Members venturehead Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 Looking for recommendations on 30-50W tube amp to use as a gig backup to my Mesa F50. I play in a band that does classic rock and blues and I use both the clean and drive channels on the Mesa. Love it's sound and versatility, and am looking for a back up. I have a Fender Twin, but it's too big, and I'd like something smaller with similar sonic capabilities as the F50. Looking in the $500-1000 price range. I guess could buy another F50 used, but I think I'd like to try something else...Any thoughts or recommendations? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members timmyfirst Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 The Laney LC50 is a great amp, compact, powerful and superb to play through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Macelind Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 Mesa F-30? Too obvious? Looking for something different? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ke2 Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 Mesa Caliber .50+?You can probably have it for pretty cheap, and for classic rock, you get very usable cleans and overdrives. The loop isn't pedal-friendly, it's high output, and will overdrive the input of many pedals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mooktank Posted June 26, 2011 Members Share Posted June 26, 2011 Mesa DC-5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members greatmutah Posted June 27, 2011 Members Share Posted June 27, 2011 Mesa DC-5. This. Or DC-3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mesa/Kramer Posted June 27, 2011 Members Share Posted June 27, 2011 Might be a bit different but still great and you can't beat the Price at $499 And if your talking for purley back up, i just bought one of these for that very purpose for just $249 These amps sound great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tech21man Posted June 27, 2011 Members Share Posted June 27, 2011 mesa f-30 of course, while it will be different enough!!! I would buy the f-50 just for the extra headroom alone but the way the f-30 handles gain it is prefferable to me. More compressed, sweeter sounding overdrive maybe perhaps to the smaller wattage. This can work for you in smaller gigs. Even the clean channel crancked and/or boosted gets a sick tone from classic rock to extra heavy! OK, other alternatives. The f-50 does have two channels and a contour switch...making it at least a 2.5 channel amp if you run out of pedals...Jet citys don't do that with the one-channel or shared eq (lame for me) and the sound is soldano-ish to marshall wannabe. Not a real alternative. The dc-5 is one option and many prefer it to the f-50. Similar layout different gain structure. The .50+caliber as stated is a great amp, think Corrosion of conformity and it has the same preamp with the f-50 although not as modern sounding! I'd test out blackstar combos for new or the 6505+ 112 combo from peavey. If you are used to the style that an f-50 reacts (which is its bass mid treble boost and cut gain while doing tone shaping) then you need an amp that has them in the same order in the preamp: those are the peavey XXX super 40 combo which is a highly underated amp and can be had for super cheap. Its volume tapers are not on-off like the f-50 and its speaker is less sensitive which means you will think it is less loud! It is not the case. Wherever an f-50 fits, it does too. Its transformers are really big for a 40 watter and it retains articulation whereas the f-50 has a bit undersized (intentionally) transformers to get that sweet sag on almost all volume levels. Your last but heavy alternative for good bucks is to find a rivera design fender "the red-knob" evil (!) twin. It comes as combo with fuzzy fenderish speakers, but this is only half the truth. It's rivera designed style is super versatile with push pull knobs in every channel and a pressence knob with notch that takes you from marshall to boogie mkIIB (not that unlike from the f-50) easily. 100 watt that gets down to 25 and a semi-gain monster BUT only through the right, usually V30 cab. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AXEL276 Posted June 27, 2011 Members Share Posted June 27, 2011 When I had an F-50 my backup was a Tech21 Trademark 60 (1 x 12). The F-50 is long gone (and not missed), but I still have the TM60 and use it all the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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