Studio 22+

[bigbean]

I recently restored a Studio 22+ w/ extension cabinet. Mesa had every part that I needed which is very cool for a very old product.
It's awesomeness level is double awesome with awesome sauce.
The only minor criticisms are:
fantastic with humbuckers vs. barely inspiring with single coils (I guess that's why they make Fenders)
A little too much hum with the EQ low end pumped up all the way (an Aphex guitar exciter in front of the input makes this a non issue - so the
only issue is that there has to be a pedal in front of the amp)

To the Mesa evolution experts - My questions are: (since I was not paying any attention in the 80s)
What was the evolution in the line that led to the 22?
What was the evolution of the Studio 22 to the +?
What about the the plastic rockers to the metal toggles?
How many were built?
Opinions on tonal and other differences between a 22+ and the current Express 525 with a 12?

 

[bigbean]

Here for your edification is a short history of the studio caliber series amps....most of the information here is sourced from the vintage guitar price guide(2008) and the mesa product guides for 1984/1986/1995 and 2004 respectively.The caliber series was launched in November 1985 with the release of the studio caliber.22.As the name suggests it was Boogies first low wattage practice amp and the low price ensured it was a huge hit as now guitarists could afford a boogie without remortgaging their house lol.The next step was to extend this budget range with higher output models the .38 special(four el84 tubes,38 watts) and the.50 caliber(two 6l6 tubes,50 watts) or so advertised the 1986 product guide!!! in practice the four el84 model came out in January 1987 and ran until the end of 1988 and was repackaged as the .50 caliber and was revamped with 6l6 tubes and a pull channel switch from 1992 til 1993 and called the .50+ cal.The original studio .22 was revamped as the studio .22+(in December 1988) with an added lead master switch and plastic toggle switches for on/off,stand by and eq which were previously the metal mark series type(this was the same for the revamped .50+ cal).In 1993 this range was replaced by mesa,s second budget range the Dual Caliber amps. 8)

Posted by : bartchamdoh Wed 5-13-2009
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=44396

Links for Lead Master Mod for the Studio 22+
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?t=20415&highlight=schematic
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=2223437

 

[tonejam]

I've got both amps, and can tell you that they sound totally different. I had the 22+ for 20 years before I bought the Express 25, and I didn't like the Express that much at first. Took a lot of getting used to after the 22.
Its a much thicker, midrangy sound, more body. I've tried them through the same speaker. After you get used to it, its hard to go back to the 22, seems thin.
I now use the Express almost exclusively. I love the 22, but I'm glad i bought the Express.

 

[>Photi G<]

That sounds about right. The Studio Caliber came out in 1985, and was Mesa's first low-wattage amp. Its circuitry was later updated, and renamed the Studio .22, along with the .50 Caliber, which came with EL84's for its first run. After the first run, Mesa switched to Plastic Rocker switches all around, and the .50 Cal's 4 EL84's were substituted for 2 6L6's.

After hearing tons of complaints about volume imbalances between channels, and hard servicing, Mesa introduced the .22+ and .50+, with a separate Lead Master on the front panel, along with a footswitchable EQ, circuit tweaks, and components soldered to the topside of the board, similar to the Mark Series.

The Caliber series was discontinued with the introduction of the Dual Caliber, or DC series, which introduced independent EQ's per channel, and a new gain structure, and more power options, such as 20 watts, New 30 watts, 50 watts, and New 100 watts. These amps were pretty consistent throughout their production.

These were later discontinued as well to make way for the F series, which were cheaper yet, and still retained some of the same features, but dropped the 5-Band graphic EQ that the DC amps could still be ordered with as an option.

In 2007, The F series was discontinued, and out came the Express series, which introduced mode switching, along with the Duo-Class power system, and revived the Graphic EQ in the form of a Contour knob. The Express series also returned to the original two power options of 25 watts and 50 watts.

 

[bigbean]

Thanks to all for the insight.

This Studio 22+ is a great product. I was thinking that the Express 525 would be a sort of similar modern equivalent. It seems like as long as the 22+ stays reliable I'll just keep it.

After owning Black/Silver face Fenders (Bassman,Twin,Bandmaster) Polytone, Silvertone, Kustom, Yamaha, Peavey and couple more that don't come to mind right now, I've ended up with 3 complete rigs. The 22+, a 63 Vibroverb reissue with Mercury Mag upgrade and a Line 6 X3live with a Tech 21 Power Engine (that one stays at church).

The 22+ is great to take out and play jazz with because it is light and sounds so good with humbuckers. I just had a chance to play outdoors with it using full pedal board & extension cabinet @full crank. Wow that was fun! I've also used it in the studio and for solo work. I have to say that I've had more flat out fun playing through that amp than I have with any amp I've had since the early 70s. Mesa has been great having the owners manual parts, support and schematics on a 20 year old product. I'm a Mesa newbie but I can see why the gear has such a devoted following.

I think I'm going to do that Lead Drive Mod. It might be nice to have a little less "buzz" with the Lead master at a high gain setting. If I do it I'm definitly going to mount the pot in a housing attached to the bottom of the chasis. That "knob through the chasis vent" thing is a little appalachian for an amp this nice (especially after the restoration).

As they say, "Happy Tunes" :wink:

 

[>Photi G<]

I think I'm going to do that Lead Drive Mod. It might be nice to have a little less "buzz" with the Lead master at a high gain setting. If I do it I'm definitly going to mount the pot in a housing attached to the bottom of the chasis. That "knob through the chasis vent" thing is a little appalachian for an amp this nice (especially after the restoration).

I completely agree. Even if you send the amp to the factory, even Mike (or whoever works on the studios) insists on putting the Drive pot in the back vent! Like an afterthought! If you have the version with the Metal Toggles, then you can put the Drive pot in place of the obsolete Ground switch in the back.

 

[bigbean]

My friend the amp tech where I work would do it. Although he hates working on this vintage of Mesa's because of the dissassembly issues. I'll also replace the problem resistor in the footswitch circuit while I'm at it. It's great that there is all this interest and info availble. It's kind of like working on a vintage car project. Except there is no grease but you could electrocute your dumb *** if you get careless.

I may do it myself. The schematic and the pictures available are very clear and it looks like a one evening job. To me the key is making a snazzy little folded aluminum 3 sided enclosure for the pot to live in. Not that much of a deal but it should keep me occupied for a while making it happen. This is the perfect kind of crap for me to work on.

It's the kind of 22+ with the plastic rockers.

 

[>Photi G<]

Disassembly will be tough. The Studio .22's were known for this problem, since they were the first Mesa Amp where Randy outsourced PCB production to a commercial company. The only way they knew to assemble these new PCBs was to solder all the components, and sockets to one side of the PCB, so you'd have to disconnect all the leads to remove the board.

 

[selectortone]

I've done the Lead Drive mod and highly recommend it.

Disassembly isn't so bad, just takes a while - you need to undo all the pots and unsolder the two leads on the back of the board that go to the reverb pan, then the board hinges up off the stand-offs enough for access to the track side. You need to get at that side as you have to cut one of the tracks.

I like a 12AY7 in the V1 position - less gain/grain. (V1 is switched in when the Lead Mode is engaged, otherwise it's out of the circuit).

I also changed the V1/V2 interstage coupling cap C5 from .001uF to .022uF which improved the bass response a lot in the lead mode, which I found a bit too thin and harsh sounding before.

The Studio 22+ is a great little amp. I love the sound of pushed EL84s.

 

[bigbean]

Thanks for the tips. This is great, like back yard neighborhood gossip or swap meet info.

I was talking to the tech yesterday about doing the mod etc. and he will do the mod for me -but he is really not looking forward to it. I'll see how busy he is in 2 weeks when we get to "back to school" time. The guitar and amp repair and upgrade thing always slows down for a couple weeks when Dad has to buy "back to school" clothes. :lol:

The only tweaked tube in my amp is a 12at in the reverb position which darkens and cuts back the reverb in a positive way. I also have a higher gain sovtek 12ax7 for V2 which I liked better than the standard gain in that position.

Last night I tried a Mexi Strat that I just picked up @ a righteous price through the amp. The pickups are a lot hotter than my Tele. It really sounded much better through the 22+ than my Tele does. So it seems it's not a single coil vs humbucker issue as to what sounds good through the Boogie but rather a medium output vs low output issue as to what works well and what is just barely OK.

 

[igfraso]

Here for your edification is a short history of the studio caliber series amps....most of the information here is sourced from the vintage guitar price guide(2008) and the mesa product guides for 1984/1986/1995 and 2004 respectively.The caliber series was launched in November 1985 with the release of the studio caliber.22.As the name suggests it was Boogies first low wattage practice amp and the low price ensured it was a huge hit as now guitarists could afford a boogie without remortgaging their house lol.The next step was to extend this budget range with higher output models the .38 special(four el84 tubes,38 watts) and the.50 caliber(two 6l6 tubes,50 watts) or so advertised the 1986 product guide!!! in practice the four el84 model came out in January 1987 and ran until the end of 1988 and was repackaged as the .50 caliber and was revamped with 6l6 tubes and a pull channel switch from 1992 til 1993 and called the .50+ cal.The original studio .22 was revamped as the studio .22+(in December 1988) with an added lead master switch and plastic toggle switches for on/off,stand by and eq which were previously the metal mark series type(this was the same for the revamped .50+ cal).In 1993 this range was replaced by mesa,s second budget range the Dual Caliber amps. 8)

Posted by : bartchamdoh Wed 5-13-2009
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=44396

Links for Lead Master Mod for the Studio 22+
http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?t=20415&highlight=schematic
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=2223437

If I recall this correctly, serial number range for Studios .22+ goes from FP11,500 (December 88) up to FP28,560 (August 93).

Regards

 

[bigbean]

Daniel-

Thanks for the definitive unit count. I'm guessing about 75 to 85% are still working so there may be 15,000 or so still around.

This brings up some general questions about the guitar players and their gear. These are questions that have no hard answers, only informed (or uniformed) opinions.

Over the next ten years wouldn't you expect the new vs used market to shift huge toward used - given that amps and guitars can last 20 to
40 years with moderate use and care, guitarists are usually reactionary (the most popular guitar and amp designs were all
calcified by 1963), boomers are going to get too old or too dead to keep their stuff and there are already at least 5 guitars and 3 amps already
built and sold for the first time for every guitar player in the world?

As the prime market for expensive amps ages and stage technology continues to improve aren't the under 30 lb amps going to be
a larger and larger piece of the pie of new amps and that large stage amps will drop in vlaue? (the market for blackface Princetons &
Deluxes vs Twins and Showmans)

just gassin'

 

[JimAnsell]

i sold a c+, a roadster, and a mark IVa, in favor of keeping the studio .22+ combo i picked up.
i like mine ALOT.

 

[giorikas81]

That sounds about right. The Studio Caliber came out in 1985, and was Mesa's first low-wattage amp. Its circuitry was later updated, and renamed the Studio .22, along with the .50 Caliber, which came with EL84's for its first run. After the first run, Mesa switched to Plastic Rocker switches all around, and the .50 Cal's 4 EL84's were substituted for 2 6L6's.

After hearing tons of complaints about volume imbalances between channels, and hard servicing, Mesa introduced the .22+ and .50+, with a separate Lead Master on the front panel, along with a footswitchable EQ, circuit tweaks, and components soldered to the topside of the board, similar to the Mark Series.

The Caliber series was discontinued with the introduction of the Dual Caliber, or DC series, which introduced independent EQ's per channel, and a new gain structure, and more power options, such as 20 watts, New 30 watts, 50 watts, and New 100 watts. These amps were pretty consistent throughout their production.

These were later discontinued as well to make way for the F series, which were cheaper yet, and still retained some of the same features, but dropped the 5-Band graphic EQ that the DC amps could still be ordered with as an option.

In 2007, The F series was discontinued, and out came the Express series, which introduced mode switching, along with the Duo-Class power system, and revived the Graphic EQ in the form of a Contour knob. The Express series also returned to the original two power options of 25 watts and 50 watts.

You forgot the nomad series!!! The f-series wasn't cheaper compared to the DC in my country!!! The new express line retails for exactly the prices the f-series retailed.

 

[>Photi G<]

the Nomad Series was something different. Mesa's first line of amps with 3 fully independent channels. It isn't really an extention of this lineup at all, it's a different beast altogether.

 

[mxr2000]

My friend the amp tech where I work would do it. Although he hates working on this vintage of Mesa's because of the dissassembly issues. I'll also replace the problem resistor in the footswitch circuit while I'm at it. It's great that there is all this interest and info availble. It's kind of like working on a vintage car project. Except there is no grease but you could electrocute your dumb *** if you get careless.

I may do it myself. The schematic and the pictures available are very clear and it looks like a one evening job. To me the key is making a snazzy little folded aluminum 3 sided enclosure for the pot to live in. Not that much of a deal but it should keep me occupied for a while making it happen. This is the perfect kind of crap for me to work on.

It's the kind of 22+ with the plastic rockers.

you have the squematic or layout with this mod? thanks