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new mesa all tube amp ?????

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#101
I have a Mesa Tian V12 with a pair of 8 ohm Ph 4x12's for the big stuff, and a 12" Walkabout Scout with an 8 ohm speaker that I use an 8 ohm 12" Scout Radiator with. I need another amp like I need an alimony payment!

But the smaller of the New Mesa Strategies makes me curious: I could buy another 8 ohm Walkabout Scout Radiator cab, and my possibilities could be as close to endless that it's ridiculous!

Price-wise the new 100 watt Fender Bassman head is pretty close to the 120 watt Mesa Strategy. I don't see $1500 for an excellent 100-ish all tube head being all that out of line, if it's awesome. I just hope I can find a dealer that will let me take a Fender and a Mesa home with me to A/B for about a week.

My Boogie rep is supposed to bring both the 300 watt one as well as the 120 watt one for me to check out in a few weeks.
Does anyone know when they are to actually hit the street?

I didn't read the whole thread, so i apologize if anything is said has been covered!
 
#102
Calaverasgrande said:
That is what makes the 400/400+ such a monster. It isnt that it has two EQ's. It is that the graphic is entirely after the whole preamp and just before the power amp. So essentially it is the power amps EQ. This allows you to eq however you need to in order to get sustain or grind etc. Than use the graphic to cut out the mud, or bring up some sizzle.
I actually DONT use it that way, but it is nice to have the capability.
Click to expand...

That's similar to how I use my 400+. I may use the graphic to EQ to the room if I'm having trouble, but often, I have a slight boost across the graphic, even if it's a flat boost across the bands. I find it allows me to coax some gain out of the amp without getting angry distortion that sometimes happens when turning up the channel or master volumes.

Chef said:
I had one 400, and two 400+, and never could get enough clean gain out of those to be happy, despite all kinds of tube jockeying...I realize I'm likely alone with that particular issue.
Click to expand...

That's the one and only compliant I have about the 400/400+. In terms of sheer volume, these things have it in spades. Unfortunately, a lot of it is not what I'd call clean volume. I guess being a 6L6 amp, the 400+ will never get away from this. Personally, I'd rather have the giant distortion hike from KT88s when they reach their output rather than the subtle but steady distortion curve of 6L6s.*

I guess it comes down to that I love tube amps, but I've never been a big fan of the uber-clipped tube amp sound.

I've never played one, but from what I understand, the Buster is an uberclean amp.

*P.s., the easy way I found to solve this problem was to get more efficient cabs. I was originally using Aguilar S410s. Now I'm using Berg AE410s, and their efficiency really allows me to get a suitable clean volume without getting into angry bees' nest territory.
 
#103
I dislike 6L6GC tubes, the tone just isn't thick like KT88's. I loved a lot of things about my MESA BASS 400 weight, power, build quality, customer service, and the option to switch tubes from 6L6's to 6550's or KT88's were all nice, but it didn't sound warm enough like an all tube amp should i.e. compared to my Ampeg SVT II (non-pro), now that I am on the idea of getting a head for different sized venues this is the solution 300/150/60 so cool! But the math doesn't seem to add up, if 2 tubes deliver 60 then 6 would be 180 and 12 would be 360 which is realistic ... But if it does 300 with 12 then 2 would do 50, either way, if the OD sounds great on this head the wattage switch makes this 3 heads in one, with likely more useful wattage options than the Fender 100t 100/25/0 and could save lots of weight and money in the long run. Cheers.
 
#104
Personally, I see no need at all to have three power settings.

If you *have* to have buzzsaw overdrive, and low volume, I guess it's cool, and ''more power to you.''
Ha!

I shoulda bought a Sadowsky SA200 when I could have, apparently it's the only tube amp that's ever going to have been designed closely to what I would actually want.

60 tube watts for bass is just laughable, to me.
Set the wayback machine to 1968, Fender wants their Bassman back.
 
#108
MSUsousaphone said:
And yeah, if I want buzzsaw I'm going to my pedal board.
Click to expand...

+1

As I just said, I'm not into the clipped out tube sound, but sometimes, I do want it (e.g., a cover song requires an overdriven tube amp sound for a faithful reproduction). That's why I dig the VT Deluxe. I can program the amount of tube overdrive I want for multiple songs (without ripping heads off), and then go back to the clean* tube sound that I know and love for the rest of the night.

*I know that most tube heads are still producing faint distortion, even when they sound clean, but I'm referring to the angry bee sound when I talked about a clipped tube amp. :)
 
#109
Chef said:
Personally, I see no need at all to have three power settings.

If you *have* to have buzzsaw overdrive, and low volume, I guess it's cool, and ''more power to you.''
Click to expand...

Right here is my exact problem... I don't need buzzsaw by any means, but it would sure be nice if I could dial in just a bit of power section grind without being so loud I get taken out of the mix. I can do the bluesy and the jazzy and rock n roll, what I can't do is aggressive for rock or metal. And quite frankly, what I get out of the Simulclass part (I think it's very similar to the multiwatt stuff they have now) is that the lower wattage modes have a lot warmer fuzzier tone to them. Not the aggressive bite you get out of a 400, and definitely not svt growl.

Poor me, eternally tone searching :p
 
#110
Input gain, Master volume; problem more or less solved.
Jockey the two til you get the flavoring you like.

Non-Master Volume SVT=killing people before you do...
 
#111
Chef said:
Personally, I see no need at all to have three power settings.
Click to expand...
So don't use the lower power settings.

If you *have* to have buzzsaw overdrive, and low volume, I guess it's cool, and ''more power to you.''
Ha!
Click to expand...
I don't think power tube overdrive sounds like a "buzzsaw." I think of more a pedal overdrive or a bad preamp overdrive circuit as sounding like a "buzzsaw."

I shoulda bought a Sadowsky SA200 when I could have, apparently it's the only tube amp that's ever going to have been designed closely to what I would actually want.
Click to expand...
Definitely an undeniably cool amp. If I was rich I'd track one down, too.

60 tube watts for bass is just laughable, to me.
Set the wayback machine to 1968, Fender wants their Bassman back.
Click to expand...
The vast majority of my gigs I am probably using less than 60 watts of my head's power.
 
#112
As switchable power is concerned, let's remember that doubling the RMS power results in only a 3db increase in SPL.
Multiplying the amp power by 10 would effectively double the apparent sound level.

So maybe a 10/50/300 setup. or just 50/300 if customers demand it.

But really I agree with da Chef. Master Volume takes care of that need.
And yeah, I love my 400+ for its seemingly endless reserve of clean tubey monster bass tone.
 
#113
kosmicwizard said:
I dislike 6L6GC tubes, the tone just isn't thick like KT88's. I loved a lot of things about my MESA BASS 400 weight, power, build quality, customer service, and the option to switch tubes from 6L6's to 6550's or KT88's were all nice, but it didn't sound warm enough like an all tube amp should i.e. compared to my Ampeg SVT II (non-pro), now that I am on the idea of getting a head for different sized venues this is the solution 300/150/60 so cool! But the math doesn't seem to add up, if 2 tubes deliver 60 then 6 would be 180 and 12 would be 360 which is realistic ... But if it does 300 with 12 then 2 would do 50, either way, if the OD sounds great on this head the wattage switch makes this 3 heads in one, with likely more useful wattage options than the Fender 100t 100/25/0 and could save lots of weight and money in the long run. Cheers.
Click to expand...

I tell ya what, the Traynor YBA 300 sounds thick as with 12 6l6's I was initially suss on it-ALL those power tubes! But the paired lock out & user bias system AND its 51lbs- won me over. & boy am I glad I got it.
 
#116
Assuming that the Carbine front end couples well to the tube output (ala Musicman and others), this could make a warm, tubey, 3D soundstage, with 400 watts and reasonable weight.
Yes, that would be in high demand IMO if it sounded right.
So far, very few players have found this unit available.
All these micro guys keep throwing a single 12AX7 behind the input jack with the marketing team shouting "has a tube; sounds like tubes". Started with SWR and keeps on going; too bad the kids believe that a single gain stage of a glass bottle is the only thing it takes to create this tone.
Maybe the SS guys will figure out how to get there without tubes; more of them doing R&D as the tube guys keep going down the same road without much change.
 
#117
I know that link at the beginning of this thread "implies" there's a product to be bought.
I've never seen one, heard one or no of anyone who has one.

An M9 front end mated to a 400 watt tube powerplant would be pure genius, IMO.
 
#118
sunbeast said:
What features are you talking about specifically? Throughout their solid-state amplifier lines they have offered all manner of features- onboard compressor, footswitchable EQ/Mute, 2 ohm operation, dual EQ'able channels, onboard overdrive, actual useable tube preamp overdrive, multiple bands of semi-parametric EQ, global midrange/character shape, boost channel, amps with different/ very distinct tonal profiles (modern/vintage), etcetera. They have yet to release a Class D uber-tiny amp (and that seems unlikely), but the Walkabout is close enough for me. They have also yet to release a mega-amp that somehow jampacks all those features into one, but that would inevitably be too heavy, large, and altogether unwieldy for most people's interest (the Titan is a good example of a Mesa amp that should have been the end-all for alot of people, but just didn't seem to catch on for the reasons stated among others). The M6/M9 heads seem to have hit on exactly what was in demand for many given how popular they have become (and for many people that never would have even considered a Mesa previously).

Now they are about to release an all tube amp that should potentially be able to hit on both modern and vintage tones with ease (which is not exactly common among tube amps), as well as power tube overdrive at any volume with the power output selection switch. Given that its preamp has three tubes vs. the one in the M6/M9, I think its reasonable to believe that it will be more capable of preamp overdrive than the M series as well, though we won't know that for sure until it is released. What more could you want?
Click to expand...

I can see what hes talking about.

The m3 and m6 are kinda devoid of much eq control.... the packaging of the volume knob and mute together leaves something to be desired. Mute should really be its own switch.

They seem to have done that with the Master Volume Knobs as well... which double as effects loop level. This is a BIG turnoff for me. If you wanna run a compressor in the FX Loop, whenever you turn up the master volume you get more compression.:eyebrow:

I think the M-2000 and M-Pulse were much better feature wise
 
#119
Chef said:
I know that link at the beginning of this thread "implies" there's a product to be bought.
I've never seen one, heard one or no of anyone who has one.

An M9 front end mated to a 400 watt tube powerplant would be pure genius, IMO.
Click to expand...
They haven't been released yet, but will be shortly. If the specs on that site are accurate, I'll be all over it and might get one right away to replace my Bass 400 (which will then be part of my new mini rig of doom)
 
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