Mesa/Boogie Quad Preamp

It's not easy to get it totally right at first, but after some time you'll get there. Use your ears. You can spend days tweaking this preamp, even though it only has a few controls per channel. The manual helps a lot to get you started. Use it.

The sound is... well, a straight 10. The Quad delivers BIG TIME. Fender cleans, "brown JMP" crunch, chunky "puppetz" gain, cutting leads... Real pro stuff. Reverb is also really nice.

I use a Peavey Classic 50/50 power amp, Marshall 1960A Greenbacker box, Fender Double Fat Strat w/ Floyd Rose or an Ibanez RG560 w/ EMG81 bucker and Shadow coils. The thing sounds huge, yet stays perfectly defined even when gain i1s pushed to the max. Clean channel has that twang to it, it's also punchy, if you increase the power of picking and attack. Dire straits, SRV... Channel 1 lead is one outrageous channel. Want Metallica sound? No problem. If you turn the gain to 10, it will get a little noisy, but not really noisy.

This is one bad ass preamp and soundwise it gets a perfect 10 IMHO.

So far so good. The other guitar player in our band also has a Quad and hisChannel2 lead went microphonic a few weaks ago. He changed the microphonic tube, worked fine again.

I use it with no back-up, even though no tube gear is failproof. It's built like a tank. It's almost 20 years old and still works and feels like it's been made yesterday. Therefore I'll give it a 9.

No experience in this departement. Since it's all analog point-to-point wired, my local tech can fix it if something goes wrong.

I traded my all original near mint condition '75 Marhsall JMP 1987 50W for this baby. At first I though I'd regret doing it, but I was wrong. This is THE preamp of the past century and in this one (century) somebody is still to make a better piece IMHO.

8 tubes, 2 reverbs, 4 sounds,2 graphic EQs, etc etc. It generates all the gain from the tubes, not the opamps. It pisses down triaxis' throat.

I play in a prog metal band, but I also do some rock gigs for fun and this thing is awesome. Hi gain sounds are sharp yet chunky, defined and you can hear every string. I've owned a Marshall JMP, Marshall JCM900, Line6, Digitech... There's no comparison.

If it would get stolen, I'd probably cry. I'm on a tight budget as it is. However, I'd still get another one.

I only wish it had midi support, but I'm getting a Nobles MS-8 switcher, so I can controll it with my Digitech RP20 pedal.

If you find it cheap, BUY IT! Then you will understand, why Mesa/Boogie became so big. (I don't really care for "rectal fire" stuff much, but Mark series kick ass). It may be big (3HE) and old skool looking, but it is THE preamp.

The sounds, ahh, they are wonderful. Like mentioned before sometimes even 'browner' than some Marshalls I've played. Depends on a lot of things though, like guitars, pick-ups, plectrums, hell yes even fingers. Use it with a PRS CE24 w/maple top. Power amp is a Marshall 9200 loaded with 6L6's. The occasional effect is used, though I think Boogies dont like effects so much, or they must be used through the effects loop. For that I sometimes use a Rocktron Intellifex Ltd. But mostly I play it 'pure', which is funny because I used to be an effects guy. Since I play this mean machine it's purely this mean machine, ghehhe. Thinking about a Teese wah though.

Gee, features it has. Made in, I think, 1992. With a little bit of imagination this thing can be used as a 6 channel preamp. Sort of. Just a damn fine preamp with some good sounds packed in it. Wished I'd have 2 reverbs though, but that's not a complaint, really.

Never dealth with them. Never hope to.

Never dealth with them. Never hope to.

Been playing it for some weeks now. After trying a shitload of amps, preamps and such this sounds like the real deal for me. But never underestimate the average guitar player. We're like whores. If I hear something better, I'll throw this thing out. But for now, this seems the $%^&.

I use this preamp with a custom made 50W mono tube poweramp with 6L6 tubes, an Engl 2x12 vertical cab and a Rocktron Intellifex LTD fx unit. It's that simple. I use a Marshall Guv'Nor I to give me a little boost when soloing with single coils and find it a perfect match. I mainly use it with a Tom Anderson Drop Top with HSS pickup configuration.

I have replaced the tubes it had installed (don't know what they were, they had no brand) with 8 JJ ECC83S.

The sounds you can get from this preamp do vary a lot, but I don't think it is the most versatile preamp ever. For example, the clean sounds are very smooth (fenderish I would say) and could see them perfectly suited for jazz, but I wouldn't see it in a funky situation, where a much sparkling sound is welcome. Of course it may depend on external factors, such as the rest of the setup or myself as well.

As far as it goes for my application (hard rock) it suits perfectly, with a tone that's screaming but smooth. Distortions have a lot of harmonics and it's very easy to get that feedback-driven sustaining notes which make us happy. The Quad does not have a very lot of gain, which I think is a good thing. I've owned a Triaxis in the past, and I found the Quad being much more dynamic, with a tone that's always "breathing" and airy, not very compressed (not as much as the Triaxis anyway) and (thus) very reactive to pick dynamics. It has some sort of vintage-ish taste to it. On the other hand, if you have a single coil in the neck it'll be hard to get more than a crunch out of it. You won't get that violin-like hi-gain sounds a la Petrucci unless you help it with an external device. This unit is as noisy as any other hi-gain stuff I've owned or played with in the past. Clean sounds sort of resemble the characteristics of the distorted sounds, is warm and smooth, with a little bit of that natural tube compression. When the input volume is set at 10 the sound clips slightly, producing a nice "on the edge" sound which works perfectly with open chords rhythms. This preamp complements perfectly with my 6L6 driven poweramp.

Setting the 5 band sliding eq may turn out being a tricky experience. To my opinion, mildness is the key here. Big changes will make huge variations, and extreme settings will bring you back extreme sounds, but in a bad way. And, most importantly, TRY TO RESIST SCOOPING YOUR MIDS ALL THE WAY OUT! It may sound cool when you're alone, but this kind of settings almost ensure that you'll get disappeared in the mix when playing with the band.

Overall, a sonic heaven to me, but I wouldn't swear that it may work for anyone.

And, yes, I do agree with the ones who say that this preamp beats the Triaxis. It just sounds better.

My preamp was made in 1985. It packs tons of features, mine also packs the rare embedded Midi switch function, so no external midi switcher is required. It is a 4 channel preamp split in 2 sections, with eq control shared for each section and separate gain/volume levels and two additional 5 band slide EQ (typical of old Mesas). Has a serial fx loop and a quite nice spring reverb. It has everything a truly versatile preamp should and then some. I wish it had a parallel fx loop and more separate controls for the rhy/lead channels on each section, but, hey, is this tone what we are strieving for, or just headache? ;)

Don't know and wishing to not know for a long time.
I've had it for a year now and had no problem at all.
It's being kicking hard since 1985 and I hope it'll keep on like this.

As above.

A great sounding preamp with the right set of features.

In the past I've had a very lot of stuff, tubes, solid state and digital, I've played through a lot of stuff, from cheap crap to Bogners.

This is just the best sounding preamp ever, to my tastes.

I play everything, or try to, like Wes Montgomery, Elek Bacsik, Larry Carlton, BB King, Robben Ford, Walter Trout, Jimmy Page, Slash, Rob Balducci, John Petrucci, Steve Vai, Mattias Eklundh. I use an Ernie Ball Music Man Silhouette, with two Dimarzio humbuckers and Dimarzio singlecoil. I use Dean Markley '9s, medium gauge pick and professional piranha cables. I love this guitar,and I love it through this amp. I have been using a Mesa Boogie Quad preamp into the poweramp in jack, which is fantastic for distortion, and so, as you may have gathered from other reviews, this means I've got a fantastic clean channel, from the Fender, and beautiful distortions from the Mesa. Its loud enough for any gig, unless your speciality is stadium rock!

Has every feature one could wish for. Quite difficult to set the hundreds of controls to get a tone you want, but use the sample settings as suggested. Mine has got Groove Tube valves, and a (slight groan)Fender designed speaker.

God only knows.

???

I dont know why some reviews claim that this amp sounds "harsh" and "grating". This sounds nothing like the Hot Rod Deluxe I own. It has wonderful clean tones, which are warm, sweet and smooth, and also useable distortions. Thrilled to bits with this and my current set up. PS. The Music Man Silhouette is a great guitar which is seriously uderrated and overlooked.

i use custom build guitars a tele style and a LP style.
they both sound huge and clear.the quad handles everey imaginable sound you just have to go for it. it's not a simple piece like a marshall and beats the hell out off a triaxis.
i run it with a boogie midi matrix (awesome piece) so they both are midi controlled 2 rocktron intelli's and they beat my V-twin wich sounds good as a stand alone but crap compared to these old quads.

i've got 2 quads one is 89 the other is a 92 they both have different floor controllers (fu-2 and fu2a)
I just bought my second quad to have more sounds and less compromises.
But the second quad has to be fixed. and leaves me the use of channel 1 and 2. alltogether 6 channels of mesa quad pleassure.
i mean all the sounds are in there and if you want more gooed sounds...simpley buy another one.

I don't know my first quad has a footswitch problem (fu-2)
the recently bought one must been treated by a fool ..he blew some channels input stages and recordings. in my hands nothing has happend
so i guess treatened well it won't break just changes the tubes once in a year ore 2

they won't repley emails from europe it just sucks

playin goes since 1978 i'm a pro since 1994 (120 gigs a year)
it's just a great sounding piece and i won't part till it def breaks down haha.

The reverb is great, but as I am running the unit in stereo, I use the effects from the Replifex in the loop. I use either an LP Stndrd, an LP II or a Warmoth Strat w/Tx Spcls and a JB in the bridge. The strat also has the graphtech Ghost system on it so I can get great acoustic tones to SRV to Metalica on one axe.

I run the guitars into a Boss NG-2, TU-2 then to a CryBaby 95Q and thru an older Ibanez Compressor to the Quad then to the replifex in the loop with an old Behringer rack noise gate. From the amp I will go main outs into a Marshall 20/20 tube amp and use the recording outs to a Zoom deck. The Marshall feeds a two 12" stereo enclosure (Black Shadow and Vintage 30) in a large box (7ply maple) ported enclosure that fits squarely under the SKB rack. I use EH tubes in everything, but am interested in trying out some Tesla's for warmth.

The recording outs on this work very well for me. I have yet to experiment with micing the setup for recording so we will see how this compares. This set-up is dead quiet at any volume, either out through the cabinet or into the deck with headphones or monitors. I have searched for these tones for many years. I began playing at age twelve in 75 and have never looked back. After playing seventies and sixties eara Fenders, Marshalls, Hiwatts, Ampegs, Kustoms, Traynors and anything all tube, I have finally found an amp that captures or improves on the tones of these units in one package IMHO.

I had to write a review of this amp to sing its praises and give it the honor it diserves. This unit was completed on May 21st, 1986. This makes it one of the earlier Quad's to rock off the Mesa line. This amp replaced a Recto-pre for versitility and range of very usable tones.

I have, but do not use the FU-2 footswitch. Instead, I control the amp using four of the six foot switch jacks on the back. I have an older Roctron Replifex operating two of these switches (R1 and L1) as part of effect presets and then use a Behringer FCB foot controller to switch the other two (two dedicated foot switches, #8&#9, to kick it over to R2 or L2). I dedicate the EQ on section one to the R1-clean sound and the EQ on section two to the L2-scooped metal sound.

With that, I can go from crystal clean to classic grind/crunch to blues to insanely ovedrdriven metal tones with or without effects by pushing a single pad on the Behringer. The amp volume and drive levels are very workable so you will not sacrifice your loud clean for the sake of an aggressive crunch setting on the same amp section. As others have said-start from the settings given in the manual from MB and work from there.

I ran acros this unit a few years ago used and badly beaten up. The amp had taken a significant hit on the fron corner which pushed some of the knobs in and destroyed a pot. This amp is so simple inside by comparison to todays digital units that I though it would be a cool project to restore it. These are very easy units to rebuild.

Because the pots are connected to the board with "flying leads" you can easily replace them with some care. I took the unit apart and straightened then painted the chassis and cover. I left all the dates and signatures on the components intact and ordered replacement pots and knobs from Mesa. After a week of soldering and about $20.00 in materials, this amp looks and sounds great. After two years of daily playing, it has never let me down.

I am very impressed with Mesa build quality. This is my fourth Mesa Unit and it surpasses anything I have had in terms of serving up beconing tones which do not allow you to put the guitar down. I cannot stress how much this unit has

From OR Mesa is easy to get thru to. I phoned there service shop with the specs I needed and they were able to advise on what original parts they still had for this amp. I received the parts a bout a week after placing the order. Mesa does not hike up the prices of their original replacement parts-or jack you on shiping fees. I think I paid about a buck for each of the pots I ordered and a few dollars for a full set of ten slider knobs. Very easy to work with.

Overall this amp has surpassed my expectations and continually knocks me out when I plug in to it. If you see one of these being offered in relatively descent shape, I encourage you to go after it. If anything should happpen to this unit, I would search for another and not settle for less. I love the knobs, the tubes, the expressive tones and the hands-on feel of this amp. It is not a computer and not a digibox, but a fire breathing instrument, the "holy-grail of tone" at the center of my rig.

I use a Jackson original Rhoads and a Fender Stratocaster which is homebuild but mostly Fender parts.

The Jackson is used for all the heavy riffs. The Strat is for the rest. It depends on what guitar I pick up.
I play rock and it's from soft to very hard. The boogie suits the guitars well. I used the Jackson when trying it out for the first time. The main idea is Jackson for the Boogie and my Marshall's for the strat like Hendrix/Blackmore.
Noise is very little. Just remember the switch on the back
Sounds is were it takes time. You have to work with it.
Use the manual for som sample settings and take it from there.
There is enough gain for the Metallica sound. If really depends on the settings.

Year inside '90 4-5

4 options with sounds with or without the EQ. Came with the FU2 board and is in good condition overall. All original to.
Does anything I want from it so far. Mainly the Metallica crunch like Justice and Puppetz albums.
I use it straight into a Zoom drum machine with headphones for home use. Have a Dean Markley I-20 amp but don't have a speaker at present.
I give 10 because of the sound is second to none to other products and it will be more great when I put through a good poweramp.

Not yet.

Would use it and have done in a rehearsel.

I've got 2 Marshall's. One from '71 and one from '78.

They have been used alot since I bought them and like them this boogie will be used.
No I would not worry.

NA

Mesa/boogie in Denmark?
Hard to get and find sometimes.
To old for a warranty.

It's a Boogie so what should I worry about? Tubes!

That goes with tube amps in general

Been playing since 1988.
Bought gear since 1991.
Got some favorites and the Boogie is among them. It was the last piece of sounds i needed.
I would buy another like it if something happend good forbid!
I love the sounds. That I don't have to buy a Rectifier or a Triaxis. Some people says it's more natural sounding than a triaxis. Don't know about that.
The gain structure is different than other Boogies. This is the MK 2 C+/ MK III in one box. It does that with no problem and more to it.
It's also not that expensive compared to new stuff or other Boogies.

If anyone has a Mesa/Boogie strategy poweramp for sale then contact me.

I'm using several guitars, a Gibson Flying-V reissue, couple of Ibanez RG550s and a PGM30. Sounds amazing with all of them. I've only had it a couple of days so I've hardly scratched the surface of what it can do. One of the things I've noticed about the Quad is that you really have to control it with your guitar... the pickup toggle and volume control makes massive, massive difference to the sound, as if you didn't already have enough options! The distortion is super-chunk and yet stays defined. You can really tell this was made for pros.

1989 European version (220v), 4 channels, reverb, EQ, push-pull dials, lots and lots of tubes, outputs for midi, etc, etc... slightly annoying that you can't control the reverb separately for each channel (at least I don't think you can)

It's in fantastic shape and working/sounding perfect despite being close to 20 years old. Nice.

I have tried to contact Mesa to get specific information before and not heard anything, however they probably have a policy not to return overseas call and seeing (I'm in the UK). I one spoke with a Mesa rep at the London guitar show, he was pretty cynical and unfriendly... then again, most people in London are cold as ice so it's not really a surprise.

The shipping and tax on this item cost me dearly. I didn't know my wonderful government charges VAT on second hand goods also. I paid #350 or so (ebay) but after #91 on release fees from Parcel Farce and customs and paying shipping costs twice because the prat I bought it from didn't read my emails and sent it to the wrong place, it wasn't quite as good a deal as I thought. However... it rocks and I would pay #650 or maybe even more, that's how good it is. The only downside is that it's not easy to get the right tone, you have to spend time with it. My ADA MP-1 is up for sale, it sounds lifeless compared with the Quad. I bought it based on reviews here and you guys giving it a 10 for sound were right.

I'm using a Gibson Les Paul Gothic into the Quad pre, then through a Mesa 50/50 poweramp all through a Marshall 1960a quad. The sound for me is not perfect, but then again it never will be, and this thing comes damn close! This preamp really growls! Its not as heavily distorted as some modern amps today, but it has a smoother more menacing tone. Its extremely quiet.

I play mostly metal, and have the Rhythm 1 mode dailed into a warm clean tone, Rhythm 2 is set as a light crunch sound, Lead 1 is set to a smooth overdriven sound (great for Hendix) and Lead 2 is that menacing growl i was talking about, which sounds extremely similar to Metallica for the Black album. But you can get virtually any sound you want outta this thing.

It has lots of low end and the highs are actually very pleasing to the ear, even when its massively overdriven. For my sound i try to scoop the mids alot, although they still sound a bit harsh. I'm shopping around at the moment to get something which will even out the mid crunch and the lows, which sometimes start to break up a bit. I am confident, however, that with a bit of tweaking my setup with sound the way i want. It might just be the case of instaling a pair of EMGs, so it still gets a good score.

Well you probably know all the features from reading the previous reviews, but for a 17 y.o. preamp this has pretty much everything you can ask for. It only gets an eight here because i can never get a good clean and lead sound from channel 1 at the same time. If i want a nice warm clean tone i have to sacrifice the lead sound for a very nice, but untimately not what i want, "brown" marshall sound. And if i dial in a Metallica like sound on the Lead 1, the clean is to trebley and harsh, however, the lead sound on channel 2 makes up for this. As you probably already know you can spend years trying to get the perfect sound out of this amp, there are so many dials and the 5 band EQs for each channel make the number of sound possibilities almost infinate. Be sure you get the FU-2 footswitch with it though, makes the whole amp accessible via ya feet!

What can i say, Mesa = Tank. Have had a bit of a problem with the reverb which i've had to get fixed twice, but otherwise fine. I even a dropped it once.

Haven't dealt with them.

I have only been playing about 8 years, and this is my first professional rig, so I can't exactly go on about how it measures up to other pro equipment. But I've loved this amp since the day i bought it. If it were stolen i would track down whoever swiped it and beat the to a bloody pulp with it - it would be fine, as i said Mesa = Tank. This amp would still go up against the Dual Recs of today, i'm sure of that. If you see one, buy it.

I am playing a Jackson soloist neck-thru with d'addario 9-46 string gauge going through a Seymour duncan JB humbucker using planet waves guitar cables. I matched the preamp with a mesa fifty:fifty poweramp and you can tell that mesa's products are made to sound best with each other. This suits my style immensely. The sound that I get with this amp is clearly something to be heard! We should be allowed to post clips for review purposes. Ok, on with the sound review in more details. The quad top section is based off the Mark IIC and the bottom the Mark III head sections.

Mark IIC
rhythm 1 : I use this channel for fender blackface type cleans, a little bit of gain is heard but slightly any. I don't mainly use cleans as it is so I dialed this channel in for lead 1 mode which will be described next.

lead 1: I use this channel for my lead tone, it easily sounds saturated and sustains by itself allowing me to worry about nailing that perfect lead when recording rather than worrying about how the tone sounds.

Mark III

Rhythm 2: This channel I have tweaked to sound like a JCM 800 and it sounds "brown" to full tilt! By keeping the eq 2 button on for this channel it sounds exactly like the tone for "ain't talking 'bout love" tone van halen. This channel is amazing!

Lead 2: I use this to sound like a hot rodded marshall, it has enough gain to double as another lead channel for solos but I turn the gain down and get a metallica black album type tone which nails what I want in my head. Again amazing what mesa has done here.

Overall: With the 4 modes and options in tweakable sounds this preamp is honestly the best bang for buck I think people can buy. It takes time to tweak to get a sound to your liking but if your patient with it and give your ears time you will be satisfied i guarantee! I am giving it a 9 for sound because I am constantly tweaking and the 5 band eq sets up for unstoppable varieties of tone!

This one was made in '88 since I checked where the little sig was in marker from whoever pieced it together. It's got 2 channels but 2 modes for each channel, basically the equivalent of having 4 different sounds not including the 5 band eq button foot-switchable giving you options for better sound. This amp is EASILY, i repeat EASILY versatile enough for me. I normally play hard rock, metal (think from ozzy to ac/dc back to pantera to metallica and many other metal styles and ranges) This preamp is seriously a diamond in the rough! I traded a 5150 head for this straight up, at first I was worried about regretting the trade but upon tweaking my sound I have never looked back! I give it a 9 for versatility ( no amp should get a 10 in my opinion)

So far so good. This amp has fired up every time I have turned it on to jam. I 've only had it for a few months now so it is hard to rate it too high. I'll give it a 8 for now.

N/A Never dealt with them, but I suppose this is a good thing since I have never had problems with any Mesa gear.

Overall this is an amazing sounding preamp, and paired with a proper (preferably mesa) poweramp it will make you shit yourself! I've been playing for 7 years now and own a peavey triple xxx and mesa rocket 44 combo. The quad just beats my triple xxx in terms of how much I love the sound coming from it. I think i love everything about it, nothing really to hate. If you are looking for a good solid sounding preamp and want the best bang for buck get this preamp, it seriously competes with any preamp out there including mesa's triaxis and studio pre.