Mesa Amp Opinions Needed

Hello everyone. Mesa newb here looking for some advice.

Stocked up on some gear over the quarantine. (Gibson SG and Marshall DSL40CR) First electric setup I’ve had in 10 years. Love the SG but the Marshall isn’t working out. Have had it for about a month and cant dial in a gain channel tone to satisfy. The crunch and OD1 channels are too middy and bright, and the OD2 channel gets the saturation I want but it lose clarity and become muddy. Pretty sure the EQ knobs on the Marshall are for show.

My influences are Smashing Pumpkins, Hum, Deftones and a smattering of new instrumental type music like Dialects, And So I Watched You From Afar, Chon etc. I have a buddy down the street with drums who I play with occasionally and we have some differing tastes but settle on stuff in the ballpark of Gary Clarke, Marcus King, AC/DC etc.

I say all that to give a reference, but was wanting to get some opinions from you guys regarding the following Mesa Amps. I do have a local shop that carries Mesa amps and I plan to play them all, but for the sake of doing home work wanted to get any opinions I could on these amps, strengths/weakness, who generally plays them etc.

Triple Crown (50w)
Mini Rectifier (25w)
Mark V (35w)
Fillmore (50w)

Local shop does not have a Lonestar to play.

Plan is to get a 2x12 Mesa cab and then buy a head. I’m not opposed to the combo varieties of those amps, but my combo experience with the Marshall has me thinking to go with a stand-alone cab/head so if something doesnt work out, I’m not having to switch the entire setup like I am now. No idea how that would impact opinions of the above as stand-alone vs combos.

Any feedback greatly appreciated!

TBH you're really talking about Marshall or Orange tones on most of those.

Any reason you're not buying used? For most of the amps listed below plus a new Mesa 2x12 you could get yourself a used 2x12 and a used Marshall DSL50 head AND a used 2ch Dual Rec head and be way better off.

CoG said:

TBH you're really talking about Marshall or Orange tones on most of those.

Any reason you're not buying used? For most of the amps listed below plus a new Mesa 2x12 you could get yourself a used 2x12 and a used Marshall DSL50 head AND a used 2ch Dual Rec head and be way better off.

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I have a Marshall DSl40 combo and am not entirely happy with it. (Clean channel is ok, gain channels range from thin and middy on the lower gain channels, to a saturated mess on OD2.Lacking any real articulation in this OD2)

I actually went to a dealer today and played a bunch of Mesas.

Mark 5 35w Combo. Besides being a nightmare with 137 buttons, the best I could get out of it was a majorly scooped and thin tone.

Rectoverb 25 Combo. Maybe the best clean tone I’ve ever heard. Seriously it was glorious and I thought I was buying this amp. And then I went to the gain channel, and it was so abrasive and oh my gosh loud. Like if I could have gotten a marginally decent gain tone I would have bought it since the clean was spectacular but I just couldn’t even do that. There really aren’t that many knobs on the amp, and I couldn’t get anything out of that channel without it being bright and abrasive. (It may be 25w, but is stack that sucker up against anything I’ve played 50w and under in terms of shrillness)

Triple Crown Combo. Almost bought this amp out of fatigue. lol (Spent two hours in the guitar shop) This amp does everything good. It also, to me, lacked character, and didn’t excel at anything, except I will say while the overall channel 3 gain channel was generic in tone to my ears, it was perhaps the most articulate amp I’ve played under heavy saturation. Just wish there was one channel in it that blew me away. Impressive amp nonetheless.

Mini Rectifier. I played this first and thought it was blah at best. But, before I left I plugged back into it and realized the friggin master volume was at 8:00am lol. I turned it to about 10:30 on the master and near dimed the gain, and that little sucker came life. I think I’m going to go back tomorrow and try it through the Mesa 2x12 cab.

No aversion to buying used. I just don’t have enough experience with Mesa to be informed enough to buy second hand, though tonight helped.

Howdy

You pretty much wrapped up the base tonality of each Mesa’s offering :lol:

Mark V combo will always be light in carrying and also light in bass. Using the amp as head with closed back cab will give more balanced tones.

Recto drive tones are abrasive (without external eq very hard/impossible to dial out) and mostly acquired taste :lol:

TC as combo did not make me smile also - I think the speaker was not yet broken in.

I bought the Electra-Dyne twice. First time having hard time deciding between ED and stiletto. Latter occasion had gorgeous NOS custom finished combo calling my name and the deal was done. Sold the first one (head) only because the carry-around part was getting heinous for small gigs :x

From those I would take the TC as it’s an evolution from ED

Came very close to trading in my DSL for the Mini Rectifier. Probably would have done so if I didn’t have to take such a haircut on the DSL40CR at the shop that deals Mesa, vs being able to get a full refund at GC. (Which doesn’t sell Mesa, smh)

That said was pretty impressed with the Mini. Much brighter than you’d expect of a Rectifier from reputation. Very solid clean tone, not as good as the Rectoverb but I thought better than the Triple Crown. Drive channel has some mean straight forward tones. Hard to take out of 10w mode at volume. Slightly inarticulate under heavy gain but might be the settings I had. (Though was following setting from a YouTube that got some great tones for it)

Did by a 2x12 Mesa cab though, which did make a massive difference with the DSL. Will fiddle with it a few days, before returning to GC. Question is will it be enough to keep considering another Marshall (Maybe Orgin 50 as a pedal platform, or bumping up to SC20H) Mini Rec definitely making a strong impression. Don’t know if I have the willpower to even consider its older brother. lol

Though business this amp buying is. LOL.