I have my whole life been so jealous of guitar players that would just walk in with a guitar and a Twin, or more specifically one of the single 12 Mark Boogies atop a 112 extension cab . . . . . . . while I'm in the furniture moving business, the not-enough headroom business, the can't-carry-the-room without the boom business,
the endless frustration of either too much amp or not enough amp.
I thought maybe a Super RedHead was it, but lacked the low-end extension. I'm a big fan of James Demeter's new take on the 12" fliptop, that's on the track I'm looking down. To me, this is an amp 'for the rest of us', the most of us playing VFW's, the little rooms at the casinos, the joint down on the corner, who still want something really good, but are never going out with roadies, hotel rooms, or 18-month tours with artists.
If this punches anybody else's buttons, I'll let them argue over features. I think you get my drift, and thanks for your presence and interest in what nuts like me think ! ! I realize this is a whole lotta 'blue sky' thinking, but it's something I've dreamed about for a long time.
I want a landmark, benchmark bass product that's essentially a bass Twin Reverb. A 212 bin now can easily match the performance of the 215's I grew up with. Incredibly light weight amps with a very small footprint and accompanying weight is a reality. Sophisticated tube emulation (or at the least, a tube front end over SS power) is no longer a pipe dream. Lightweight aerospace-braced cabinets are no longer exotic. Neo speakers have taken a lot of metal out of heavy metal.
In other words, from my rank amateur perspective, everything to do this is in place. All that is really required is a solid melding of these trends in a dependable product with a compelling design. I want the surprising jump of Lotus beating the tried-and-true front-engine roadsters at Indy with a compelling new combination of existing technology and beating them all.
What the hell, even I could cobble together a prototype with a 212 Subway cab with an extended side and a slot to hard mount a D800. It wouldn't be pretty . . . . .
I have my whole life been so jealous of guitar players that would just walk in with a guitar and a Twin, or more specifically one of the single 12 Mark Boogies atop a 112 extension cab . . . . . . . while I'm in the furniture moving business, the not-enough headroom business, the can't-carry-the-room without the boom business,
the endless frustration of either too much amp or not enough amp.
I thought maybe a Super RedHead was it, but lacked the low-end extension. I'm a big fan of James Demeter's new take on the 12" fliptop, that's on the track I'm looking down. To me, this is an amp 'for the rest of us', the most of us playing VFW's, the little rooms at the casinos, the joint down on the corner, who still want something really good, but are never going out with roadies, hotel rooms, or 18-month tours with artists.
If this punches anybody else's buttons, I'll let them argue over features. I think you get my drift, and thanks for your presence and interest in what nuts like me think ! ! I realize this is a whole lotta 'blue sky' thinking, but it's something I've dreamed about for a long time.
To me the Strategy sounded better than the Prodigy. Didn't have the same high end boost that I didn't like about the Prodigy.
Just sounded more raw and mean.
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,038
- 5
- 220,966
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
Well this is a mature contribution...
Why are you always so negative and condescending to everybody on this forum? I see that you do not reserve your love for anybody in particular so at least it's "equal opportunity" negativity, but I don't think it's all that appreciated regardless.
Blocked that dude a long time ago. He never contributes anything.
Do your thing man. Lol
I actually spent time to tell you why your company is losing sales. And just think the bad tubes thing is complete BS.
You wanna drive tubes hard that's your problem. Saying modern tubes are bad is rubbish. It's the amplifiers not the tubes.
I could double your sales in 3 months.
Don't worry I'm just guy off the internet so don't get upset when people call BS
I use to be a Boogie dealer. You got dropped then for same reason. No sales to much service
I would think d800 and d800+ are probably near the top of sales once you get out of the fender rumble price range.
Is Mesa running into the same challenges with their guitar amps? On that side of the fence they don't have an option to back away from tubes, not a realistic one anyway.
I can understand why these models are going away. I'm sure there are the technical reasons plus the fact that I'm sure the subway stuff outsells them 10 to 1 or even more. I can go to the shop where I bought my d800+ and get a new prodigy that has been there for years for $1400 and a PH410 for $800. I'm seriously considering the cab. They are great products but the market for $2000+ amps and heavy cabs isn't there to the degree the class D stuff is. As far as tubes go though, if I had a prodigy I'd just buy backup tubes on day one.
My d800+ is the one amp I'd never let go. I'd sell the AG700 and gk mb200 way before it. It's good enough that I'm sure it canabalized some prodigy/strategy sales.
I can understand why these models are going away. I'm sure there are the technical reasons plus the fact that I'm sure the subway stuff outsells them 10 to 1 or even more. I can go to the shop where I bought my d800+ and get a new prodigy that has been there for years for $1400 and a PH410 for $800. I'm seriously considering the cab. They are great products but the market for $2000+ amps and heavy cabs isn't there to the degree the class D stuff is. As far as tubes go though, if I had a prodigy I'd just buy backup tubes on day one.
My d800+ is the one amp I'd never let go. I'd sell the AG700 and gk mb200 way before it. It's good enough that I'm sure it canabalized some prodigy/strategy sales.
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,038
- 5
- 220,966
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
If you took the time to read and comprehend what I said, you would have realized that I didn't say bad tubes. I was very clear that for a hot rodded amp (which is what these amps were designed to be from the very beginning, and what the players who bought them were looking for in tube amp performance), the challenge was finding tubes with consistency and lack of drift at the higher limits of the performance curves. We could go through a thousand tubes with no problems out in the field, then end up with problems due to some pretty off-spec tubes that had drifted or aged greatly from their test values, yet others in the set would be just fine. Then we would get more good tubes. It was mostly how the tubes aged inconsistently, and this has been a well documented problem throughout the industry which is why many designers choose to stay well away from the limits of performance. This is much more of a "race car" type amp design, for the player who wants something that is not the same as the "average" amp. That's how it was presented, marketed and supported.
Ageing occurs in all tubes, and most tubes follow a pretty well defined set of curves as they age. It's the outliers that are the the issue for all designs, but very conservative designs (and I am by nature myself a conservative designer) can avoid many (but not all) such issues by giving up certain performance aspects (especially under heavy overdrive). That was never the goal of the Strategy/Prodigy, it was for the player who was looking for the ultimate amp FOR THAT KIND OF PERFORMANCE and willing to take risks on tube life (though the earlier ageing failures were not anticipated, but that's why we have the longest warranty on tubes of any manufacturer and we stood behind this extended warranty too) The challenge for any manufacturer is how to identify inconsistent ageing and which specific tubes in a production lot are going to be the outliers as all start out in spec and remain so for generally quite some time. Much of this is out of our control as an amp manufacturer, because we have no control over the tube manufacturing process details. Our experience has shown that recently the failure rate due to outliers has been increasing, which makes this kind of amp less and less realistic to produce going forward knowing what we do.
I'm being pretty darn transparent here, there's a lot of thought (and a little sadness) that goes into the decision to discontinue any successful high end product such as these amps.
Last edited:
Mesa tests and grades their tubes.
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,038
- 5
- 220,966
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
There are some challenges like this in the guitar world, but the 6L6 is still (mostly) a well built tube, and many of the amps do not run these tubes as hard as the KT-88 (which has a unique tone and overdrive character at high voltages because of how the screen current interact with the plate current and the harmonics that this introduces. The driver topology is also quite different, actually much of the power amp circuit is quite different compared specifically to the Strategy/Prodigy.
Over the years, I have seen consistency issues (in a variety of applications) with EL-84's, much of it mechanical where after a few hundred heating/cooling cycles there is enough change in internal structure that they will make some mechanical noise. The is 100% a tube issue, as it occurs regardless of the amp the tube is used in. There is a little bit of this in the El-34 as well, but nowhere near the extent. The 6V6 is a pretty stout little tube, relatively trouble-free but like the EL-84, is limited to lower powered applications.
The Subway series was never intended to go after the same tone market as the Strategy/Prodigy, it's just a way different tone. There are plenty of players who do not care for the Stratigy/Prodigy, and who prefer the Subway, or the Walkabout, but the Strategy/Prodigy was never intended for that player to begin with. It's more like the Carbines, in your face, brash, knock you over your head with little politeness hard rock and metal amp.
Hope this helps.
- Feb 12, 2006
- 61,038
- 5
- 220,966
- Disclosures
- Development Engineer-Mesa Boogie, Development Engineer-Genzler (pedals), Product Support-Genz Benz
Correct, we grade, burn in and re-grade then burn the finished products in too.
I don't know anything about the design of the Strategy and Prodigy, so I don't know if my comments here will be of any benefit.
My CTM300 is set up really well to deal with aging tubes and tube failures: 1. Built in bias meter, 2. individual bias control for each tube, 3. each tube is fused. 4. tubes can be removed and replaced through a removable top panel in the head case. For someone with very basic skills and a couple of screw drivers, this amp is extremely easy to maintain.
I think I have had two EHX KT88s pull fuses in this amp. On both occasions I pulled the chassis from the headcase to check for burned resistors but all components were fine. On each occasion the fix involved replacing the tube and fuse, and resetting the bias.
I believe this amp runs 750V on the plates and I frequently check the bias to see how much drift is occurring in the tubes. Really nice to be able to do all of this with out cracking the case open.
It doesn't matter where you buy them, if you buy authentic Mesa branded tubes, the have been thoroughly tested.
I recently got the opportunity to try out a Subway D-800+. Was very pleased with how it sounded. I was able to dial in a somewhat similar tone to my D-180 (though not quite as bite your face off aggressive) by cranking the gain.
I still do want a Strategy.
I wonder if the issues with KT-88 reliability can be somewhat mitigated by biasing the tubes colder? Though of course this would also result in less power.
I'm talk about tubes in general mesa go above and beyond.. Hope that clarifies
