NAD: Mesa Roadster

[Budda]

Hell yeah guys, my weekend has been amazing! Got my Agile on friday,and my best friend delivered my near-brand-new MINT Roadster head 5 minutes after I got home yesterday!

First thoughts: my god, this thing is clean!!! Case for the footswitch, mesa slip cover hadn't been unfolded until friday lol, and the stock tubes were swapped out as the owner was experimenting, and now they're back in. Minty 6L6's!
This amp is incredibly versatile, and within an hour I was getting my 4 much-loved sounds out of it!. I am head over heels - I've wanted a mesa boogie dual rectifier since before I was in highschool (I'm 7 months away from graduating college), and now I own a roadster!

Specs: 4 channels, effects loop, reverb, 3 modes per channel, FS, tuner mute, other fun stuff - Mesa Boogie Vacuum Tube Guitar and Bass Amplifier for more! I got: head, footswitch, slipcover, manual, mesa boogie sticker, original receipt, and paper signed stating that I bought the amp. 4 years left of warranty!!![ b]And the owner stuck a Tung Sol 12AX7 in V1 because he lost the original mesa tube![/b]

What can I say? I love this amp! I have barely touched on all it's features, just wanted to get it up and running to my tastes - which really didn't take long.

Channel 1 is the clean channel, which sounds best with my guitar in Fat mode - I like a nice warm clean, and that's what this delivers. I can see Tweed getting used when I start to learn some country licks haha. I'm running 100W and diode rectified here, IIRC.

Channel 2 I have set up for my dirty sound that I like to jam on for the medium gain stuff. I actually use clean mode here, with the gain almost dimed, and my tubescreamer for some extra push. Fat mode sounded good, but had too much warmth for what I wanted - so clean mode w/ the gain way up gets a similar sound, but with a bit more clarity and less oomph - perfect! Brit mode here is very bright, very marshall - I almost wanted to bust AC/DC out when my buddy put me on that mode! I'm running 50W and tube rectifier settings for this channel.

Channel 3: Vintage mode, 50W, diode rectified, lots of mids = biiig smooth leads here! If I take the tubescreamer off, it sounds very low gain. I'm using this as my lead channel, and have it set up a touch louder than the other 3 channels. I'm very impressed here! It's a great lead sound, I really enjoy it. I'm going to try it 100W modern later on hehe.

Channel 4: 100W, modern mode, diode rectified. I use this for high gain rhythm, which the tele actually does a good job of. I am going to try this channel in 50W vintage mode and Ch3 in modern mode 100W, just to compare the lead tones. I get that recto thump, and it is a thing of beauty!!! And that's with single coils, kids .

I run it in Bold mode - the standby switch is also the bold/spongy switch, threw me off real well when I went to turn it on :lol:.

Spring reverb is great, I use it most prominently on the first 2 channels. Solo boost is a cool feature, may use it at some point! I haven't touched the effects loop yet - My RV-5 seems kind of useless since I have onboard reverb now. I may keep it, but I will probably try to trade it for a delay pedal. I wish I had an A/B/Y and still had my 2nd speaker cable so I could run a stereo rig until my halfstack is sold .

There is a lot left of this amp for me to explore, and I am EXCITED! Once my customs get in, there will be even more tweaking to do. I am satisfied :metal:. This weekend was one of the best!

Does anyone else get occasional popping going from ch4 modern to ch3 vintage? I was reading about popping issues, it sounds like this is common on new dual rectifiers. It doesn't happen all the time though.

Before:

After:

Thanks guys!

 

[user 16490]

What's 'NAD' mean?

 

[Budda]

new amp day.

The tuner mute wasn't making a popping sound when engaged and disengaged, I changed a couple of settings and now it is. :?

 

[domct203]

Congrats man, you're gonna love that amp. I absolutly love the lead tones I get with my Roadster.

As far as the popping, try cycling through all the channels while in standby first. Works for me
(If you play the amp at very low volumes it's going to pop eventually)

My Roadster at band volume is dead quiet switching channels.

Have a look here Boogie Board FAQ.

Best of luck !

Dom

 

[Budda]

Thanks, Dom!

I think it did it in spongy mode in tweed, but I don't remember. How mesa still gets popping for any reason when they have so finely engineered the rest of the amp is beyond me.

I can't wait to get the output up to 3 oclock on this w/ a singlecut some time

 

[wildrat666]

congrats man...now you must buy a mesa cab hahhahaha.sounds even better

 

[jlomonac]

CongratZ!!!! i still remember last year when i got my roadster! holy crap man, hauling that beast out of my jetta and up two floors wasn't easy, but the sound i got is.... i was speechless, coming from using a 50w solid state peavey to a mesa was like from jetta to ferrari hahaha, enjoy it!!! btw, if you are looking for a metal dist try ch4 gain at 2:30, treble at 3, mid at 9, bass and 3, presence at 3 or all the way up! and i'll leave the master and volume to you.... be careful you might blow up a window or two

 

[thejay]

Congrats! Love the Roadster!

 

[domct203]

I can't wait to get the output up to 3 oclock on this w/ a singlecut some time

Your face is going to hurt from the smile :twisted:

Seriously, don't play like that for more then 5-10 min without earplugs. Hearing damage is forever.

My lead tone is in Ch 3 Vintage, Bold, SS Diodes. With the Gain around 1:30 and Ch Master around 12:30, the amp really comes alive when the Output gets over 10:30-11:00. I've never needed louder, but I know I have it, and then some 8)

Dom

 

[fluff191]

Are those cabs Peavey Triple XXX or Valveking? I still use my Peavey Triple XXX cab with my Dual Recto, since its much easier to lug around than my oversized Mesa cab.

 

[KH Guitar Freak]

Congrabs. Mine has stock valves, bar the V1, which has been replaced with a Mesa SPAX7 preamp valve, and the poweramp valves are now a matched quad of Winged C 6L6s. You should try that some time...

 

[Budda]

The cab is a peavey XXX cabinet loaded with WGS British Leads - think of a mesa standard size recto cab w/ C90's... but cheaper and not quite as visually appealing haha.

My channel masters are kept pretty low - around 9 for the most part. Then I turn up the output for the volume.

At some point I will try master and output at noon - but I need the space and the lack of anyone around to try it! Muahahah.

I'm still amazed at how full and thick my tele 7 sounds!

Note: Tweed mode =

 

[YellowJacket]

I can't wait to get the output up to 3 oclock on this w/ a singlecut some time

Man, I remember how when I bought my Les Paul I was A/Bing it with a PRS Singlecut. I eventually went with the Les Paul because of the ballsy round classic rock sound but it was a difficult decision. Tonight, I was jamming with a guy in the noise scene and he was running an old '93 PRS through a boss multi effects / loopback processor into my dual while I played Cello. (The joys of running my dual at 15 - 20 watts, it sounds like it is working and we still can 'barely' hear my fat fiddle) Well, I just about shat myself at the tone. PRS guitars are really made for Mesa amps in the same way Gibsons are made for Marshalls. (I had an equal pant wetting experience hearing my Les Paul through a TSL-100 into my rectocab this summer while my dual was still stored out here and I was back on the prairies)

The short version, I'm sure your rig is sounding EPIC!!