Thinking of buying a 5:25 plus or 5;50 plus...help!

[darkarthur1972]

Hello,

I am about to change my guitar amp and my local guitar shop has suggested the express plus series. I don't play many gigs anymore so practice is largely confined to home but i want a versitile amp that can cope with the odd small gig, say at a club or function room. I am torn between the Fender '65 reissue deluxe reverb and either the 5:25 or 5:50 plus. I would like some advice on which to plunge for! some people say the Fender, with some nice pedals, whereas the Mesa is a better 'do it all' proposition. Help!

Regards

AB

 

[gitaryzt1985]

I was in the same boat. I really wanted the cleans of a Fender amp so I was dead set on getting a DRRI. But then I realized that I would NEVER be able to get a decent metal distortion sound out of the Fender so I took a chance and went with the Express 5:25 (previous version with contour knob).

Just a bit of background, I recently owned a Two Rock SP22 Head and a Dr Z Carmen Ghia. I sold them both in hopes of getting a small amp that would give great cleans and great distortion. The Express has left me not missing the Two Rock or Dr Z period....Love my Express!!!

Recently bought a matching 1x12 cab for those bigger gigs.

 

[darkarthur1972]

Thanks gitaryzt1985...much appreciated.

How loud is the 5:25? can it handle gigs or would you need the cab? or maybe plump for the 5:50?

What are the clean tones like?

 

[gitaryzt1985]

The 5:25 is LOUD. I had the 5:50 but it was too much amp for me. If you play with a crazy drummer and plan on playing big venues, just mic it. The only reason I got the cab was because I prefer to push more air. It doesn't make the amp much louder, but it fills out the sound a little better and better distributes the sound so it's more easily heard.

The cleans are fantastic. I'd say that they are what Fender cleans should be. They are lush, big, chimey, and beautiful. Think Fender cleans with more muscle.

 

[Wolfboy1]

About 6 months after I got my 525 1x12 I played an outdoor marathon "Race For the Cure" We set up downtown Columbus. OMG! My amp was set about 20 feet back from the street and there was a solid row of buildings directly in front of us on the other side of a 4 lane city street. The buildings were about 60 feet from the front of my amp and gave a nice reflected sound but, still over, 100,000 people ran by and I never need to put the amp at full volume. Just awesome headroom and power for one so small. I loved the sound and options but that particular gig sold me on the quality of this amp. Plenty of power, plenty of headroom. Playing bars I can't ever picture needing anything else.

 

[BoogieMan_SC]

I just took delivery of my 5:25 plus head today. I have it running through a Recto 2x12 cab and it is LOUD. It will certainly handle even a larger-than-small gig. With its 5, 15 and 25 watt modes, per channel, it's an awesome at-home amp too. I previously owned a 5:50 2x12 combo which I sold to purchase my current Road King II V2...which I sorely missed, hence the Express purchase again :shock: . I also have a Fender Princeton Reverb Reissue. The 5:25 doesn't have QUITE the lushness of the PRRI (namely because the Fender has the vibrato and speed settings, giving it a more 3d sound), but it is very, very nice.

The 5:25+ (or 5:50 for that matter) will absolutely be much more versatile than the DRRI you're contemplating. The Express series take pedals better than any amp I've ever owned and I've owned a TON, including a DRRI and my current PRRI. You'll never get the crunch available from the Express, from the Fender....nor the burn or blues gain on channel 2 for that matter...

The EL84's in the 5:25 are a great compliment to the EL34's and 6L6's in my Road King. You can get great chime out of the Express, for sure. I'd say get an Express....it's one of the greatest do-it-all amps out there.

 

[Adam D'Agosto]

Hello,

For what it's worth, I was in your predicament just about 1 month ago. I was considering the Fender Deluxe III or the Mesa 5:50. This is what it boiled down to for me.

The Fender requires pedals. Period. Really, when you get right down to it, unless you're going to play clean only (which is fine), you are going to be forced to get pedals as soon as you want to get a decent burn out of the amp. No Fender is going to compete with a Mesa amp in the dirty sound. Ok, so in reality, it a Fender and pedal combination or a Mesa amp on its own.

By all means, the Fender/pedal combination is great and you'll love it I'm sure, but consider this... The Mesa amp will do it all and do it all very well. The cleans are so clean that I now prefer to play my acoustic guitar through it and I hardly use my Crate Gunnison anymore. The Crate amp sounds very nice, but the Mesa 5:50 clean channel just gives you a beautiful sound. Then you can put the Mesa into Crunch, Blues or Burn and you change the animal each time.

But for me, the real final straw was the 5 or the 50 watt setting. In 5 watts, you can really dig into the 6L6's (or EL84's in the case of the 5:25) and clearly hear the breakup. It's hard to describe, but when you hear it, you know it. I find myself tearing into the G chord over and over. It drives my wife nuts because the louder I play it, the more it breaks up and the wider my smile gets. It's a sound you just can't beat. That Fender you're looking at will do that too, but it will have to be set so freak'en loud, you'll end up blowing your ears out in the process. The Mesa will do it at bedroom volume levels (although I think my wife would disagree with that). Put it in the 50 watt setting and the crowd will hear it too. It’s shockingly loud and SO clean sounding through its volume range. Impressive in its own right.

Anyway, I went with the Mesa Express 5:50 2X12 and could not be happier. My objective is to master the amp (and guitar) and learn what the amps real potential is. I have yet to really tap into it. That should take me a few years to do. Then, I will venture into the world of pedals which is really like learning a whole new instrument again. Armed with my experience with the amp and achieving the sound I'm looking for and then having the flexibility of having a multi effects pedal, well, my wife will need some thicker ear plugs!!

Go with the 5:50 or 5:25. Learn the amp, find your sound and then take on the pedals and concur the world.

Good luck.

Adam

 

[NomadExpress]

Well said Adam.

 

[Newysurfer]

Hello,

I am about to change my guitar amp and my local guitar shop has suggested the express plus series. I don't play many gigs anymore so practice is largely confined to home but i want a versitile amp that can cope with the odd small gig, say at a club or function room. I am torn between the Fender '65 reissue deluxe reverb and either the 5:25 or 5:50 plus. I would like some advice on which to plunge for! some people say the Fender, with some nice pedals, whereas the Mesa is a better 'do it all' proposition. Help!

Regards

AB

Well you're on a Mesa forum so the responses should be expected but it's a total no contest between these 2 amps for me.
I'm an ex Fender Twin owner and I've gigged and played lots of Fender amps over the years.

They don't make a single amp that compares well to either Express imo (the originals - not the Plus).
Even the cleans & reverb on the 5:50 is better than most other Fenders and they're about equal with a Twin imo.

From then on the versatility of the Express just poos on any Fender.
Tone options, EQ options, power watt options plus they're lighter too...........need I go on - no contest