NAD - Lone Star Special

[ifailedshapes]

I traded my Ace for screamingdaisy's LSS. International shipping has been a huge PITA that I won't miss now that it's over. That being said, this amp is a dream. I love that the clean channel has a tiny bit of grit to it. It's not Lone Star Classic clean, and I really like it. I'm also enjoying the overdriven tones I'm getting in channel 2.

For fun, I dimed the Drive and Gain knobs with the voicing set to Thicker and was amazed at the very usable rock and roll tone coming from this amp. That was with the bridge pickup in my Strat, for anyone who's interested.

I will miss the high-gain fury of the Stiletto, but the Special is a much better fit for me.

Also, I have nothing negative to say about the transaction with screamingdaisy. His communication has been great, and he has been very personable throughout the entire process.

And if anybody asks me for pictures, I'll just post a link to a Google image search. This amp is your standard 1x12" LSS combo.

 

[plan-x]

Cool deal. Welcome to the owners club now. :lol:

 

[ifailedshapes]

Cool deal. Welcome to the owners club now. :lol:

Yeah, it is about time, isn't it? I've only been posting in this forum for a couple years. I took my sweet time getting here, and I took a couple excursions on the way, but I'm glad I've owned other amps first because I really appreciate what I have now. I don't see me ever parting with this amp. It would be nice to get another high-gain monster someday, but that's really just for my butt-rocker alter-ego. :mrgreen:

 

[plan-x]

I didn't realize you were a poser until now. :shock: :lol: Sometimes I thought Daisy was the poser. Not so sure he didn't post always without a Lone Star amp in his possesion. You flew under the radar. 8) Anyways...you got the package and it's a good one. You live abroad? The shipping must of been a killer.

 

[ifailedshapes]

No, I live halfway between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe - one of the most beautiful parts of California. Sreamingdaisy, on the other hand, lives in Canadia.

I always knew Canada was another country, but I never really thought of it as being international, if that makes any sense. Well, UPS reminded me just how international it is with a nice C.O.D. But again, screamingdaisy was stellar in that he split it with me because he didn't have to pay anything for the amp that I shipped via USPS. I also paid no import fees on the speaker which he sent via Canada Post. The moral of this story is that if you have to ship anything between the U.S. and Canada, use USPS / Canada Post.

One thing that he and I both have in common is that we have some good experience with a substantial part of Mesa's current lineup, so even when I was 'posing' I made sure I had some knowledge to back up what I was talking about.

 

[plan-x]

No, I live halfway between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe - one of the most beautiful parts of California.

Yeah, there is some nice places in between those two. I had been vacationing at Tahoe the last few years but went to Hawaii instead this year. I live in the desert and it ain't so beautiful. Of course that depends on the individual. I'm good with it because it's warm enough to swim at night still.

What I like about the LoneStar amps is warmth. Most others will sound brittle compared to the LS's.

 

[ifailedshapes]

Well, I have another update. My 18-month old daughter loves to touch my guitar stuff. She loves picks and strings and knobs and pedals... you get the idea. So to preserve my settings I have been facing my amp with the front against the wall. My logic was that it wasn't a big deal if she touched the reverb or effects send knobs.

Fast forward to earlier today. I got everything plugged in, and within a minute of starting to play, I hear a couple loud pops come through the speaker and smell something burning. I immediately cut the power to the amp and noticed that one of the EL84s was sitting cock-eyed, and not all of the pins were seated. I proceeded to remove the chassis to inspect the board for obvious burn marks. I didn't find any of those, but I did notice one of the larger resistors looks like it's covered in orange goo. I just left it alone until about an hour ago.

Tonight I got the courage to take one more look at things and fire the amp up again. What I noticed was that the tube that my daughter apparently pulled out had a crack in the glass. I was hoping the fit I experienced earlier was due to the tube losing its vacuum. I re-tubed with one pair of Sovteks and one pair of Mesas and turned the power on. The burnt smell was still there, but not nearly as strong as I remembered it being earlier. About 10 minutes later I took it out of standby and paid attention to everything. That faint smell was still there, but everything else was normal. I plugged my PRS in for about 10 minutes, and it sounded just as good as ever, albeit at much lower volumes than usual as it was almost 1:00 am.

I plan on taking this amp to a tech to have the internals inspected. That burning smell gives me a very uneasy feeling, but it's nice to know that it still functions. Luckily, I'm a gigging drummer and not a gigging guitarist.

 

[plan-x]

That darn kid! Last time I had, "the smell", it turned out to be the screen grid resistor. Fried! There are some posts here with some pics also on those resistors frying/ed.