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7K views 17 replies 8 participants last post by  Mr Orange 
#1 ·
Im seriously considering one of these amps! But at 35w is it going to be loud enough for gigging? Peoplehave told me that these amops are LOUD but 35w seems a bit small, i might have to consider the mk50.

Can anyone give me and advice from experience or otherwise?


Thanks

Al
 
#5 ·
I used to own a 45-watt Mesa/boogie Rocket-44. 1x12 speaker cab, handful of EL84's in the back. I rarely gigged with it above three, and the band I was playing with at the time was pretty damned loud.

If this is your first tube amp, i think you're going to be blown away at just how loud a low-wattage amp can be. Personally, I'm holding out for a good high-gain multi-channel 10-watt head, because i really doubt I'll ever need more than ten watts running hard, and if I ever do, I'll be mic'ing it.

Half the fun of a tube amp is running it hard- a low-wattage amp allows you to do this without scaring off your audience. I'm sure 35 will be moooore than ample.

-D
 
#6 ·
You won't be disappointed. The hellcat sounds phenomenal, if it isn't loud enough (which I can't imagine) you can always slave it to a bigger power amp, but just remember to keep a speaker load on it. The hellcat is probably the ultimate amp for me, but they're like $3500 over here stateside. Need to schedule that business trip to the UK and take an empty road case...hmmmmmm.
 
#9 ·
dissassociative- got any sound clips you yourself have recorded of the thing in action? The ones on their site rock, i just want to hear what it sounds like in the hands of one of us, working on their own.

also, how much cheaper do they run abroad?

-D
 
#13 ·
Drew said:
I used to own a 45-watt Mesa/boogie Rocket-44. 1x12 speaker cab, handful of EL84's in the back. I rarely gigged with it above three
That's because of Mesa's dirty little trick with volume control. They use "shunt" circuit - there are two resistors, one of them has constant resistance and another is variable (mistakenly called potentiometer by just about everyone) and tied to the ground. If they wanted to do this right they'd have to use reverse-log potentiometer there. These pots are very hard to find, but they could have placed a custom order or something. Instead Mesa uses linear potentiometers in their amps, so the change in volume is very non-linear (our ears are logarithmic). Strangely, this helps them sell their amps. Folks come into the store, turn the Mesa up to 3 and say "wow, dude, that's f#cking loud!", even though it doesn't get that much louder after that.

BTW, I've owned this amp and I regret selling it. It had excellent distortion.
 
#16 ·
microdmitry said:
Drew said:
I used to own a 45-watt Mesa/boogie Rocket-44. 1x12 speaker cab, handful of EL84's in the back. I rarely gigged with it above three
Folks come into the store, turn the Mesa up to 3 and say "wow, dude, that's f#cking loud!", even though it doesn't get that much louder after that.

BTW, I've owned this amp and I regret selling it. It had excellent distortion.
Yeah, I noticed that both about the Mesa in question and about the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe I owned a couple amps before that. It got VERY loud VERY quickly, but after about three or so it sorta tapered off, and while you got more grind out of the power amp as you went up, the actual volume change wasn't too pronounced.

This actually kinda bugged me- it made setting levels live a delicate process. "Ok, I'm not quite cutting? Let's set the lead level from 2.6 to 2.7. How's that? Ouch, sorry, a bit loud... let's go for 2.65... Damn, went too far. How's that? Better? A little more..." God forbid you needed to tweak your level during a song, lol.

My TSL is much more linear, as is every marshall I've ever played.

You're right about the distortion, though- I definately miss that amp. It only really did one sound well in the contour mode (the tone knobs were really more for subtle coloring than actual tone shaping), but man did it do it well. The contour mode could totally hang with the Mark II/IV series- not a dead-on replica, but another variation. And the lead mode could even bring my strat into Clapton "woman tone" territory- SO thick. Add a lush, expressive clean in there, and you've got a pretty sweet portable combo... Too bad the only way to do any substantial tone coloring was with the gain knob... Ah well. I guess I'm being too picky- if it ain't broke why fix it?

-D
 
#18 ·
microdmitry said:
Instead Mesa uses linear potentiometers in their amps, so the change in volume is very non-linear (our ears are logarithmic). Strangely, this helps them sell their amps. Folks come into the store, turn the Mesa up to 3 and say "wow, dude, that's f#cking loud!", even though it doesn't get that much louder after that.
So true. Still, Mesas are loud. :D Not louder than your other tube amp, but anyway...
 
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