NAD!! I guess Badlander goes in this section?

spawnofthesith2 said:

It’s here

Obligatory Mesa tower

This thing is AWESOME. Never played a Mesa that was this straight forward to dial in. Dead simple, but also tons of different sounds available every knob seems to be usable across the range

Cleans are nice, not as good as a mark but beats the 5153 for sure. Lots of cool breakup sounds going up the the gain knob. The high gain tones are just though. What a rocking amp. Certainly doesn’t sound like your traditional rectos but I knew that going in. Bottom end is sick though that’sthe Biggest similarity to a rectifier imo. Plenty of gain for “modern metal” so not sure who started that rumor lol. Briefly experimented with boosting but honestly I just rarely prefer it. I automatically went to crush mode to get my high gain tones going but after some playing around found that I like crunch mode with the gain wide open was sounding epic for the brootz:love

I won’t comment on any “Marshally-ness” I’m not really a Marshall guy. My Marshall experience has mainly just been the jvm210. Which is an absolutely awesome amp but these gain tones tickle my fancy far more I can tell off the bat.

I spent most of demo time so far with my ce24 which is my de facto #1 at this point in time. But then I plugged in my Les Paul and holy **** it was like Zeus himself came down to nut lightening and thunder into my ear holes

Now my grievances:

1. No reverb. I know that’s a plus for some but I prefer onboard reverb even if it’s middling. All good though I can just add some simple reverb blocks to all my patches on the stomp and I’m good to go

2. Mesa makes my favorite tones but they always gotta have SOMETHING up with the loop that presents challenges for my hyper specific use case regarding looping. For my loops to be the same volume when changing channels the masters have to be set almost identical. There’s a little bit of wiggle room but not much. The thing is the modes definitely get louder progressively. I was able to get a “good enough” balanced levels but it did require running the gain knob for cleans slightly higher than I’d prefer so that I’m not losing too much volume. I’ll keep fiddling but I may just have to get more accustomed to tweaking volume knobs on the guitar to get my more pristine cleans when using this amp

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bandit2013 said:

I would agree with you. The BAD is bad as it gets without sounding bad. If that makes any sense at all.
The clean channel reminds me of the MWDR clean. The exception is that you do not need to have a drive mode for it. Push the gain up and you get into some vintage vibe of sorts. Probably because the amp makes use of a dc coupled cathode follower tone stack driver at the back end. I assume the 50W has Variac power mode like the 100W. If it does, Try that with the crunch and you do get into the Rectifier territory (when using the MWDR in spongy power with tube tracking). It will get a bit more scooped. Badlander is one of my favorite amps. So easy to use too.

Just a note on where the channel masters sit, they are after the FX loop. If you ever slave into another amp, make sure it has a master after the FX loop too or you will be getting full volume from that power section.

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rarebitusa said:

Congrats... I totally concur with those BAD takes. Having 4 other Mesas the Badlander was noticeably different right off the bat. Yea the clean voicing is not FAT like a IV/V but for sure dropping pickup vol helps.

What pickups are in your Les Paul? What's your take on 20 vs 50W?

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spawnofthesith2 said:

I'll wait til after my first band practice with it, but I think I'd like to check out 6L6s in here too,

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bandit2013 said:

Depends on what 6L6 tubes you run with. BAD is a Class AB amp. What I did like were the STR445 in green codes, and the STR448 in gray. The color codes will make a huge difference on overall character. the more early distortion of the power tube the better so green or gray would be the better choice over red or yellow. Most of the STR447 run in the gray and blue codes.

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spawnofthesith2 said:

I'll wait til after my first band practice with it

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spawnofthesith2 said:

I will say, I don’t think the EVM/thiele is the most suited cab/speaker combo for this amp. It was really nice for the clean channel, guessing that the high headroom of the EVM helped out there. For distortion, the amp is super thick and it seemed almost -too- thick with the EVM. It still sounded awesome but I think other cabs are a better match. So far I think the EVH cab with H30s is in the lead for me

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spawnofthesith2 said:

being a little different from the norm was definitely a selling point!

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bandit2013 said:

I felt the STR440 were not a good fit. I have all of the colors too as I have plenty of amps with different requirements. TBO, never expected reds to sound as good in the Roadster as they do. I normally ran with yellows. As for the MWDR, that amp came equipped with the STR440 grey, same tube the JP2C had. The early distortion of the grey works with Class AB amps but it depends on the amp in question. I tried the 440 grey, it was ok. After getting my hands on the Mark VII, that one had the STR445 greens. Too much early distortion for a simul-class amp. However, those tubes in the BAD100 did sound really good. Also tried a set of STR448 in grey which provided that Recto grind but without the bottom swamp. I sort of like the STR447 tubes in the BAD, they are not as harsh sounding as they are in the TC series (after you get some time on them, they will mellow out a bit in the TC). Since I have two BADS, I did a side by side comparison having one amp with the stock STR447 blues and the other with the STR445 greens. Not much of a difference except I had to push the channel volume up a bit more to get to the same loudness as the one with the EL34 tubes. Have not ventured into the unknown with other EL34 variants like the 6CA7, KT77 and the like. I did get a quad of STR446 to try out, very similar to the STR447 but with more clarity/details.

No rules on finding what works best for you (other than the 5 year warranty). Since the manual does not point out where the cathode follower circuits are located, the obvious is the FX loop send used in V4 and the other is the tone stack driver of V2. So that leaves you freedom for V1, V3, V5 if that is your desire to explore preamp tubes. Funny, the original PDF of the user manual has V5 listed as a 12AT7 but was changed to a 12AX7. Badlander100_201109 file has the 12AT7 listed. Badlander100_201214 has it changed to a 12AX7. I have one of the first 100 BADs, it came stuffed with all 12AX7 tubes. Sort of tempted to find out what a 12AT7 will do now that they poisoned me with miss-information from the start. I assume that number in the file name is YYMMDD so from 11/09/2020 they had 12AT7 and changed it to 12AX7 on 12/14/2020 before the first batch was pushed out the door. Never looked in the manual that came with the amp as I had both of the online files.

I do not think it is possible to get a Fender clean (Lone Star, Mark) from this amp as it runs the pair of gain stages into a DC coupled Cathode follower tone stack driver (V2). Perhaps that is where the Roadster and the MWDR have an advantage, as the tone stack is plate driven on the clean channel(s) and does not get compressed in the same tone stack driver used by the gain channels. MWDR and Roadster have very excellent sounding clean channels. Much more open sounding.

The BAD clean is more like the California Tweed but having one more gain stage before pushing itself into a DC coupled cathode follower tone stack driver. It has some similar properties to it but yet has more of a drive structure than the Tweed. The CT is one gain stage and then the tone stack driver and that is it. Super simple. Oh yeah that can easily be pushed into overdrive. Actually I found the BAD clean can get into that characteristic. Compared to the amp that uses the same enclosure, TC100/TC50 (a spin-off of the RA100) is more like the ED clean channel (actually they are identical on the clean channel design), more of a fender circuit, typical three gain stage with the tone stack driven from the plate of the first gain stage with two gain stages following. That is almost like the Mark clean circuit, Lone Star CH1, Roadster CH1,CH2 and the MWDR CH1.

BAD vs MKVII, the two modes that are essentially the same circuit (crunch and Crush, vs crunch and VII). The first three gain stages, they are identical. The exception is the fourth gain stage, same plate and cathode resistors. However, the MKVII has the tone stack in front of the 4th gain stage and the BAD condenses it down with a different tone stack driver. There are some similarities in their characteristics but yet differences in the delivery of sound through the speaker. I am getting a dumb idea to try slaving into the Mark VII from the Badlander. I did try that with the BAD to JP but never tried it with the BAD to the MKVII. I may have tried it with the TC100 as well. Now I am just rambling on about nothing.

Sorry for going deep here and totally off topic.

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Neptical said:

@spawnofthesith2

Congrats! Nice rigs you have there.
BAD is certainly on my radar to try at some point. Trying to find a place for it since having an F 50/100, Express 5:50+, Mark IIIs, Single/RoV and Dual Rectifier. Just not sure if there's a ton of crossover I already have. Huge fan of Mesa 50w and 6L6 for the big, fat cleans.

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bandit2013 said:

I figured out the Roadster for use with the 7 string. Sounds epic but you need some old Mesa tubes (Chinese Beijing square foil getter, aka 6N4-J military grade preamp tubes) and the STR440 reds. For me that was just a fun find as the Chinese tubes curbed the low end swamp. The 6 string also sounds epic with that too. That was totally unexpected but worth messing around with. Still have not figured out the MWDR if there are any tricks for that to run the 7 string. Not a big deal. BAD is a beast with the 7 string guitars as is.

I do not have comment or answer to the question on the STR430 or the STR440 blue. Actually never came across blues in a 6L6 tube.

You have STR440 blues in the Mark V90? Well that would be interesting. I bet those are a rare find. The Simul-class amps do not need the early distortion of the green, grey, or blues as the extended class A does a fine job on getting into tube saturation. As for the STR430 tubes. Are they not Sovteck tubes? I keep thinking of the coke bottle STR420 that were stock in my Mark IVB combo. I liked those tubes a great deal but when I tried them in the Mark V, they got fried. They were 12 years old but did not get much use. At the time, the Mark V90 was red plating everything except for the SED =C= 6L6 tubes. Never tried the STR430 tube. Depending on the age of the tube (how much use you have on them), not a good ideal to migrate to a different amp unless you do not mind replacing them. I wanted to see how the SED =C=EL34 (Mesa STR442) would sound in the BAD. Lost a pair of them almost instantly. I had replacements for the RA100 already installed in that amp so it was no big deal burning out the tubes as they were practically near EOL to start with. Did not blow the fuse, just had one tube red plate as I could see it though the vent on the front of the amp. I have the BAD100 if that matters.

The STR440 has more of an angry bee's nest sound to them. Probably why I like them in the Roadster and MWDR. No experience with the STR430, wonder if it is anything like the STR443. I did not get that Recto sound with the STR440 in the BAD. Perhaps that is what I was hoping for in some ways. Different tube impedance with the 6L6 compared to the EL34 tube. I assume the OT is geared more for the EL34 which may explain why there is some volume loss when running the 6L6 tubes. Also, it is Class A/B so that also makes it different than the Mark V, or IV. The blues may have some merit (early distortion). Not sure what to expect as I did not feel the greys had enough. Different sounding tube than the STR448 and STR445. I will have to go back to my posts on the BAD when I first got it. I probably covered all of the power tubes I tried.

If it has a Mesa blessing printed on the glass, you are within the bounds of the 5 year warranty.

Hard to say what other tubes will do justice in the BAD. At the moment, I am rather impressed that Mesa pulled it off with the STR447 EL34 as I found them to be harsh and shrill sounding in other amps (TC and RA). Since I run with two BADS, I have a set of greens and blues mixed together in both. Blues on the outside and greens on the inside. I placed the hotter tubes so they stay active in the 50W and 25W modes.

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