Nomad, Ace, 5:50

[Wbfree]

Hey All,
I am new here, thanks for the all the great information. I have a couple questions. I am about to buy a new or used Mesa Boogie, I am leaning towards the 5:50 which Newysurfer, who posts here, highly recommends, a guy I know from another forum has an Ace, he posted some of his tracks here under the name I/O which sound awesome, and I have a bid on a Nomad 55 on Ebay. I don't really want the Nomad unless I get it at a good price. I wanted to know what you guys think about these three amps. I am not looking for advice necessarily, just wanted to hear what you guys thought about how each one sounds and the versatility of the amp, I don't want a one trick pony.
Thx Guys,
Burnie

 

[Wbfree]

I wasn't very clear with my post. I have read a lot of the posts here on the 5:50 and the Ace. I was more interested in what you guys think of the Nomad.
Thx
Burnie

 

[fishyfishfish]

My old band mate had a Nomad 55, and I thought that amp was just killer, I couldn't afford one at the time, so I settled for a F series, which I thought suited me fine for being a lead played (Total Wanker!).

 

[MJ Slaughter]

I just sold a Nomad 100 after owning it for a year. Great, versital amp but I just couldn't get what I was looking for out of it. Clean is very clean with a lot of headroom. You can crank the gain on the clean channel but I just wasn't able to get that nice slightly overdriven clean sound. There is the "Push" switch but I never liked the tones I got from it. I wound up using a Tube Screamer on the clean channel for a little breakup when needed and it worked pretty well.

Channel 2 was nice in vintage mode but again, couldn't get the bite I was looking for.

Channel 3, I just couldn't find a good use for it. Nice overdirve sound but didn't cut through the mix. May very well be my own problem. I'm sure many have great success with the amp.

I thought the Nomad was a very useable amp with great features but I have since found a combination that works for me. My dance cover band I use a DC-5, great tones, and my classic rock/dance band I use the Stiletto Ace and am loving it.

Good luck on your quest. I have bought and sold many amps over the past few years. You'd think I would be tired of it but I enjoy experimenting.

 

[jaredrutledge]

i played a nomad a few years back while i was shopping for an amp (ended up with a TR) and wasn't impressed. i remember thinking the distortion was too grainy for me - but i also didn't know as much about tone back then.

seems like most people around here have good things to say about the stilettos, my old guitar teacher did a review of one for an aussie guitar mag and was pretty impressed with it.

 

[NiCkMiLnE]

i love my nomad to bits

spend a lot of time with one and you get greeeeeeeeat ones

theyre very recto like but smoother

 

[fabien]

I have a Nomad 45 and I'm very happy. It's quite versatile, has a lot of different tones hidden. Like any Mesa before you try one read the manual. many of the controls are interactive. As said you'll need to spend quite a bit of time with it to find your tone. The third channel is voiced differently from the two other but with some tweaking you can clone it to ch2 and even get convincing (but brighter) clean tone close to ch1.
But it's not a Recto, not a MKIV and not a Stiletto, because of it's low price it's considered as a sort of poor man's Boogie.
Mine is a bit noisy but it's the 45 model with EL84 so it could be due to the tubes, the 55 is 6L6 (or EL34).
I have a 1x12 combo with an MC90 but it sounds so much better on a 2x12 with 1 V30 and 1 G12H30 that I'm gonna convert it to head.

I'm also interested in a Stiletto Ace head but it's more GAS related than anything else so I probably won't buy it... yet :lol: :twisted:

Fabien

 

[Wbfree]

Thx Guys,

I am leaning toward getting a 5:50 but have yet to play through one. It's a long drive to a dealer so it won't happen overnight. I have been using Mfx units for a while and finally gave up on hearing what I want, but the sounds I liked are mostly from the Rectifier presets. Man, I love all this stuff, music encompasses so much, the all important quest for tone that melts you guitar into your hands to finding the way that best fits in learning how to play to talking about music with people who care like you.
Burnie

 

[scottkahn]

I'm sorry that I sold my Nomad 55 a few years ago. It's very versatile. The Nomads were the first Boogie amps to incorporate multiple voicing options on each channel, and with three to choose from, you can get a great range of tones out of it.

Personally, I'd take a Nomad 55 over the Express -- it's vastly more flexible in its feature set, and the Express is just a little too one-dimensional sounding compared to other Boogies (to my ears, as well as others on the MusicPlayers.com staff).

Scott