Mesa/Boogie Quad Preamp

Warm jazz, slightly clipping, mondo fat distiotion to rip the opening band's guitarist a new tone asshole! You can get anything from Santana to Metallica to Duel Recto out of this thing. It was the fore runner to the recto series.

The best thig about this amp is that I get a beautiful CLEAN, a slightly broken up sound, a super fat distiotion and an insane lead channel... all from one amp! The best part, it has eight (8) preamp tubes.... how can you go wrong?!!?

My setup is as follows: ESP M-250 (with Dimarzio Steve's Special in the bridge) - Morley Bad Horsie wah - Quad Preamp - Mono block 60 watt tube poweramp (6L6 tubes) - Carvin 4x12 cab.

Four channel ALL TUBE preamp. Tube driven spring reverb. Eight (8) 12AX7 preamp tubes. This amp is basically a Mark IIc+ and a Mark III in the same rack unit. Cabinet voiced record outs (very sweet)and a partraige in a pair tree!

It's a Boogie.... what do you think!??! Built like a tank!

THe folks a boogie are very easy to work with.

This is a great preamp. I have owned several amps (Carvin Legacy, Peavey 5150, ADA MP-1, Rocktron Pro GAP, Tubeworks, etc...) the only other amp that I have ever have that even touches this one was a Mesa/Boogie Studio Pre (another great unit... if you find one BUY IT!!!)

I know that I sound like a walking Boogie salesman.... but I think they're that good. Just about every gig I play some one asks me what I'm playing through. Just call this preamp "god in a box!"

See below for details. But is has a very handy manual with all details explained. there are MANY options. So you are really able to make YOUR sound. As Mesa/Boogie says... it is designed for touring pro's that use modified amps. This preamp IS already modified. There is really no pre-amp with this many options!!

I've been working with rackgear for 8 years now, so for me it was very easy.

I'm not satisfied by the sound most amps, pedals, racks etc. produce. They are always to limited in options, and they always have only one or two sounds, no matter how you set the eq, etc. BUT... this pre-amp really has a superb TUBE sound. It is full of dynamics, sound, punch, clearity. Each note you play cuts through!! I've tried Marshall's (two nice sounds, but way to limited in sound options and lacks of bass (as all Marshall shit op the 90's does) and hase no tube dist), Hughes&Kettner (ok, but .... doesn't have it), Rocktron (NO, not mu style and no dynamics, but a better EQ than Marshall), Digitech (too digital, bad sound) Engl (very nice, but Boogie is better), Hafler (nice but not my sound), Groove tubes (very good!). But non of the above has the enormous sound of the Quad. Even my drummer noticed that the sound was very PURE. The dynamics are amazing, the sounds are really TOP OF THE BILL !!!

Have you soon it. It is built like a tank. It was made for touring pro's !! I'got a Simul 395 power amp Mesa as weel and never had any problems. And I don't think I will have any with this one.

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I'm very critical when it comes to my gear. I used the Digitech GSP 2101 as my main preamp, before I bought this. And never bought any thing else because nothing was really good. But this one (and the Triaxis) is amazing. Make sure you try it. It is one of the best sounding preamp around!!

Any style is possible with this thing. And it will all sound SUPERB. Nothing but raves about the quality of the real tube sound!

Played three PRS guitars (1) 1988 PRS Custom w HFS& standard pu's (2)
1987 PRS Special w/ standard and prs single coil (3) 1990 PRS Signature with HFS and Vintage Bass pu's. I played Original hard rock music. Pro player for the last 12 years secular and Christian Rock.
Liked the amp for the different tone flavors-my first, and only Boogie. Plenty of flexibility with medium to max gain tones. Clean tones solid, but not as good as vintage Fender.

Mine was a 1989 model. I bought it new. Two boog pre's put together! nice touch. Four channels to choose from, PLUS footswitchable EQ. All tube. Built well. Direct recording out, which sounds great.

I dumped this unit after about six months of use due to a problem with the footswitching sys. It really screwed me one too many times onstage. I'm at a loss if heat was the culprit for sure, but all I know is, the pedal would flake out and start selecting weird/wrong or totally moot settings when I was selecting a given channel. This also affected the EQ's as well. Totally useless. Imagine stepping on your high-gain lead channel button,(intending to wail), and getting the clean channel, or worse, more than one channel at a time, or even more evil-NONE AT ALL. Yea, this happened to me on more than one occasion, so I traded it in for something else unmetionable...but it least it worked all the time. No, I didn't deal with Boogie about it, and it was well under warranty, so in all fairness they didn't even get a shot in making it right. I didn't have any backup amps (GASP!)at the time, and didn't have time to screw around with waiting for a fix. I had gigs to play.

Can't fairly rate this item, but I hear the support is very good.

I have now been playing for twenty-six years. I now own a Soldano HotRod50+, (which is now for sale-been my workhorse the last four years and still looks new)with matching 4x12 V30 cab; 1975 Marshall JMP 50 watt head with matching year 4x12 Marshall Checked grille angle cab. (2) 2x12 RAM cabinets with old FANE Crecendos, Peavey 120/120 Classic tube power amp, Roland and Alesis rack effects.
It's been 10 years since I owned this piece. I really had high hopes for it. (I tried so hard to stay away from Marshalls, and while I have used many of them, never owned one until about 4 yrs ago.) I now am considering a TREMOVERB. But I don't miss the QUADPREAMP one bit. The last time it freaked out on me, I would have gladly used it for a boat anchor. Undependable.

I use this with a Mesa/Boogie Stereo Simul-class 295 power amp and various speaker arrays. Certainly the most versatile rig I'VE ever owned. Can dial up any sound I want, at any volume. Thing sounds great! It's a MkII and MkIII front end combined into two channels, both of which feed into both sides of A and B main and recording sends, unless separated by a stereo effect (mono send/stereo return). Channel 1 is slightly "milder," from Fender clean sounds to the basic Boogie wail. Channel 2 is hotter, from wild to over-the-top. Both channels have rhythm & lead modes, plus the TWO graphic EQ's are able to be assigned (within their own channel) for a total of eight "pre-sets" (sort of). These were sort of precursors to the present digital "modeling" amps. Requires use of the FU-2 footswitch system (can also use a regular footswitch or shorting 1/4" plug to access features) or no sound comes out.

'52 RI Fender Telecaster works great. I suppose any guitar would work great except piezo equipped acoustic or something (this is high gain stuff). I can dial in all the high harmonic squeals and feedback I want. Makes my guitar like it's Sustainiac(tm) equipped! Instant Carlos Santana. It is noisy. Nature of the beast for-hot rodded tube stuff. It's worth it to me (obviously: I'm using single coils, which add their own noise, which I can turn down at the guitar between songs, but still). It can be quiet when used in low-gain modes (in which case, buy a Crate VooDoo). It sounds like every other Boogie out there. I have never had a Boogie before because they didn't seem to get clean sounds well enough for me. But this rig has lots of clean headroom when I want it, then can be switched quickly with a couple foot dabs through mild to wild distortion settings. Easy! Great for classic rock, R&B, even jazz, all the way through clean high gain country to heavy metal. Blues is in there too. It can be dialed into anything. A little adjustment really chnges things (unlike some old Fenders). In fact, you need to write down notes or use Mesa's little map (I downloaded the manual from their website).

It has a lot of redundancy built right in, being two channels. Lots of 12AX7's in this thing, so spares are handy, and fuses. Mesa is rugged stuff. This is my only amp rig, now. I depend on it. No worries, given the typical tube gremlins.

Best customer support I'VE ever experienced. They have a website full of information you can download (even the user manuals for anything they make. Or they can mail it to you if it's not there). I had a Studio Preamp previously that they sent me the manual because it was not posted at their site. Help is just a phone call away. Leave a message, they'll call you back. I have gotten all my questions patiently answered and ordered parts over the phone.

This is it. I don't want anything else. I've gotten used to the versatility of this rig. A well thought out design and company philosophy, generally. I don't like all their models of amplifiers, but I sure like THIS combination. End of the road and the search, for me. They should put helium in the tubes or something though. Tube stuff is HEAVY! Not this unit particularly, but the power amp is typically Mesa-heavy, and the 4 X 12 cabinet is just ridiculous! Hell for stout, though.

If you think of it as two separate amps it becomes fairly easy to use with a row of knobs for each channel. It can be daunting if you have had no experience with boogie stuff before, but as I say, breaking it down makes it easier. It has vol, tre, mid, bass, lead drve and lead master for each channel, plus a 5 band graphic on each channel. There are push-pull pots on almost everything (a typical boogie thing) which can also make it seem awkward to use, but as Randall Smith(pres of mesa boogie) says, "if in doubt, pull 'em out". With all this at your fingertips it is one of the most versatile all tube(8 tubes) preamps on the maeket.

The sound of this beast is nothing short of phenomenal. If you can think of a tone, this thing has it. Sparkling cleans to gnarly cleans, texas raunch to jmp marshall, 80's glam pop/metal to 90's grunge. It does it all very well. I use this with no effects( i personally think boogies sound better without effects), but it has its own reverb which is quite luscious, although I find that the reverb length is too long. The reverb control only acts on the level of reverb not the length. It would be good to be able to control the length of reverb but this is being pretty picky, as the reverb sounds better than most other amps (not the Mark4 though). The only gripes I have are: 1) that when you switch from lead 1 to rythm 1 there is a considerable volume drop. This only lasts for a second but it is annoying if you want to go to a punchy funky sound right away. and 2) the lead 2 master control does barely nothing after about 4 (it goes to ten) so it is hard to get a decent boosted (as in volume) level of lead sound from the rythm sound in channel 2. But having the graphics basically make this gripe redundant. I use a Kramer stagemaster with 2 seymour APS 1's and a JB humbucker, and an Ibanez AS180 (semi - 335 type) and play every style imaginable, blues, rockabilly, country, heavy metal, pop, grunge etc. As I said, nothing I ever played through can do all this perfectly, Except this Quad preamp. (And a Mark 4 that I had to sell a couple of years ago - ouch).

About a couple of weeks after I bought it (I got it second hand in 1997, the previous owner bought it new in about 1990) the volume level seemed to jump up and down inexpicably. And in the middle of a gig this became very annoying. I took it to the authorised boogie repair guy here (he is Melbourne, Australia) and he could find absolutely nothing wrong with it. It turned out to be my guitar. So basically it it is still in almost new condition after about 8 years of hard gigging. A most reliable piece of equipment if there ever was one. I woul definately use it on a gig wiyhout a backup. (As a matter of fact I do use it without a backup - In fact I've never used a backup anything in 17 years of gigging - who can afford it).

I've never dealt with the company. (From Australia it's next to impossible - and impractical).

I've pretty well covered everything in the above categories, but I will say that it defintely helps bring my playing to levels above anything else I've used (apart from my Mark 4) which speaks volumes about an amp. I would have given this a nine because of the gripes I mentioned, but tone outguns all else so it gets a big fat 10. I would definately buy it again at this price, it's worth twice as much. (I would also like a Mark 4 but at $3800 new and you never see any second hand over here, so it's out of the question).

Ohh, this one's tough. It easy to use on one hand and its not on the other. You gotta fiddle with all of the hundreds of knobs(exaggerating) to get your sound, the manule is not bad but very cheap is like a few pieces of yello paper typed with a typewriter with some typos in it and hand drawn diagrams and of course, they were stapled together on the upper left hand corner. It doen't have all those sophisticated Liquid Chrystal displays and a in your face kind of unit. Once again, good ears to find where you are and to get the sound you want.

This unit is all tubes, this three rack unit contains eight tubes and gives you two seperate channels 1 and 2 (naturally). And Each channel is further divided into 2 sounds, rythum and lead. I also purchased the FU-2 foot controller for easy access. This unit is a must. The Quad preamp also have two five band EQ, on efor each channel. This ture stereo unit produces great sparkling clean sound. I have tried the fender bluse delux and that was extremely clean but this unit kicked Fender's ass. No distortion in that channel even with my Gibson Les Paul equipped with EMG 81 and 85 pickups. And the you swich to the second clean channel and it gives you a great Marshall sound that is better than Slash can produce. Once you go into one of the two lead channels you can produce extremmly high agin that equal Megadeth and Pantera and more. After saying that, you can adjust the knobs and have a very jazzy lead or a very blusy lead as well. This preamp is extermly versitile. It doesn't matty if you want Stevie Ray Vaungh's sound or Marty Friedman's sound or Joe Pass or Dimbag Darrell, you got 'em all. The best preamp I've ever used and no other preamp can come close. The only thing is if you wnat MIDI, you gotta buy another unit that does that that is all knob and for morons like me. You goota have a good ear though, especially becuase it runs in stereo and the knobs are not very precise. Ask for it for a test drive......

It's very dependable but I'm scarred with that foot controller cable. It's a special five prong cable only available from MesaBoogie. If you kill that cable you are screwed. You'll be stuck in the last channel you used and there is no way of switch from the front. So buy and extra cable or but some foot switches that they let you plug in at the back with standard 1/4 inch plugs.Other than that, the preamp itseld is built like a tank.

Those guys are the best, if you live in LA, its great, its right on Stanta Monica Blvd. If you don't they'll shipp you parts in 24 hr. Once I blew a tube and needed a replacement and my local store don't have those mesa tubes so I called them and they UPS me a new one the next day. Even though it no proble for the amp to run with a couple less tubes, the service was excellent. Since everything is hand made, you can look up each person who made your amp.

Definatly a winner and the only thing that I don't like is the volume contorls that can be tricky to handle if you have a stereo setup. To get the two sides the same volume.