The Mesa R & D Process

[Given To Fly]

I found this video interesting (it is short): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5CVJTqczsQ

There have been plenty of discussions here about the "Roots of the Rectifier" which are full of good information but its always nice to hear things from the source. Doug West talks about the Rectifier and acknowledges that they missed their target audience, hair metal bands, only to hit a different audience, grunge bands. All this is said in about 1 sentence but it's interesting because of who is saying it and the fact the Rectifier rarely gets discussed in such a casual, yet specific way, by Mesa Boogie.

He says other interesting things too! 8)

 

[screamingdaisy]

From what I understand of the Mesa R&D process is that a lot of it is trial and error. Instead of designing things on paper like an engineer might they just keep experimenting and listening until something happens.

TalkBass has a thread on the Prodigy/Strategy amps where Randy himself responds. He talks about the trial and error process and he details how the process of making an amp sound musical can create a scenario where an amp actually specs worse on paper.

Being a bass forum, there's a lot of focus on headroom and thus RMS power output. There was a lot of doubt about Mesa's claims of 450w power out of 8xKT88s. He argued that people should be more focused on burst power out than RMS because that's how musicians actually play, and how the Strategy uses 10 large capacitors to stiffen the burst response to produce more punch. For the record, independent testing (Bass Gear Magazine) had the Strategy producing a continuous output of 517w @ 7.5% THD with a burst of 655w into 8ohms.

It was pretty enlightening... particularly when looking at Mesa's "little" amps and how they're known for being such monsters and knowing that he's using a similar stiffening cap strategy (Dyna-Watt) to make the little amps sound big.

 

[afu]

That's cool. Check out the Andy Timmons video, too. Lots of interesting tones with the Mk V:35.

 

[3124+]

For the Dual Rectifier R&D process, Mesa reverse engineered a Soldano SLO.

 

[Nick79]

It was pretty enlightening... particularly when looking at Mesa's "little" amps and how they're known for being such monsters and knowing that he's using a similar stiffening cap strategy (Dyna-Watt) to make the little amps sound big.

I agree, my Mini Rec is amazingly loud for 'only' 25w, much louder than i thought it would be.

 

[Jorn218]

Hey Screamingdaisey do you have a link to that thread over on bass talk? Ide like to read it and send the link to a friend in Phoenix who adores his 400+. Thanks

 

[screamingdaisy]

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/new-mesa-all-tube-amps-strategy-and-prodigy-fresh-start-v-2-0.993329/

Look 3 posts from the top for the first one. There's more spread throughout the thread and it's worth checking them all out. They'll make you realize how outside the box Mesa is in it's thinking when designing products. What stands out is that Randall has no idea how much power the amps are producing... it doesn't seem to be a spec he really cares about and is more focused on the sound/feel of the amp.