Guitar Gear Forum

So I have this amp here:





MESA F-100. Pretty cool amp, one of my favorite Mesas, really. I usually use this amp with a 2x12 with a V30 and a Redback and my 4x12, which had all V30s until recently. Always sounded great with these 2 cabs.

But recently, I decided to change the top 2 speakers in the 4x12 to Greenbacks to try the Friedman 4x12 setup (v30s on the bottom GBs up top). After the speaker change in the 4x12, I tried all my amps with the new speaker configuration and they sound really cool. The GB up top took out some of the harsh frequencies of the V30s at ear level. So that worked really well for all my amps.

Except the Mesa. The Mesa completely rejected the GBs and turned into total shit. No low-end or any midrange just can-of-bee highs. I actually thought the amp was BROKEN. That is how bad it sounded. Then I plugged it into my 2x12 that I usually use with it and... the amp is fine.

So then I am thinking the GBs were blown. Again, it was THAT bad. So I tried the 4x12 with my other heads.... and the cab is also fine.


But this Mesa does NOT LIKE GREENBACKS AT ALL. I've seen amps work better with some amps than others, that is normal. But this is a whole different level. It's like the amp said O Hell No and just stopped sounding good lol

that's strange.... though I always think of Mesas with either V30s or Black Widow speakers...

I think that was the case with peavey and a run of the 5150 cabs. They were based on greenbacks but most people just heard bees.

I tried running my JCM900 2500 Mk3 through a Mesa 2x12 v30 cab and it was amazingly bad. Super harsh, no low end, just awful awful awful.

I swore off V30s for a long time after that experience, but have since realized that amp just doesn't like them.

I had to use my AOR with a recto cab with v30s and that made baby Jesus cry.

Mesa Mark III blue stripe with G12H30 was the same experience for me. I mean exact same description of lack of tones.

My f30 was the same with speakers. It worked great with v30s and celestion v-type speakers. It HATED the g12h30s in my evh 2x12 and it was pretty horrible with my swamp thang Texas heat 2x12 as well.

Odd. I always wondered about the F series but there was a time when people poo'd on them for whatever internet reasons. I would still like to try one in person certainly.

Thinking back, I actually did have this happen with a KSR Orthos. I was mainly using one of my Avatar 212s at the time, with Legend V12s. Mark IV sounded amazing, but the Orthos...oof. Total dog shit! Crazy because I literally played the EXACT amp at Laura's place maybe a month before I bought it from her, and it sounded awesome...which is why I bought it! Pretty sure she was using V30s.

I don’t recall what amp it was but I had an amp that sounded like an AM radio through greenbacks.

It made me think for years that greenbacks always sounded like this.

JiveTurkey wrote:Odd. I always wondered about the F series but there was a time when people poo'd on them for whatever internet reasons.

That was probably me lol

I used to hate on all the non flagship model mesas. If it wasn’t a recto or a mrak then fuck it. I’ve come around on a few of them and need to try the f series out again.


The nomad still sucks

haha yeah, the Nomad was fucking awful in my limited, 15 year old experience haha...so take that with a 25 yr old grain of salt.

The videos Bill has sent me of the F100 make it seems like a very 90s tone, which seems cool to me, but I haven't actually played one yet.

The only decent Nomad was the 45. The 55 and 100 needed to be taken out back and put down.

I haven't, but I actually thought "Greenbacks" when I saw the pic of the Mesa.. Somehow, but I don't know why, in my head, those don't seem to work together?

I might just be full of crap, but maybe there's a reason Mesa never used GBs as OEM speakers?

Rectos and greenbacks fuck!




Also fuck the nomad. God I hate that series so much.

The ElectraDyne was great for the few minutes the GC turd they sent me worked. Still want one of those! I have heard great things about the TA-30 as well for non face ripping purposes.

It's Friday and the Nomad is still dog shit.

Speakers reject it.

Yeah the Nomad is one of the worst amps I've ever owned. Not sure what Mesa was thinking with that one.
The features and layout are great but there is something wrong with that amp. Maybe someone figured out a mod for it, but stock, the clean channel is good but channel 2 and 3 are unusable.

I think the mod is to throw it in the trash and buy a Mark VII with the similar control layout

When I bought my old Avatar Vintage 2x12 (Bluesbreaker style) they had these old Rola alnico speakers in them the previous owner got out of a couple organs. He’d been using them for clean. I bought this cab with the intent at the time of using it with my new to me Metroplex. I plugged that amp into that cab with those speakers and cleanish they sounded ok. As soon as I hit any decent drive they fell apart. I yanked those fuckers so fast and put in a G12-65/G12T75 mix until my Creambacks arrived.

Dave wrote:I think the mod is to throw it in the trash and buy a Mark VII with the similar control layout

#justdavethings

So update: yesterday I spent most of my afternoon absolutely pummeling my 4x12 with the DSL. I set the master volume on 10 and used the gain to control the volume and gain. It's remarkable how much it sounds like an old Marshall when dialed that way.

Anyway, after a while I decided to try the Mesa and... it sounded good through the greenbacks now.

Obviously I'm familiar with breaking in speakers but I thought those speakers had already been broken in from previous practices, but I guess that wasn't completely done until yesterday
It's still interesting how the Mesa had reacted so adversely to them, while the Mesa didn't seem to care much.

But now it's all smoothed out and all amps are sounding great.

Tone test, a bit of clipping on the camera mic but not bad

Yup! Sounds awesome!

That's funny. When you sent me those clips yesterday I just sort of assumed that cab had V30s in it, based on you saying that the GBs were no good with it.