Just got my first Mesa, a 5:25. What do I need to know?

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Golem

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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!
 
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...
 
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.
 
Golem said:
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

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

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