50cal.+

Pre 90 you say? Then I guess my 89 50cal.+ just squeaks in under the wire. When I buy gear, I do so knowing that anything I score is a keeper. I still have some toys around from the late 60s/early 70s like my 73 Marsall SB stack, some old Fender stuff etc. and of course the Mesa 8)

I picked 1990 because in 91 the midi stuff came out and in 92 the Rectos were introduces. Couldn't label anything midi as vintage.

I am thinking of breaking out by product groups and any suggestions on how that should look is appreciated.

Ned

I have played the .50 cal.

Nice amp with very good tone.

I prefer it greatly over the dual caliber which I owned for about 4 years in the early 90's before I went to the Triple Recto =).

About breaking out by product groups, I would prefer to have all guitar amp discussion consolidated. I would rather have one forum labled Guitar Amps. This would allow all info to be kept in one forum. As a user of other forums I've found when similar items are seperarted by year it tends to create sub groups of users who rarely if ever communicate with one another. This hinders the sharing of very useful info among users.

054

zerofivefour said:

About breaking out by product groups, I would prefer to have all guitar amp discussion consolidated. I would rather have one forum labled Guitar Amps. This would allow all info to be kept in one forum. As a user of other forums I've found when similar items are seperarted by year it tends to create sub groups of users who rarely if ever communicate with one another. This hinders the sharing of very useful info among users.

054

Click to expand...

I agree about the seperation of users. Off-topic and general discussion areas usually help close the gap between them though. But there is still a problem. I just find if I was on a forum like this one (m/b) I would be searching through a thousand posts about rectos to find my post about the mark I reissue. I think we need to find an equilibrium between seperation and consolidation. It will be hard though.

I bought a 50cal+ today, and will pick it up tomorrow! 8)

It's the 2-6L6 combo...

RussB said:

I bought a 50cal+ today, and will pick it up tomorrow! 8)

It's the 2-6L6 combo...

Click to expand...

I know you're going to like it so I'd be interested to hear your comparison to the Studio22.

I got the 50cal+!

It came as expected, a few scuffs in the Tolex, and a blown Mesa C90 speaker...It has new JJ 6L6's and Chinese GT-labeled and Mesa labeled pre-amp tubes, came with the footswitch. It cleaned up pretty good.

I put a C90 in it that I had in a 1-12, and an EVM12L went into the 1-12, and a Weber Blue Dog went into the 22+...whew!

I'm still messin' with preamp tubes...so far it's a GT-M in V1, and JJ ECC83S's everywhere else, 'cept for the reverb driver, that's a NOS 6201 (industrial 12AT7)

First impressions are all good. The amp has a remarkable good clean channel, far better than the MKIII, and bigger/bolder than the 22+. Cranking the input volume up gives it a nice grit. The reverb is OK, even though one spring is broken off the reverb unit...And that reverb unit is mounted inside the chassi!. Very Ghetto! My 22+ has a tank vertically mounted to the cab.

The JJ's (rated "40" by Euro-Bob, that's a hot set!) were only drawing 18mA. I swapped a resistor in the bias circuit, and they now draw 25mA. A set of SED 6L6's draw 41mA with that same bias setting...JJ's always seem to run very cold, anyways...

So far, so good. I'll be messing around with the 3 Boog's and have more comments later.

50cal+, top right, sitting on a 1-12 open cab w/EVM12L. 22+ is next to it, on a Mesa/Theile with the EV, and the MKIII sits on top.



The 50cal+ chassis, dig the reverb!

:shock: Is that rust? Please tell me its just "shadows" in the pics. Seriously, nice score Russ and a nice Mesa wall you have going there. That would be some nasty loud rig in the "all together now" mode.

Your impression of the cleans matches mine bang on. The 50+ in my mind out-blackfaces a blackface on its own turf.

There's no rust, just some funky white-ish oxidation. I gave it the "once-over"...took out the chassis, washed the cab, cleaned the faceplate, yada yada.

The C90 that it came with was toasted (I knew that going in) and I ordered a Celestion G12H80 from Avatar speakers...$50 shipped! I'll see how that works out. I looked into reconeing, but it costs as much as a new speaker!

I've been home sick the past couple days, and had some time to experiment with various pre-amp tubes in the 50cal...

I have these 12AX7 types on hand,

Telefunken smooth plates
'60's Mullard
'70's Brimar
JAN GE 12AX7WA
JAN Phillips 12AX7WA
JAN GE 5751
GT-12AX7M (mullard clone)
JJ ECC83S
EH 12AX7 (new ones)
GT labeled chinese
"NOS" gray plate chinese (from LV, early '80's)
Mesa/Sovtek LPS
Sovtek 12AX7WA
Sovtek 12AX7WB
Sovtek 12AX7WXT

12AT7 types,

Mesa/Chinese 12AT7
GE 6201
Mullard CV40204

I would put the various tubes in V1 and V2, and with the masters up to "10" tap on the tube with a chopstick...

After trying out various configurations in V2 (input/1st gain stage) I settled on a GT-12AX7M. V1 got the Mullard CV40204. This tube balanced out the lead/rhythm, and has a nice, smooth mid range to it. An honorable mention goes to the NOS chinese (I still laugh when I say that!) and the JJ ECC83S's. The Chinese AX7's were a bit more "grainy" and had a higher noise floor than the JJ's. The JJ's are really solid tubes, but that GT-M has some mojo in it!

Much of the NOS stuff proved to be too microphonic. The Telefunken, JAN Phillips and EH's went into howl-land real easily. The JAN 5751's were GREAT in V2 to tame the overdrive a bit. The Sovtek's were all very quiet tubes as well, but lack much character. The Mullard clone sounds good, but it also was a bit microphonic, and it was noisy (more hiss/hum than most others) But it just works well in this application.


The Mullard and Brimar 12AX7's were very quiet and sounded great, but they already live in other amps!

Next up, power tubes!

I have a set of JJ 6L6GC's (rated "40" by EuroTubes) in there now, and a set of SED 6L6's on hand. I prefer the SED's in this amp. They have less bass than the JJ's, but that's a good thing. Nice chime to them. The SED's draw 41mA in this amp, while the JJ's drew 24mA.

I have a set of Shuguang Big-Bottle 6L6's on their way from Lord Valve. He highly recommended these. But that's all for another day!

Hey guys, Great forum so far. I have some questions for ya. I have a prototype rackmount .50 caliber head from 86'. Rumored to be Frank Gambale's old amp. This my first Boogie. I can get a great clean sound but I'm having a hard time getting a good dirty sound. If anyone has any suggestions could you let me know? It's a really cool amp otherwise. The front is handwritten, it's never had a face plate. The EQ is switchable on either channel as well. Also what was the RMS on these amps? Any info would help. Thanks in advance.
J.

I'm also having tons of trouble getting a decent dirty tone out of my boogie. I have to do the v-shaped eq or else it's very very nasally. Anyone else find that?

Also, even with the gain at 4, it's really saturated.

Think maybe my .50 cal's been modded?

I bought it used

Yeah! I've got the some problem. Can you (or anyone else) share the EQ settings that you are using? I've tryed a bunch of them. great clean sound, though, and it works great with my H&K Tubefactor. Now there's a good dirty sound.

For those of you having difficulty with the lead tone on the .50 - it just doesn't work unless the master's cranked. Also it does saturate quite early on the drive dial - if you reduce the drive it sounds pretty thin until the output tubes are overdriven.

A Route 66 overdrive pedal actually works great with the clean channel ... heresy I know.

Hey guys, bought a 50 Cal head about 6 months ago(EL84's). I absolutley Love this amp, but I am not sure when it was made. Any ideas on how to date this amp, or where to look inside to find the date?

If you remove the chassis, thr dates will be writted in "Sharpie" pen of the circuit boards and such...

Thanks Russ!

I love my 89 50cal+, but it's now a .75cal+...Russbert knows what I'm talking about.