Hi,
new poster here so sorry for any thread hijack but I have been looking for info on this Mesa/Boogie cab for quite a while and this is pretty much the only hit that I get on the net. Having said that, if there is any information about when they have been manufactured, how many units, and other related stuff I would be most interested to hear about it.
For the sake of the story, I picked my 2x12 Road Ready up in 2013. The story goes, I’ve been in a gigging band, and wanted a bigger sound out of my Peavey Ultra 112, incidentally which the other guitarist was also using. Long story short on how the band ended up with two of those, he was blown away by the tone back in ’11 when I joined the band so he decided to track down one as well to replace his constantly failing Marshall combo. Of course, I’ve had mine since ’99 and have had plenty of time to fiddle with the sound. But now it wasn’t just enough anymore and I decided it has to be a 2x12, I guess also for difference’s sake but I did not like the size of a 4x12 either. As a twin guitar attack hard rock band the sound also had to meet growing expectations.
I tried various 2x12s with my amp and only found a good sound from one Marshall cab, which actually wasn’t on sale (and I don’t like the logo anyway), when this Mesa/Boogie popped up on the classifieds on the other side of the country. I knew after seeing it I’d found what I was looking for and the price was right, so a bit of haggling and I bought it unseen, untested, but from someone who definitely was a real person in a real band so I had some peace of mind.
In a few days, the cab got to the local freight terminal, conveniently without any packing because it’s not needed with this one. I turned up in my 1990 Thunderbird and immediately noticed the cab does not fit in the trunk of the 5 meters long car, because the hatch was not big enough for the massive size of the cab. Bummer. So I had to stuff it in the back seat instead. It was a chore. Sound-wise, it took me a week or so to get it into the rehearsal space, but I was immediately convinced by the bottoms, the mids, and the clarity of the entire affair. This particular example has the top speaker replaced by Mesa Boogie C90 and the bottom one is the original EV. The speakers are hooked up in 4 ohm configuration which suits my Peavey fine but has sometimes limited the choice of options regarding alternative amps.
Transport-wise, it’s considerably bulky to bring a 1x12 combo and a 2x12 cab that is almost the size of a 4x12 to gigs, but I plugged away at it during 2014 and 2015, after that time due to various issues (the usual) the band’s been on a break and I never got around to updating the well-functioning and good sounding amp solution. The upside was that most of that time we were gigging with a 12 seater bus with ample cargo space, so the Road Ready was a real treat on those gigs. Just close the front, unplug, roll away and toss it in the back of the bus, left me some more time to drink beers after the gig, or I would actually guess less as opposed to just having the combo. Anyway, I had the cab mic’d from the bottom speaker, close to the grille at the side of the speaker element without offset, as I recall with a Shure but I’m not a sound engineer.
Now the cab just sits in my garage as all my bands are on hiatus but I can’t quite face selling the thing yet, even if it is likely I will never need a cab with such output ever again. But, never say never!
In case anyone’s interested, my rig consisted of the aforementioned Peavey Ultra 112 with the Mesa Boogie Road Ready 2x12, Line 6 wireless, TC Polytune mini, H2O Chorus mk2, then in the loop MXR 10 band (replaced by Boss EQ once it broke), Line 6 delay unit, and BBE sonic maximizer with some poor-branded power supply. Guitar-wise a 1986 Jackson Custom Shop (I guess they were all custom shop at this point in San Dimas) bolt on Strat in hot pink, 1986-ish Fernandes JS100 with EMG 81/85s and a Hamer Standard XT. But probably it should be a topic of its own.
Edit: Added a photo of the item in question. Sadly no great gig photos on hand right now!
