The Boogie Board

I got the 10" because beggars can't be choosers here in Saudi Arabia. I was lucky to get it off another expat for what would be a reasonable deal if I were in the US (that means it's a very good deal here). I love the 5 watt settings. I find the 25 watts a bit unusual. Just a bit warmer and find that if feels like I'm playing with a compressor (I assume it's the Dyna settings kicking in).

-Chandler

Congratulations and have fun experimenting : you will have a lot to do with this amp. One suggestion : read the manual. If you are new to Mesa, you have to know how all those buttons and switches work together; and that's the main thing : they "work together" ! So gook reading !

Congrats on first Mesa. My first one was a 5:25 also (but a 1x12). If you don't have the manual, a simple search will get it for you. The sample settings in it are a good place to start. I play mostly classic rock and '80's metal, so I have been experimenting a bit. I have recently been using the crunch mode with the gain nearly maxed out, and lower master volume settings. For my purposes, it works . The ten inch speaker won't do wonders for your tone, but you can plug that amp into other cabinets and really experience some great sound.

I have two express series amps (550 and 550+)
The Class A 5w mode is where it's at. That is single-ended triode mode. This is how guitar amps are supposed to sound
Now, assuming you have a good guitar, all you need to do is make sure you're playing through good speakers.
Speakers make up half your sound.
If you have a celestion ceramic in your cab, I highly recommend supplementing that with a 10" low-watt ALNICO speaker to balance out the sound. Ceramic speakers are fine but alnico is much more musical, especially at low wattages, and 25w is definitely low-watt. I would shop around and find a good alnico to add in as a second speaker along with the first, probably an extension box.
Don't start tweaking or changing things until you have added alnico to the mix.

Best amp I've ever owned - clean on the blues channel and crunch on the ah ... crunch channel! Sounds like a million dollars! Enjoy!

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Boogie Chillen'

I put a 10" hemp Tone Tubby 40/40 in mine, plus a complete tone kit (tubes) from Doug's Tubes, sounds like a different amp! The TT speaker is awesome, doubles the low end...

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Electrics: Collings City Limits Deluxe / PRS Mira (core Korina), CE24 (2006 original), Studio (2012 new)
Acoustics: Ovation 1778T Elite (underrated!)
Amps: Mesa TA-15 / Mesa ElectraDyne 1x12 Wide / Roland GA-112 / Genz Benz Diablo 60

One unconventional that works great for me with my single coil Fender Strat is maxing gain and treble on the blues mode (for clean-ish tone), and the same settings on crunch for lead sounds.

Read the manual - then read it again
Keep the bass dial always under 11 oclock

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Gretsch Jet Firebird, Gretsch G5422, Gibson SG Deluxe, Strat Plus - Mesa 5:50, Mesa Mark V 25, analog pedal boards
Check my Mesa Soundclick recordings on http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default ... dID=792315

Welcome Chandler,

I agree with the other comments posted on this topic. The tone is great, but the stock 10" speaker in mine sounded "farty", no bass response. When plugged into a 1x12 speaker, this fixed the problem. When plugged into a pair of Celestion Blue speakers, the tone improved even more. Really great sounds.

For me, the best sound is "crunch" mode with gain almost 100%, bass way down, and Contour knob way up.

Also, I noticed the amp has some kind of low-voltage protection circuit that will switch off the amp when the AC power source drops too low. I believe this is a good design feature, because a friend of mine fried his Marshall amp when he accidentally plugged into a low-voltage dimmer circuit.

-Luke