Grateful Dead Music Forum

Anyone running a sms--into a mesa boogie 20/20 ? Curious to any pro's and cons you may have experienced.

Spencer

It's a beautiful thing. I owned one for a couple of years. Rather wish I still had it.

The only drawback is it has no practice volume level. Volume barely cracked you're at small gig. Loud. Way louder than I would've imagined.

Mesa is excellent pro. I love how it contributes tube-e-ness to the SMS. It's not a McIntosh, but it's really great to grab crispy '77 tones.

Highly recommended. But not for after the wife & kids go to bed.

It's a nice setup but definitely imposes the EL84 flavor into the tone. So, it loses the Jerriness...

Yep I have one. It can get the late 70's tone, but it's too loud for practical purposes. I run it through a pair of JBL E-120s and that's part of the loudness problem, at acceptable volumes, you don't hear the paper cone but the "tinny-trebly" sound of the metal dust cap...
when turned up- reaching the threshold of the tube break-up, the speakers start sounding better. And there's some truth in what strumminsix says about the EL84 tone....so it sits in the corner until I can get a better speaker match.

I get a closer Jerry tone with my Twin Reverb Custom.

my bandmate Lee uses a Mesa 90:90. 8 6L6s, although it does have half power.

Sounds killer. He is using a pre he designed in the vein of the SMS. I wouldn't say it will do bedroom volume but he gets it down pretty decently with a single K120 speaker cab.

I always wanted to try a 2:50 or the fifty:fifty. It puts you back in the 6L6 tubes.

It was the loud 20:20 that scared me off that.

I played a Triaxis with a 2:90. The Triaxis just didn't do it for me. Zillion options, and I couldn't even get close to some Jerry.

Could've been me.