Express 5:25 1x10 First Impressions?

[Monsta-Tone]

OK, so I picked up a 5:25 1x10 combo yesterday.
Serial # is in the low 600's. Not sure what year it was made.
Traded some amp work for it, so it really cost me just some time and parts. :mrgreen: My favorite way to pay for things! :mrgreen:

The reverb didn't work, so I swapped the tank. The return transducer is open on the original tank!

I got to play it for about 20 minutes this evening! Here are my initial impressions:
Guitar: PRS Custom 22 with Duncan P-Rails pickups & McCarty wiring. Middle position on a 3-way switch. No coil tap.
Amp is completely stock, original tubes, exact reverb tank replacement.

The reverb decay is a bit fast for me, I think I'll tone it down a little bit.

The cleans seem a bit sterile to me after having a Maverick for a year or so.
They just don't seem to have much sparkle or shimmer.
Not sure if it's the speaker. The guitar has tons of tone and never fails to make me smile when the amp is right!
I really like the contour on this channel, set at about 11:30 or so. Really opens the channel up on the Clean setting

I didn't play much with the Crunch or the Blues settings, although the Blues sounded pretty good with the gain at about 3:00 or so.

I really like the Burn setting for single note leads!
Lots of great Boogie tone there.
I used it without Contour and then kicked the Contour in for a little bit of lead boost.


All in all, I will need to log some time with the amp, but so far, I really like it. Most of it anyway.

 

[Monsta-Tone]

What settings are you guys using for your Cleans?
What tubes for your Cleans?
What speaker?

 

[Bob Womack]

Right now my 5:25 is all-stock. I use the Blues channel as my clean sound and run it around 10 o'clock on gain. Treble is around 2 o'clock, bass and mids are 12 o'clock, contour is 12 to 2 o'clock.

If your reverb decay is fast, think twice about the swapped out tank. The original in my 5:25 has the most strikingly long reverb of any string unit I've ever used - possibly a bit too long.

Enjoy fiddling and don't forget to try crunch for lead sounds.

Bob

 

[Don]

The reverb tank in my Express 5:50 failed and was replaced under warranty. Not Mesa's fault, but I wonder how common it is.

I've had this amp for over 3 years and discover new ways to use it regularly! Right now I've got the clean mode's gain at about 9:00 and it's master at about noon. I used to run those the opposite way. It's brighter with more sparkle this way. I'm using the blues mod with the gain at noon and the master at 9:00. I also kick in the burn mode with the guitar turned down for slide playing.

I love how the amp interacts with fuzz pedals. Between the clean sound and low-ish gain blues mode, I can get a lot of different sound out of them.

I found the 5:25 1x10combo to sound a little boxy compared to the 5:50 1x12 combo.

 

[Monsta-Tone]

Thanks guys!
I used to be a Mesa tech. Not sure anymore, haven't gotten to work on many amps since we moved back to Hawaii.

I used my workbench tank, which was the same exact model and sounds fantastic with just about every other amp I've tried it with.
I'll shoot Mesa an email today and see what they think.
If every one else has lush deep, long reverb, maybe something else caused my tank to go out.


I think the 1x10 does sound a little boxy on the cleans. I may change my mind though when I start using the Crunch mode.
I might end up putting a Weber in there and fixing the boxy-ness altogether.....

 

[Bob Womack]

In class-A crunch mode the darn 10" comes alive!

 

[Monsta-Tone]

Thanks Bob!
How are you running channel 2 when in Crunch/Class A?

 

[Bob Womack]

Live, I still use it as my clean. I use all of the sounds, largely by ear and memory, when working up new sounds for recording. I just noticed that the Crunch sound in Class A on a 10" makes a Les Paul sound just like the intro to the Doobie Brothers' Rockin' Down the Highway. Tasty!

Bob

 

[Don]

The reverb in my 5:50 is really nice (with the original tank before it failed as well as the replacement tank)! Nicer than the reverb in my Vibrolux Reverb, Super Reverb and the Princeton Reverb that it replaced (and it doesn;t even have "Reverb" in its name!).

BTW, I mentioned that the 5:25 1x10 sounded boxy. It's not ll bad. It's very cool for crunchy tone. The cleans just weren't as luch as the 5:50 1x12 (but niether were the Princeton Reverb's cleans compared to the Vibrolux Reverb!).

 

[J.J]

The reverb decay is a bit fast for me, I think I'll tone it down a little bit.

The cleans seem a bit sterile to me after having a Maverick for a year or so.
They just don't seem to have much sparkle or shimmer.
Not sure if it's the speaker. The guitar has tons of tone and never fails to make me smile when the amp is right!
I really like the contour on this channel, set at about 11:30 or so. Really opens the channel up on the Clean setting.

I hear things a lot like you. I find the reverb quite short, especially when compared to other Mesa amps like the Lonestar and ED (which could be a bit long). I guess Mesa has the dwell set quite low.

The 5:25 is not a bright amp and lacks sparkle for me. It has plenty of treble, but the high presence is not there. I like to boost the 6Khz just a little with a Boss GE-7

The 10" speaker does sound a little boxy when compared to the 12" version.

I changed a number of the preamp tubes for the Tung-Sol re-issue 12ax7 and that does help add some sparkle.

Burn mode can really sing and has become my favorite with a Les Paul.

 

[Monsta-Tone]

Well.... :lol: It's a good thing I have an amp shop! :lol:

I will probably change the Dwell on the reverb a little to make it more lush. It's pretty hard to go from a Maverick's reverb and cleans to the Express.

The good side is I love distortion and the Express has way more on tap than the Mav did! If I can work with the tubes and speaker a little to get the cleans and verb the way I want, this amp is keeper!

 

[jsabo]

i run gain @ 11 oclock, treble @ 1 oclock, mids @ 11 o clock, bass @ about 9-10 o clock for CLEANS. my contour is usually off - 9 o clock if im using single coils.

if i use my LP, the contour can go as high as 1 o clock. makes things more articulated.

may seem obvious, but if youre using the second channel for leads, remember to leave the contour off or very low to maintain mid character

 

[edward]

For a more "old-school" flavor (lousy description, but that's all I got right now), that's less modern and more fluid, try "reversing" the channels: Blues channel set low gain for clean and semi-cleans; Crunch channel set 12:00 and beyond for OD and grind.
For me, it's glorious; I'll never go back.


Edward

 

[dadoffive]

+1 to using the Burn Channel for Clean as well. The little bit of "hair" I conjour up does a mean "Mary Jane's Last Dance"!!!

 

[Pappy]

For a more "old-school" flavor (lousy description, but that's all I got right now), that's less modern and more fluid, try "reversing" the channels: Blues channel set low gain for clean and semi-cleans; Crunch channel set 12:00 and beyond for OD and grind.
For me, it's glorious; I'll never go back.


Edward

Yeah I've been using Blues mode for clean and the crunch for leads for the past couple of months, w/o any pedals, except the channel/reverb/contour foot switch. I've been able to conjour up some nice tone, regardless whether of using single coils, or humbuckers. These little 5:25's a such cool little amps!

 

[jsabo]

i think the 1x12 has no problems that the 10 inch might

 

[Reif]

When I heard my LP through my 5:25 1x10, I was hooked! Strats and their ilk need much more twiddling and tweaking, but I can't get a bad sound out of it with my LP or V. I'll always own this amp!