I would agree with Darren's original assessment. Amazingly good cleans, and some decent grit in this amp if you dial it in right - but the gain element of this amp is sorely lacking. I found it to be quite weak, inarticulate, and generally displeasing to my ears. Let me say that I've been a Mesa devotee since 1989 and know what they're capable of. I still own my original .50 cal plus and a newer Stilettto Ace that are excellent for what I'm after, but the Express sadly has fallen very short of my expectations. A lot of posters here tout the versatility of this amp, but it seems to me that it's versatility is limited to those who aren't after a basic classic crunchy (not metal) chunk. I'm no metal head, so I'm not expecting insane amounts of gain here - it's just to me there's no way to dial in a fundamental good sounding rhythm crunch. Interestingly, as an experiment I put a SansAmp GT2 in front of the clean channel and the amp ROARED to life. This leads me to believe that there must be inherent limitations within the 5:50's preamp design. Mind you, I much prefer tube preamps to those simulated in a black box, but there's no denying how well the folks at Tech21 are able to come so **** close. So all said, I may use the amp this way, or you may see it up on the classifieds soon - but to repeat earlier sentiment, if you drop that much cash on a Mesa, or
any amp, you shouldn't have to rely on a pedal to get the sounds you want out of it.
Otherwise, I'd say the amp has (typically) great Mesa build quality, is loud as a mofo, and sports clean, simple, and functional design. It's perfect for player's who lean towards cleaner styles - which unfortunately counts me out.