New Gibson Amps

Kent747

I see Anderton's is advertising the new Gibson amps. They look lovely but given that Gibson has done a reentry into amplifiers a few times now - anyone know anything about them?  Pricey little things. Gibson claims they're Mesa Boogie designed and handbuilt in California.

Falcon 5 - 1X10 @ £1659
Falcon 20 - 1X12 @ £1999

Both 6V6 and both, I would assume, heavily American-voiced.

InactiveX

That wonky logo looks awful. Are they all like that?

JezWynd

Could get toasty in there...



They're pretty combos but that's a hell of a mark up for the Gibson logo.

Lebarque

JezWynd said:

Could get toasty in there...



They're pretty combos but that's a hell of a mark up for the Gibson logo.

I think you could say that about any Gibson product these days unfortunately

jellybelly

I always considered Mesa amps to be 'pcb done right' - the level of automation in mass production that yielded better reliability than so called 'hand wired', without the corners cut. 

But, this looks like a dry solder joint waiting to happen, surely!?! That much direct heat in an enclosed space?? Am I just being stupid??

ElectricXII

jellybelly said:

I always considered Mesa amps to be 'pcb done right' - the level of automation in mass production that yielded better reliability than so called 'hand wired', without the corners cut. 

A lot of techs hate working on Mesas. Components installed on top of other components, tiny PCB traces, solder pads which are very fragile, and major disassembly needed to change components which are consumable items.

Our other guitarist has a Mark V, and all of the above applies to his amp. He's given up spending £££ to get it fixed and has gone digital.

Nerine

ElectricXII said:

jellybelly said:

I always considered Mesa amps to be 'pcb done right' - the level of automation in mass production that yielded better reliability than so called 'hand wired', without the corners cut. 

A lot of techs hate working on Mesas. Components installed on top of other components, tiny PCB traces, solder pads which are very fragile, and major disassembly needed to change components which are consumable items.

Our other guitarist has a Mark V, and all of the above applies to his amp. He's given up spending £££ to get it fixed and has gone digital.

Yeah, the difficulty of maintenance is one of the main things that puts me off a Mark VII. 

I’ve seen several YouTubers who know their stuff when it comes to amp teching that absolutely despise working on Boogies for the reasons you have mentioned above. 

snowblind

There's another thread covering this very topic from a month or two back. "Mesa Engineering" strikes again.

Kent747

JezWynd said:

Could get toasty in there...



They're pretty combos but that's a hell of a mark up for the Gibson logo.

This is a quick no for me. 

ICBM

jellybelly said:

I always considered Mesa amps to be 'pcb done right' - the level of automation in mass production that yielded better reliability than so called 'hand wired', without the corners cut. 

But, this looks like a dry solder joint waiting to happen, surely!?! That much direct heat in an enclosed space?? Am I just being stupid??

It's not that much heat - preamp valves don't get all that hot - and looks like there's ventilation at the top, behind the pots. High-power resistors mounted on a PCB are often a worse problem.

If anything it may be better than the typical Mesa (and many others) combo arrangement with the valves half out of the chassis but underneath the PCB so the heat rises straight into the board - and that rarely causes any issues.

I'd be a lot more concerned if the power valves were mounted like that, but they're not.

As I said in the other thread I wasn't a huge fan of working on Mesas either, but in their defence they go wrong less than a lot of other amps in the first place - the components are well-spec'ed and the PCBs are high quality. There are definitely other amps I'd refuse to work on ahead of any Mesa.