Best clean tone on a Mesa?

[Aceinthenite]

Which Mesa amp, presently, has the best clean tone? Specifically if you typically appreciate Fender blackface/silverface clean tones.

 

[TRENCHLORD]

Lonestar is basically their blueprint for amazing cleans, but really about all their current flagships have sweet cleans if setup properly.

 

[LesPaul70]

Yeah, Lone Star is the obvious starting point, given that it was basically inspired by the classic Fenders. And the same (Lone Star) clean mode can also be found on Roadsters and Road King IIs.

Also, the earliest Marks had very Fender-ish cleans.

 

[Aceinthenite]

How about the Mark 5? Is it capable of Lone-star or early Mark type cleans?

 

[LesPaul70]

The Mark V cleans are essentially based on the Mark I cleans.

They are very good. Not similar to Lone Star, however.

 

[elvis]

Electradyne. I had a 1965 Deluxe Reverb for decades. The Dyne has the shimmery high end, and will break up similarly if you set it that way. It also has WAY more headroom, so it has the bottom-end I always wished my Fender had.

Sold the Deluxe.

 

[SteveO]

The Mark V cleans are essentially based on the Mark I cleans.

They are very good. Not similar to Lone Star, however.

I'm not so sure about that. I had a Roadster (with the Lonestar clean circuit), and was able to get my Mark V really, really close to that sound on Channel one "fat" mode.

 

[knotts]

I say Lonestar. I think there is a good reason that Mesa has updated the clean channel on several of their amps based on the Lonestar circuit. It's a great selling point too. With that said, I hear a difference between my LSC clean channel and my Roadster clean channels. Both are very good, but the LSC seems to have a little more definition.

 

[kyldh]

I haven't played an actual Lonestar but I do love the Lonestar circuitry on my Roadster. I play clean blues way more often after buying that head because I love the way it sounds so much. If the actual Lonestar is even better... go for it! If you want some great high-gain channels to play around with as well, Roadster/Road King is a great option.