Baby Boogie/Metal?

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Sling75

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I love looking at and getting new gear. I miss not having a Mesa to look at and be a proud papa of. Problem is I want a boogie that is low wattage. 20 maybe 30 watts. Anything above 50 watts is pretty much to much amp for me and my wife and nieghbors. With that said my favorite music to jam along to is metallica. Is there any baby Booogies that would fit this style of play. I don't want to have to crank it up to get those tones either or force it into submission with a OD pedal either. I'm a guitar straight into the amp kinda guy. Right now I'm playing through a 25 watt Peavey and I seldom turn it up past Three. Two other options I've been going over is either 1) Picking up the TRIAXIS and running it through the power section of my PEAVEY or 2) Rebuying the ZOOM G9 that is tube driven pre amp that modules the Duel Rec clean, mod and Vintage channels and it modules the Mark III crunch as well.

Baby Boogie/Metallica?
Triaxis?
Zoom G9?

What guys think, help me chose gear I really don't need.
 
Although not really a "baby Boogie," I think you'd be pretty happy with a Single-Recto Solo 50, because it's GREAT for metal sounds, plus, it's a NO PEDALS REQUIRED kinda amp. Tons of gain, tons of presence, tons of bass. It's 50 Watts, but it sounds great at low volumes, and it's the "softest" <100-Watt amp I own. Don't let the Watts fool you. I have a 30-Watt DC-3 (not nearly as good for Metallica as a Recto), and it's WAY louder than my Recto. I don't have a Triaxis, but I have an Engl preamp, and, in my opinion, no preamp sounds quite as good as a good amp. And no matter what anyone says, no other non-Recto, Mesa amp sounds quite like a Recto. For scooped metal sounds, the Recto is IT. Forget the Zoom pedal.
 
Find yourself a Studio .22 with the graphic EQ and you should be able to get apartment-volume early thrash metal tones no problem.

The preamp is pretty similar to early Mark series tone, which is basically early Metallica.
 
All Boogie amps sound decent at low volumes. You can still have a 50 or 100 watt amp, just run it on "1" and you will be fine.
This way you won't have to limit your choice as to the Boogie you buy.

But if you must have a real low wattage amp, I hear good things about the F-30.
 
Mesa/Kramer said:
All Boogie amps sound decent at low volumes. You can still have a 50 or 100 watt amp, just run it on "1" and you will be fine. This way you won't have to limit your choice as to the Boogie you buy.
Agreed. All Boogies sound damned good, most, even at low volumes, and you shouldn't really limit your choices based on Wattage, since even the lowest-Wattage Mesa amps still need to be cranked VERY loud to get any power tube saturation. Low-Wattage amps don't really come into play until you get into the ultra-low Wattage, studio recording amps. Mojave AmpWorks makes an ultra-low Wattage amp, called the Coyote. It's variable from 1-12 Watts, and I assume, sounds excellent at low volumes, especially for recording applications. However, that amp is over $2,000 USD. On the other hand, Crate is soon offering the Class-A, 1-Watt "Killer Ant" tube amp, which sells for only $150 USD.

Mesa's current-production, low-Wattage offering is the Mesa Express 5:25, switchable from Class-A, 5-Watt, to 25 Watts. Haven't heard this amp, but, often the "low-Watt" settings on modern tube amps, don't sound "metal-ey" enough—it tends to be more "blues overdrive" than "Metallica." And, don't be fooled by the low number—a 5-Watt, Class-A amp is still loud as all hell. So, choose your weapon: Recto, Mark, or other . . . they all sound pretty good at '1.'
 
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