Mesa Boogie F50 - learn me on this amp

[caspersvapors]

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/msg/920863880.html

gonna email this guy and see if i can play this amp maybe this weekend, but what have you guys heard about it? its apparantly out of production but got a 5 star rating from guitarist magazine

[FretfulDave]

While I don't have direct experience with the amp, I did read about the amp on the Mesa site. It supposedly has it's drive channel w/ contour designed to be like the Dual Caliber series. This is what I will mainly comment on. In my old basement band, the other guitar player had a DC-5. With that amp, on the drive channel with the help of a TS9, he could get pretty damn good Trey tone for Phish tunes. Using a Tele w/ a humbucker in it Incredible sustain and thick texture of sound. So if that is any indicator and that is part of the sound you are looking for, this amp sounds promising. The downside of the DC-5, imo, is that the clean tone is anything but. The clean channel was not all that clean. This compared directly to my Peavey Classic 30 clean channel. The F50 claims to have the clean channel design taken from a studio amp w/ studio clean and my guess is that for alot of GD tunes, that will be the telling channel.

Good luck with it. Hope the dude lets you check it out and it has the various tones you are looking for.

Dave

[jeffm725]

I almost bought an F-50 recently when I was looking to satisfy my Boogie jones. I ended up with a 79 mark 2a. Anyway, the f-50 i played was really nice. It depends what you are looking for. If you are looking for the gainy stuff that boogies are known for, like the santanaish sound, the f50 is not the one for you. However, If you are looking for a fantastic clean channel amp, the f50 that I tried blew me away. The clean on the amp is excellent. I dont think you could go wrong with it. You usually can get good deals on F50's comparatively for the price that the Mark series amps cost you.
That is my 2 cents...I am sure jonarobb has some knowledge of these amps and may impart some opinions.

[jonarobb]

I can take it or leave it. It does have an uncanny clean tone. Closest to a Mark I. Gain channel is a little over the top for my tastes but again, if that's your thing then this amp has it. Just be aware that if you're a stickler for all tube signal path then this amp might not be for you. The reverb circuit is solid state, IC driver and recovery. That would be a deal breaker for me.

Mesa has and will always be my favorite current production amp company. The quality of the F series is near bullet-proof. Just be mindful of the reverb issue. You might want to track down a second generation .50 Caliber. Much better amp all around.

[playingdead]

The reverb kinda stunk on both my old DC-5 and DC-3 amps. Neither was particularly good for the Garcia tone I favor, but they had great gain channels.