Recently bought a Badlander 50 head and I am blown away by the amp. Incredible amount of variety you can get out of a 2 channel amp.
I have not played any of my other amps since I got the BL.
Mesa hit a bases loaded home-run with this amp imho.
I have to revise my list I posted a while back to this ( in order of favorites):
Mesa Badlander 50 head
Marshall 2204
Marshall 2555x
Marshall 2466
Marshall 2203 ( modded)
Saw them live like 10 years ago. Damn fine show!
Rick was using Fuchs amps and sounded incredible! Didn't hit a bad note all night.
He threw out literally thousands of guitar picks.....like insane amount.
The 100watt amp has a half power switch, plus the 2555x has basically 3 master volumes....lol, so you can get it pretty quiet.
I would always get tge big iron amp, if possible.
The power section is essentially the same, the 2555x has much more responsive tone shaping and more gain. My understanding is the diodes are not in play on the clean channel with the rhythm clip not engaged. Obviously it has more gain than a 2203 and uses diodes on od channel.