Mesa 5:50 Express - High Gain Tones?

[Bad.Seed]

Hey all,
Looking at picking up a 5:50 express for the channel, but don't want to waste my time if it doesn't do the high gain thing.

Anyone have experience with the amp in this regard?

 

[Emg77]

Hey all,
Looking at picking up a 5:50 express for the channel, but don't want to waste my time if it doesn't do the high gain thing.

Anyone have experience with the amp in this regard?

I had one. It can get there. It certainly falls in the Mesa camp. I can’t say it will stand up to the other amps you have but for the money I thought it was pretty good!

 

[MatrixClaw]

The ones I've played got maybe a bit more than 2203 levels of gain. Boosted, it'd hang fine but those amps replaced the F series, which has plenty of gain for metal, and people initially HATED them because they didn't live up to those levels of gain at all. They are cool amps, but definitely more on the rock side than anything.

 

[braintheory]

That was actually the very first amp I ever owned back when I was 15. Like others said, a bit more gain than a jcm800, but still not the voicing for metal or more aggressive styles of rock imo. That’s the main reason I wasn’t satisfied with it back then, but later ones had GEQ’s, so maybe that could change it enough, I wouldn’t know

 

[Techdeth]

I use to teach my lessons on one and it could get some heavy tones . But nothing special