mesa boogie amps

[Incubi]

i have been seriously thinking about gettin a new amp to replace my practice piece of garbage fender champion 110 amp. i wanted to get a mesa boogie but there is a problem. first, most of these amps cost a whole lot and i never see them at music stores (well the ones around here) i am just wonderin if there are any combo amps from mesa boogie that are affordable as in 1000$ or less that still sound good.

also im wonderin what everyones thoughts are about the line 6 spiders because that my 2nd choice. i think they might be good because the got all those built in effects and stuff and it only costs like 600$.

[smfulla]

If you're looking for something with better tone than a rectifier and the same amount of grunt, go for the Peavey Triple XXX. It's around about half to 2 thirds of the price of a triple rectifier. It has 3 channels, Clean, Crunch and Ultra. The clean has a passive eq and both the ultra and crunch have active eq's (dunno what the difference is, maybe ESP_Viper could explain). Each channel has it's own eq. So if you're a Satch or Vai fan, you could dial in a killer solo setting in the ultra channel, then get a mellower bluesy sound for rhythm purposes (of course). That's pretty cool to me =]
I say get the peavey, save some money, and get an awesome product

[ESP_Viper]

It's VERY ironic that you asked this question. Months ago boogie stopped producing anything under 1000 bucks because their manufacturing process is too expensive for them not to sell their stuff for under a grand. So the answer to that question is no. They never really made anything with lots of gain under a thousand anyway. You might be able to find a used Mark III or Mark IV. The mark IV is pretty sweet. It comes as a combo and a head. To give you an idea on the tone it has, metallica used them on ...And Justice for All. I would like to have a mark 4, but I've got my amp here that I love.

Alternatives:
What he said, the Peavey Triple XXX. It's a very very tone rich amp with lots of gain. You might also look into the 5150 original or 5150 II. They are two channel amps, but have a bit more gain than the XXX. The 5150 combo is a 60 watt 2x12 combo, it's very heavy though. LOTS of gain and very tone rich. I love the 5150 series. The 5150s seem to be the favorite amp to mod, it's easy to mod. Though that's not anything to freak out about.

Look at Hughes and Kettner. They are a very cool company. They've got affordable stuff, and then they've got very expensive stuff. For you I recommend the Vortex. It's a 100 watt solid state half stack. A guy around here plays one in his band and it sounds GOOD. I've heard and agree that it's the closest solid state to a 5150 in terms of gain and tone. It's under a thousand bucks for the cab and head together. OR you may want to get just the head and get a more expensive cabinet. They are for sale on musiciansfriend. Here's the HK site. http://www.hughes-and-kettner.com/startseite/start.htm Take a look at the triamp just for ****s and giggles. It's a heavy duty amp that does so much it isn't even funny. My friend wants to sell his whole rack and two peavey 5150's for this thing!

[ESP_Viper]

Oops I forgot...

The Line 6 spiders sound good, but they don't do near as much as the Flextone II's do. So if you're going to go with a spider just go the whole way to a flextone II. It's got 2x the amp models and it has 16 cab models where the spider has none.

Also take a look at the Marshall AVTs, the AVT150H is a sweet sounding head that is 4 channels. Down side is it's pretty expensive and it doesn't have a cab. But it would sound really good.

[Krieselman13]

If you want a VERY good amp, go for peavy. I played on one and it was REMARKABLE! There are also Randle amps out there for the METAL guitarist. But they are a bit expensive for my taste. You could also go for Carvin.

[ESP_Viper]

Yeah, Carvin are pretty sweet too. The MTS and Legacy all tube heads are very pure sounding. www.carvin.com

Randall specializes in solid state amps. Dimebag Darrell uses the warhead, he helped design it. But like kries said, they're expensive. But worth a look.

[Krieselman13]

Im looking for people to start a band with and I will need a new amp for that, since all that I have now is a 15 watt bass amp. I am looking into half stacks. Anything over 100 watts, but not too much over it. I have found out Randall and Carvin. From what I have read on their sites, they have killer half stacks.

[smfulla]

whatever you go with man, go tube.

[ESP_Viper]

No actually, for someone like kries, where he's really just starting out, and is trying to start a band, tube is not necessary. It actually will be a pain for him. Tube is a lot higher maintenance than SS, and he doesn't need that volume that tubes have. A marshall AVT half stack will do fine for him.

[Krieselman13]

Thanx for the advice ESP. But I was going to go for a solid state any ways. I prefer to use pedals for my distortion, so I can get a better variety. I like to push those pedals any ways.

[smfulla]

awww... thought I was being helpful
hehe
oh well, do what ESP says

[fizz]

id mention marshall..
...but im scared of ESP...:P:D

[ESP_Viper]

Heh heh. Well it depends WHICH marshall ;). I don't like the old valvestate, JCM2000, JCM900, or the MGs. The JCM800 is sweet though. Marshall cabs are p1mp too.

People like the marshalls that I don't and that's cool. Whatever floats your boat. Marshall AVTs sound good, real good actually. I'd like to have an AVT150H and another 4x12 cab.