considering a Marshall-esque Boogie head

Stiletto II (I've owned one and liked it for a while until it kept blowing power tubes and I returned it)

Electra Dyne (played one once at a store and it seemed very loud)

Royal Atlantic (saw it at NAMM 2011)

I'm leaning towards the ED or RA but the RA would be my preferred due to the multi-soak (I play at home mostly nowadays) but then the RA is expensive.

Seems hard to find an RA used, huh?

I've also been looking at H&K Switchbalde and Coreblade (auto-biasing with any mix of tubes you want!)

I play this kind of stuff: RHCP, Miles Davis (KoB), Jane's, Scofield, Metallica, RATM, Doors, Floyd, Zep, AC/DC, (mostly 60s and 90s basically)

amp needs to be able to shine in both rhythm and lead and handle distorted jazz chords (i.e. hear at least 4 tones at a time clearly, no mud). dorian, mixolydian, blues, half/whole death progression.

btw, what the hell happened to modern guitar-based music other than djent (Animals as Leaders, Veil of Maya, etc.) it's all **** since ~2000. sucks man.

It seems to me the Royal is what you want, it does everything you described very well. They are hard to find used because they are so new, give it a few months and I'm sure you'll see them start popping up. That's what I'm banking on anyways, I have the ED and I love it... but I want the RA-100 as well so I'm waiting to snag one used for cheaper.

The RA would cover all of that but is not anything close to a wife/baby-friendly or apartment-friendly amp even with the power soak. The power soak goes from JCM800-with-all-the-knobs-up loud to normal-human-drummer volume, not from drummer-volume to loud-TV-volume. If you dial in the RA to be that quiet, there's no EL34s clipping and it's a pretty limited amp because it's really designed to integrate power tube distortion into its tones. It's a godlike amp if you can play at normal rehearsal volumes (because then you get the voice of Thor at a volume that will not kill other members of your band) but if you can't, eh, there's waaaay better things to spend two grand on.

does it have a 100/50 watt switch?

rabies said:

does it have a 100/50 watt switch?

Click to expand...

yeah but it doesn't make that much difference except in headroom on the clean channel.

when i play thru a tube amp, it's typically with 2-4 power tubes and the master volume on 2/10. so this is not a wife/baby situation. you may as well write stories or compose songs at that point.

mesa's sound the best around 3-5 out of 10 i've noticed. after that (I have maxed out my ex-IV) they start to over-saturate in the power section and sound worse IMO.

The switchblade (for the price and features) is very attractive but they don't sell a 50 watt head...

can you always pull 2 out of 4 power tubes in a tube amp???

CoG said:

rabies said:

does it have a 100/50 watt switch?

Click to expand...

yeah but it doesn't make that much difference except in headroom on the clean channel.

Click to expand...

beg to differ. typically you get much more bass response with 100 watts.

i remember one of the guys at mesa hwood said he was using the trident for more headroom and bass.

btw, i got some sick elongated single notes (aha, sustain!) with the master on 10/10 on the Marshall 2266 recently in HDR. It just doesn't have the crunch with the KT66 tubes (although they sound very complex and better for cleans).

maybe i can try a distortion/boost pedal in front to see if it adds crunch? i usually go straight into the preamp nowadays though.

rabies said:

CoG said:

rabies said:

does it have a 100/50 watt switch?

Click to expand...

yeah but it doesn't make that much difference except in headroom on the clean channel.

Click to expand...

beg to differ. typically you get much more bass response with 100 watts.

i remember one of the guys at mesa hwood said he was using the trident for more headroom and bass.

Click to expand...

yah, on most amps, but I am talking specifically about the RA (I own one). using even one "level" of the power soak totally negates any difference in bass response between 50 and 100 watts. And if you don't use the power soak at all, most of the RA's good tones are JCM800-loud.

neither the blue or red channels in the RA have a lot of bass on tap anyway. the clean does.

can you get a bone-crushing Ministry Filth Pig tone out of it? They were running JMP-1 into EL34 monoblocs.

rabies said:

can you get a bone-crushing Ministry Filth Pig tone out of it? They were running JMP-1 into EL34 monoblocs.

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dude you live in LA, just go to the store and try one. I'd say put the red master at like 2 o'clock, bass at noon, mid at 11, treble at 12:30, volume at 1:30 and start screwing around... dial in too much bass using the the bass knob, then cut the bass by increasing the treble. volume increases saturation but also makes it very "fat". master increases aggressive tight grind but makes the sound a bit thinner and your overall volume gets real high. the secret to higher gain sounds with the amp is to use a combination of the "volume" and "master" knobs while using the power soak.

the ppl who work at mesa hollywood don't belong there. bunch of pricks. stay far away....

Yes the Electra Dyne is a loud amp but you can use it at lower volumes if you slightly nudge the master up and use an OD pedal. But be careful as it gets loud REALLY fast. But it sounds so damm good. However, I think the Royal Atlantic is a little brighter sounding with a little more upper mids going on and I played one and thought it sounded really good at low volumes. Of course these amps sound a lot better loud but to me they can be used at late night.

I have a wife that goes to bed at 9:00pm and a 2 year old who asleep by 7:00pm and I use my Electra Dyne up until midnight. But often times when I know nobody will be home I try to take advantage of it and crank the Electra Dyne up.

CoG said:

The RA would cover all of that but is not anything close to a wife/baby-friendly or apartment-friendly amp even with the power soak. The power soak goes from JCM800-with-all-the-knobs-up loud to normal-human-drummer volume, not from drummer-volume to loud-TV-volume. If you dial in the RA to be that quiet, there's no EL34s clipping and it's a pretty limited amp because it's really designed to integrate power tube distortion into its tones. It's a godlike amp if you can play at normal rehearsal volumes (because then you get the voice of Thor at a volume that will not kill other members of your band) but if you can't, eh, there's waaaay better things to spend two grand on.

Click to expand...

I thought the RA did fine at lower volumes. Sure it will sound better loud, but sounded fine to me when I played it at what i call, "barely on volume". 8)

danyeo1 said:

CoG said:

The RA would cover all of that but is not anything close to a wife/baby-friendly or apartment-friendly amp even with the power soak. The power soak goes from JCM800-with-all-the-knobs-up loud to normal-human-drummer volume, not from drummer-volume to loud-TV-volume. If you dial in the RA to be that quiet, there's no EL34s clipping and it's a pretty limited amp because it's really designed to integrate power tube distortion into its tones. It's a godlike amp if you can play at normal rehearsal volumes (because then you get the voice of Thor at a volume that will not kill other members of your band) but if you can't, eh, there's waaaay better things to spend two grand on.

Click to expand...

I thought the RA did fine at lower volumes. Sure it will sound better loud, but sounded fine to me when I played it at what i call, "barely on volume". 8)

Click to expand...

+1 - With the max power soak, the RA is definitely bedroom / living room friendly

JAZZGEAR said:

+1 - With the max power soak, the RA is definitely bedroom / living room friendly

Click to expand...

I guess... at "bedroom" kinda volumes I always apply the "amplitube test" which is whether amplitube 3 sounds better at that volume and the answer's usually yes.

The funny thing is that my wife actually likes the RA a lot more than my Mark III, so she minds less if I crank it a little when she's home (she's a musician too so she actually knows what she's hearing.)

been doing tracks with the RA over the past ten days and in case rabies is still reading this thread... yeah, the RA can get pretty extreme if you drop an eq in the loop but you'd probably be better going back to a green stripe mark III. It can get really heavy but never "brutal".

I say again, though, Mesa should try to get a couple of these to Mastodon.

I am digging the Stiletto and can get very similar jcm2000 tones. I can actually get it down to bedroom volumes by using 50w, spongy switch, through a 1-12 cabinet.

Do yourself a favor and buy it new. Unless you know the person you are buying from, I think a lot of noise / reliability problems with Mesa's come from people #$(*&@ with them and then trading them in or selling them.

CoG said:

JAZZGEAR said:

+1 - With the max power soak, the RA is definitely bedroom / living room friendly

Click to expand...

I guess... at "bedroom" kinda volumes I always apply the "amplitube test" which is whether amplitube 3 sounds better at that volume and the answer's usually yes.

The funny thing is that my wife actually likes the RA a lot more than my Mark III, so she minds less if I crank it a little when she's home (she's a musician too so she actually knows what she's hearing.)

been doing tracks with the RA over the past ten days and in case rabies is still reading this thread... yeah, the RA can get pretty extreme if you drop an eq in the loop but you'd probably be better going back to a green stripe mark III. It can get really heavy but never "brutal".

I say again, though, Mesa should try to get a couple of these to Mastodon.

Click to expand...

does it really matter? XM had lots of nirvana recently and that guy used a SS power amp I thought. not the best tone but works for that music.

i really like my VM 2266 now for in the house, decent sounding at lower volume and very dynamic.

i re-biased the switcblade (to 70%+) and need to jam it again.