mesa lonestar special vs matchless ad 30 vs vox ac 30

[varidrivelover]

Does anyone knows which one is the better/best between MESA Boogie lonestar Special , Matchless ad 30 and Vox ac 30, since they are all said to be class A tube amps? I found people gave the lonestar a glowing reviews in harmony central, any ideas? Matchless is the most expensive anyway... :roll:

 

[ylo]

You should add Bad Cat to your list.

The Lone Star Special uses an ordinary Fender (Blackface) tone stack, which I think is a disadvantage compared to the other amps you list in terms of versatility.

On the other hand, the LSS has two switchable channels, which most of the other do not, for better control over clean vs. overdriven sounds.

The biggest advantage of the LSS other than the lower price is the 5 W mode. Randall Smith really came up with something ingenious with this. He uses the same transformer for 30 W, 15 W and 5 W (single ended, one tube). He figured out a way to use two tubes in push-pull configuration for the 5 watt mode, but only one tube is actually amplifying. The other just acts as a balance on the other side of the transformer to the tube in use, sort of a DC only connection. You can actually get some power tube compression at fairly low volumes in the 5 W setting.

So to my ears, the LSS is not as tonally versatile as the other amps, but does a better job covering the clean to slightly broken up pushed sounds at manageable volumes.

 

[varidrivelover]

You should add Bad Cat to your list.

yes, Bad Cat is also one of the best amp I believe, sorry I forgot to put on the list, since I live in Asia and hard to find a Bad Cat here.

may be we should compare Orange AD 30 with them as well 8) , the rest I don't remember.

I heard some Vox AC 30 often Got reliability problems. may be I'll go with the Mesa Lonestar special 2x12", and swap the speaker with the Vox's Blue Alnico... :twisted: , is it a good idea? :shock:

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[ylo]

You could also get a 1x12 LSS. If you like the Celestion Blue sound, they have a new Celestion Gold that is supposed to sound just like the Blue but handles much higher power, enough to use one in the LSS.

I have not tried either speaker, but they both get good reviews.

The original Vox AC30 was a rats nest of wires. The new ones use PC boards, and may actually have better reliability, but will be harder to repair. Maybe you can find an AC30HW model, a hand wired version made a few years ago.