I'd like to thank Mesa for the Roadster!

[Soma]

Nice, I always said if I had the money I'd buy a Roadster (alas it's never been the case). Instead I 'settled' for a used Tremoverb combo but I have to say my only complaint with it is it hasn't got 4 channels

Cheers.

 

[ibanez4life SZ!]

I don't NEED a boost with my Roadster...for metal rhythms, not at all.

For leads, just as a preference, I prefer the feel of a boosted amp, so I use my MIDI switcher to put the pedal in. That's just me being picky and using my available options though :wink:

I could play the amp without the pedal, and I could pull all my high gain metal tones no problem.

Eric

 

[YellowJacket]

Glad you've found you're sound, don't try an Electradyne.

Should have told me this yesterday =-o

Never found an amp that could touch my dual until I tried that sucker. Now it plagues me!

 

[davidfloyd]

The Electradyne's a great amp for sure. If I wasn't already 100% satisfied with my Roadster rig, I'd check one out more in-depth.

 

[thejay]

I love my Roadster!

 

[jtroska]

I'm curious, with the EL34s, do you feel the "need" to boost your recto for really heavy type stuff? I like recto tones, but there is just something that irks me about needing a boost to get optimum tone out of an amp

I'm using my Roadster stock and don't find any need for an external boost at all. In fact, I can't turn the gain up past 2clock without it getting silly. And that's at lower volume. I haven't even cranked the power amp very high yet. I'm sure once I get it really loud, I'm going to have to back that gain down a bit.

 

[Heritage Softail]

I posted my own review/blog of the Roadster earlier, but it bears repeating w/a link - I think we're in the same camp. I've gone through a LOT of gear... Rather than change tubes though, I felt a speaker change was needed to get what I needed from it.

http://www.legendarytones.com/mesaboogiestory2.html

Great review. I had the chance to play thru a Diezel 4x12 cab with the Celestions G12K-100s in there. The speakers did handle the lows a little better than the G12T-75's I have in my 2x12 cab at home. The 100s did well for low chugging, I mean you could instantly tell the depth was there. The top end with the 75's was never out of hand to me, so the tone controls always got me to the sweet spot. The G12K-100s are definitely up to the billing of your review, good and tight chugging with the Rec or Knuck, superb crunchy mids and leads with MKV or SLO.

Do you have any other gear reviews? Great detail and I like the honest comments on the weaknesses of the amp. Nothing is perfect.

 

[davidfloyd]

Thanks for the kind words Heritage! I don't have any other Mesa reviews posted at my site/blog. I try to keep up with the site as well as I can, but it's really a labor-of-love mostly and I just write and try and juggle that with family and work.

If you go back to the site though and then click the Amplifiers section, there's various reviews and features I've done over the years on Fenders and Marshalls as well as some boutiques. I try to mix things in with stories about tone tips that have worked for me as far as dialing in gear, or explaining some of the technical side of things at times.

And while I'm on the topic of the Roadster, I recently did a separate story on the Charvel SoCal guitar linked from the homepage and that includes a video where I'm playing through the Roadster. It's just a 2 minute deal - one minute of talking and one of playing, and only one of the channels. But it gives a sense of it at least for one aspect of one of the gainier sounds I went for (Channel 3 in Raw mode, gain up).

I think that if I stuck to using a 4 x 12 regularly, the G12T-75s would've been fine, but definitely in my 2x 12 situation (and it's really because of my drummer who plays quite loudly I suppose), I needed that extra bit of power handling capability that the K100's give. The added depth on the lowend was really just a bonus

David

 

[KH Guitar Freak]

Roadster with G12T-75 speakers sound like p00p IMO...

 

[davidfloyd]

Roadster with G12T-75 speakers sound like p00p IMO...

Couldn't disagree with you more. The 75s (or K100s for that matter) widen the frequency spectrum. V30's are not a bad speaker, but with so much mid emphasis, it can really sound too midrangey at times and and give that "boxey" honky sound and wear at your ears IMO.

But anyhow, different tastes, different opinions...no harm in any of them.

 

[Fordman65]

I love my roadster too, for the money (under $1500 used) I don't think you can go wrong. I'm curious about the KT77's. Any recommendations on a specifici brand? I need new tubez.

 

[Nazgul666]

I love my roadster too, for the money (under $1500 used) I don't think you can go wrong. I'm curious about the KT77's. Any recommendations on a specifici brand? I need new tubez.

You can get a JVM or less and htat's a pretty solid amp. Has anyone here A/b'd them?

 

[Fordman65]

I've owned 2 JVM's. Good amps, but too thin sounding for me. Maybe thin is the wrong word, just not very Marshally if you know what I mean. Kinda steril. Some guys like that though. I much prefer the Roadster. 2 totally different beasts though. Completely different sounds.