Rare Barn Find Mesa

tomajoha

Found this beauty clearing a barn (literally). I think it belonged to my sister in law when she was in a sixth form indie girl band.

valves seem intact!

Sporky

A Boogie you can pick up with one hand? 

ICBM

The level of detail on that is really quite impressive. You can actually identify it as a MkIII, and it appears to be a non-reverb model...

tomajoha

ICBM said:

The level of detail on that is really quite impressive. You can actually identify it as a MkIII, and it appears to be a non-reverb model...

Agreed, I'm not sure it needed that level of detail on the back of the amp but someone obviously took their work seriously?

Modulus_Amps

Based on those graphic EQ settings the previous owner was more Metallica than Santana.

DartmoorHedgehog

That's pretty cool. Were they an official thing given away with new amps or 3rd party? If 3rd party I wonder if they made a whole range of amps.

tomajoha

DartmoorHedgehog said:

That's pretty cool. Were they an official thing given away with new amps or 3rd party? If 3rd party I wonder if they made a whole range of amps.

No idea, if anyone has a similar one or any information, I'd love to know

ICBM

Modulus_Amps said:

Based on those graphic EQ settings the previous owner was more Metallica than Santana.

The classic Mesa ‘deep V’, which you need to put back the bass and treble you took off the (pre-distortion) standard EQ, otherwise it sounds bloated and buzzy, and cut the mids you added too much of to make it responsive…

The pre/post EQ arrangement is very unusual and useful, and being able to auto-switch the graphic onto the lead channel even more so. You still can’t get the claimed Marshall sound out of R2 though, the gain structure and EQ is too different.

The real problem is that the completely shared EQ makes it impossible to get three - or even two, really - great sounds at the same time. You want the bass and treble up and the mids down on the clean channel, but the opposite on R2 and even more so on the lead, and even with all the pull-switch options it's a struggle to balance them. I still think it has the best lead channel of any Boogie though - I don't get the special love for the MKIIC.

Catthan

^^

I think nowadays you can balance the eq differences with tech like a helix which can control the channel switching and add missing frequencies with a dedicated clean channel preset

The 2c special love is more about how nice the amp feels to play under the fingers and less about how special it sounds. it doesn’t sound any more special than a 3, 4 or 5. i.e they all sound good. 

KrisGee

Have you tried dialling it in yet?

tomajoha

KrisGee said:

Have you tried dialling it in yet?

Disappointing really, sounds a bit boxy...

Fingers657

That’s a belter .

Sporky

tomajoha said:

KrisGee said:

Have you tried dialling it in yet?

Disappointing really, sounds a bit boxy...

And rather thin? 

digitalkettle

Sporky said:

tomajoha said:

KrisGee said:

Have you tried dialling it in yet?

Disappointing really, sounds a bit boxy...

And rather thin? 

Well, now that you've brooched it...