100 watt clean, 50 watt lead.

[Tawlks]

I just had an idea.

What if you were to have an amp that offered half power on one channel, I like having clean cleans at high volume, but I like the sound of cranked lead channels.

Do any amp manufacturers do this? Seems like the best of both worlds. I've always been put off by 50 watters because of the issue with cleans.

 

[Code001]

Some Mesa amps have that feature. You can choose whatever wattage and tubes you want per channel.

 

[Tawlks]

Some Mesa amps have that feature. You can choose whatever wattage and tubes you want per channel.

Ahh cool, it seems like the kinda feature that Mesa would employ. It's definitely something I'd pay extra for in an amp.

 

[guitarmike]

The Egnator tourmaster does exactly that, each channel has it's own wattage setting.

 

[Random Hero]

You must be playing LOUD to be running out of headroom with a 50 watter. Where do you play?

 

[Tawlks]

You must be playing LOUD to be running out of headroom with a 50 watter. Where do you play?

I don't. It's a theoretical concern more than anything. My cleans the way I like them on my 5150 at gig voumes run at about 5 on the volume, pretty low on the gain, that's 120 watts, if it was a 50 watter I'd probably come close to running out of crystal cleanness.

 

[Gooseman]

Hey. This is what the Mesa Roadster is all about. I have one and love the fact that each channel has an independent f/x on and off knob, 50/100 watt power knob, rectification/silicon diode knob, and reverb dial.

I pretty much run my Roadster as follows: channel 1 clean 100 watts, channel 2 brit (for that low gain crunch) at 100 watts, channel 3 at 50 watts (lead), and channel 4 at 100 watts (rhythm). Check one out if you get the chance. A very versatile sounding amp that goes well in two guitarist bands where the other guitarist plays british styled amplifiers.

 

[Anonymous]

my vote would be go try out an egnater tourmaster. they can be had for under 1000, and there are SO MANY tones in it.

modded or non modded, they're highly underrated amps...i chose to do 2/3 of the mod on mine. taming the high end and tightening the bass. if you want to be sure of the "mod" or not, on the back, the serial# will have an M before the #'s if it's factory modded.

i LOVE my power grid options, as i've mentioned before, i couple mine with the recycled sound power plug attenuator for the 8ohm combo. and of course my tube cocktail of choice...which took me a while to get there, but i love now.

 

[Gooseman]

You can get Mesa Roadsters for $1300 - 1500 used nowadays too. I found the Roadster to be a tad darker than the Egnater, but with much more versatility. The Egnater was high on my list, as was the Bogner Shiva and Marshall JVM. I loved the Bogner and thought the Egnater was pretty good too. Didn't like the JVM much though. I have a 1987x, so I am pretty set in the British voiced amp market. Anyways, if you are looking for an amp with adjustable power settings per channel, the Mesa Roadster, Mark V, or Stiletto are all great amps.

 

[some dude]

I run the opposite... 50w clean and 100w lead. Running the cleans at 50w reduces the overall "width" of the sound, which helps counter-act how much bigger clean tones typically sound when compared to high gain tones. 50w also helps reduce some of the "sterile" feel you typically get from the clean channel on 100w heads.... particularily if the amp has the option to switch to a tube rectifier.

 

[Gooseman]

I run the opposite... 50w clean and 100w lead. Running the cleans at 50w reduces the overall "width" of the sound, which helps counter-act how much bigger clean tones typically sound when compared to high gain tones. 50w also helps reduce some of the "sterile" feel you typically get from the clean channel on 100w heads.... particularily if the amp has the option to switch to a tube rectifier.

Yeah, I did this for awhile too actually and really liked the results I had when I ran 6L6s in the Roadster. I run mainly EL34s in the amp nowadays, as I like the way these tubes handle the bass on my dirty rhythm tones on my high gain channels. Its also nice getting more usage out of the brit mode as well with the EL34s. Yet, these tubes breakup too easily on my channel 1, fat mode cleans -- hence, why I use the 100 watt mode.

I agree with your assessment about the clean tone width and the 100 watts (with 6L6s). Personally, I liked the 50 watt cleans (6L6s) and tube rectification, as it really opened up to my playing dynamics of my right hand. I always keep the gain rather high on the Roadster cleans (12:30 ish), as I feel it gets a bit more lively. The reverb also seems to benefit from higher gain settings. For the longest time I ran the gain at 10-11:00. I also like the treble at about 1:00, with the bass and mids at 10:30 ish.

If I could only get my brit mode to sound like my 1987x ... I can cop some JTM45 ish/Vox ish sounds from the Brit mode. With my Custom Shop Strat's bridge humbucker, I can get some great crunch tones with the gain cranked and the treble around noon. The Bogner Shiva reminded me a lot of the Roadster in terms of its voicing, but the Roadster was a bit more compressed and higher gain, which suits my style more.

 

[King Loudness]

My Mesa Mark Five allows this sort of thing. I run my clean channel at 90w for extra headroom and then my dirt (ch2 and ch3) sounds at 45w for band practices and 10w for home jamming.