Mesa/Boogie .50 Caliber

50 watts, 2 channels, 3 eq pots and 5 band eq. i don't like the fact that both the rythym(clean) and lead channels share the same gain pot it makes it difficult to achieve the best clean sound this amp has to offer straight to the best distortion because the rythym sounds better at lower gain settings and the lead the opposite. i just found a happy medium of about 7. 5 band eq is very versatile. definetly not one of those amps u turn a knob a nothing happens lots of tonal options. has effects loop and direct out for recording. i play a lot of alternative rock as well as a little bit screamo stuff and it definetly gets me by.

let me just say WOW! I play with an ibanez rg5ex1 equipped with pearly gates and a jackson slsmg with the stock emg-hz pickups(thinking about putting pearly gates in it too.) And this thing SCREAMS. 50 watts is definetly underrated. my lead guitarist has a crate blue voodoo(120 watts) and this thing blows it away! amazing tone! the best distorted sound ive ever heard from an amp! it goes incredibly dirty without losing any clarity. has an almost vintage sound. definetly not lifeless and blurry like the new rectifiers! the first time i played this amp i couldn't stop, and all i could think about was how awesome my tone was! ya imo its that good.

Unfortunetly here is where this review goes in the other direction. Before i bought this amp i looked up reviews on it and almost everybody said that it was (like most mesas) an extremely reliable amp. This has not proved to be in my case. two days after i bought this amp the lead channel stopped working. i took it back to the store and they were nice enough to fix it for me for free. totally stoked i started ripping it up again. about a month later a capacitor blew. which is getting fixed right now(hence the reason i am writing this review and not playing it.haha) so as far as reliability goes i have been sol. its an old amp though so i can't complain too much. only hope that when i get it back nothing else goes wrong.

never dealt with em.

All in all it is a great amp. if the thing hadn't crapped out on me twice i would say it is almost the perfect amp for me and my style. if u find one for a decent price get it. cuz these old mesa amps are constantly rising in value because people r relizing that the old stuff is much better sounding than the newer. i was comparing this to the newer rectos or maybe a marshall tsl-60. this one makes the others sound like solid states so dont waste ur money on them. i would recommend getting a backup(which i have yet to do lol.) but if it were lost or stolen i would be searching ebay everyday for another one or maybe a different kind of older mesa.

I assume this amp is from the late 80's to mid 90's no clue. Very versatile amp, with the Graphic EQ's I can dial in any sound I want. I play this amp dry so i can really care less about an effects loop. Like Leslie West said the only thing a guitarist needs is a guitar and overdrive. No headphone jack from what I can see but this is an amp head why would it even need one, its not a practice combo although I use mostly for home practice. More then enough power for my needs, I dont push it past 1.5 on the master which is satisfying enough for practice. at 2.5 -3 this amp screams. Like others have said there's typical amp wattage and then theirs mesa Wattage which means that it sounds twice as loud at a certain volume then other typical amps.

I have a japanese IBanez RG470, Jackson DXMG, and an Ibanez RGT42. All very good guitars. The 470 obviously being the best sounding of all of them. I play classic and metal from metallica to Ozzy and modern metalcore , AILD, Killswitch etc. This amp is not the least bid noisy, no feedback at all. I typically keep the graphic EQ at the V setting. On the EQ dials I like setting the treble and bass at 2 o'clock and the Mid at around 9 - 11 o'clock. I can literally sound like any metal or rock artist. The sound that comes out is genuine, doesnt sound fake at all and competes with artist recordings. I also have the DC-5 which I slightly favor over this since its distortion is a little bit more warm and saturated but, this amp can really nail the old school metal grind similar to a Mark series. Dont get me wrong I can still get the new over the top metal tones, I just love the dry gritty sound of this amp. It does have an edge over the DC-5 in that area by sounding a little clearer.
The clean is amazing, its very pronounced and loud. the distortion as I mentioned is brutal beyond description, mesa are truly pioneers for l rock by achieving that type their amazing tones. I can compare this to their competitors such as marshall which sounds great in its own respect but, Mesa seems to have an edge on everyone for creating sharp precise tones that cut through the mix.

Been playing for 8 years, owned everyting from TRi and dual rectifiers, 6505, 5150, valveking head. I always come back to mesa since i find their tone is the clearest and most pronounced. Although the rectifiers dont do it for me, their just gain monsters with little warmth or tone but, in a band setting they cut through the mix and stand out so they do have their place.
As i said before the tone out of the caliber is genuine and their arent any comprimises for distortion or tone. All the pieces seems to fall together with Mesa engineering. I love everything about it down to its compact size, may be I can wish it had more eq options for compression and boost but, Mesa has the Mark series amps for getting that detailed. Personally I like the simplicity of this amp. All I got to do is turn it on and I automatically get the tone I want. I dont really have to fiddle around with the EQ's for 5 minutes to be satisfied instead I get the sound I want easily with little effort. For rock and metal this rules, if your a tone freak, you'll find it hard to pinpoint a noticeable weakness. I chose to give it a 9 since the Mark Series and Dual Caliber 5 & 10 hold a slight edge but this amp comes close to competing and isnt really a drop off from those.

I believe this amp was made sometime in the mid '80's, has 2 channels, is 'dead nuts 50 watts output' according to my tech, it does have an effects loop (which plastic jacks are it's achilles heel). Has a direct out.. but never use it. Its entirely too loud... but that said-- it kept up with every other drummer, bassist, and guitarist I've ever played with over the last 13 years... don't sweat the 'limitations' of a 50 watter.. cause this thing seemingly doesn't have volume issues..

Great.. nicely compressed sound with good harmonic balance. The onboard distortion is only usable by itself-- you can't have clean/dirty, far as I'm concerned.. but if you use it for 'straight wire with gain'-- perfect, super low maintenance amp. If you like nasal metal gain.. maybe you'd like it. I've always used it dead clean-- and with a 16 ohm cab, it's a lot more flexible than with an 8 ohm cab.. you're splitting hairs on the dial with lower ohmage-- especially for master volume. Gotta watch what speaker you pair it with, though-- greenbacks, forget it, EV evm's sound bad as well. a good 50-80 watter, and you're in great shape.. the eq is pretty flexible-- but you really do have to use a light hand-- it can get really extreme really easily!

this thing's dead silent on it's own. for

Had only two minor issues in 13 years. One, a power tube flashed. Replaced them, and it ran, no issues. Later on, it went intermittent.. I coundn't figure it out.. i figured it was my power caps. BUT-- it wasn't-- my amp guy found that there was a problem with the jacks in the effects loop (which i've never used)-- he jumpered them, and it's back in biz, same as it ever was. Never had a backup-- never needed it! Most reliable amp ever.. and looking at the baseball card sized circuit board.. makes sense why. Even my amp tech, who makes his living servicing EXTREMELY high end tube hifi gear said 'damn.. nice amp!'-- even after a fight about getting him to pull it apart.. he didn't want to touch it because 'guitar amps are practically SYNTHESIZERS, not AMPS!'.. showed him..

Amazing. You leave your number, and they call you back. Nice folks, great service!

I play a les paul custom with a Mesa Thiele 112 loaded with a celestion g12-75, and use tube works blue tube and tube driver. That's it. Plug and play..

I'd certainly look around for another 50cal if this one left me..

Mesa Boogie 50 caliber head (not the plus version w/ the 6L6 tubes).I bought this amp brand new in 1988 (around $900 I believe) and have never looked back. EL84 power tubes and 12AX7 for the preamp. I play 80's hard rock/metal and this amp delivers that classic 80's "crunch" like no other amp I've played or heard. I owned a Mark II and sold it once I tried the 50 caliber in a music store. Very simple to use (no push/pull pots nonsense)2 channels, FX loop, reverb, and built in 5-band EQ. (The built in EQ makes a HUGE difference. I have played/heard others w/out the EQ and it's not the same).

I run the amp out of the single 8ohm output into two 16ohm Marshall 4x12 cabs via a y-cord. I use an Ibanez DD1000 and Rockman stereo chorus through the effects loop. For guitars, I use primarily an Ibanez RG570 and Jackson Randy Rhodes; both equipped w/ seymour duncan super distortion pickups. This amp screams! I can't stress the quality of the "crunch" enough. Plenty of gain and sustain that you could possibly need. The clean channel (footswitch activated) can still be a little dirty. Simply rolling back on the guitar volume is the perfect fix to taper off the distortion. It's 50 watts but that is conservative in my opinion. This amp is plenty loud! I played in a band w/ another guitarist who used a 60watt SOB and a bass player who used an Ampeg SVT w/ the 8x10 cab. I never had to push the master volume past 2 and had absolutely no problem w/ volume.

I bought this new in 1988 and used it almost 10 years as my main amp gigging and rehearsing 3-5 times per week and it has never let me down. I did have it serviced and retubed religiously every 6 to 9 months. (Remember, mesas are like ferraris, they perform great but you have to keep up the maintenance on them). The only flaw I have found with the design of this amp is the absence of a fan. (I had one installed the first time I took it to a local mesa technician for service). This amp runs very hot and will cook itself to death if you don't have a fan to keep it cool.

Never really had to contact them except to order tubes.

I have been playing almost 30 years. I was so impressed w/ this amp that I bought a rack mount version of it to have as a backup. As my live playing days of 80s metal are long gone, I am having the rackmount version made into a 1x12 combo to have some portability with it and capture the "crunch" without having to rent a pickup to transport the cabs when I get together to jam w/ people.
The key to this amp is it's simplicity in design (like I said, I sold my Mark II to get this) and great consistent tone. I would like to not that the effects loop is a little temperamental. It's a very hot signal so it tends to overdrive most rack effects. The delay I use has a -20db cut switch on the back of it which works perfectly to solve this problem. I have owned many different amps; Peavey, Marshall, Carvin, Fender, and even other Mesas (Mark II and an SOB). This amp is superior to all of 'em.

Early 90s rack model. All of the basic features and this is one of the ones with the EL84s instead of the 6L6s. I guess about the only negative I could think of would be that it doesn't have the separate controls for the channels but it's not that big of a deal for me. It supposed to be 50 watts but that seems to be understated with these amps. Very loud! Very basic and simple layout of controls. If you want the Mesa sound without spending an arm and a leg this is the amp to get.

Very crisp clean tones. Excellent distortion growl. I use it through an older Marshall 1936 2x12 cabinet and they seem to match up very well. I play an Epiphone Spotlight, Gibson ES325 and a Carvin DC400 through it and each guitar sounds very different through it. Very quiet, no hiss or hum with it. I play garage rock and roll, nothing fancy so the amp sort of fits my style. No frills straight ahead.

I purchased it used so I took it to a shop that specializes in Mesa repair and spent just about $100.00 to have a couple of solders, old parts replaced, new tubes, basically to make just about like new and it was money well spent. These are built to last.

I called Mesa to find out about the age of the amp and some of the history with it. They called me back and were very polite and informative.

I would want another if this were stolen. I love the fact that you can get the great Mesa sound with having to spend an arm and a leg if you can find one of these around or on Ebay. I would recommend it if you don't need all of the bells and whistles. I have a Digitech RP200 and a Big Muff for that. I play with a friend that has a Marshall TSL Super Lead combo amp with matching cab and this amp can stay right with it!

Made in late 1980's early 1990's I think.
I play mainly blues/rock and it is ideal for super clean Strat or sustained heavy rock playing.
Only one channel, FX send & return.
I use it for gigging and it is plenty loud enough! Ask the drummer!
It is all valve (sorry, tube) and is the best amp I've ever used. That's after using many Marshalls, Hiwatt, Orange, Fender, trace Elliots etc.

I use a Fender Strat , a Parker Fly and a Gibson Les Paul.
There is a little adjustment to be made to the amp's tone and volume when I use the Gibson as it is so much louder and warmer than the other two guitars.
It suits my playing style perfectly - the band's material is very varied - from clean slide blues to Hendrix and Cream loud blues to Knopfler type picking and Guns n Roses and AC/DC rock pop.
It is a trifle noisy especially where the electrics at a venue are not perfect. A bit of a problem to record sometimes but it's worth it!
You can overload the clean channel if everything is on 11 and the gain is set high, but a sensible compromise between the clean and overdrive channels can be achieved.
With the gain set to 10, the lead volume set fairly low and master volume high - the distortion is very 'brutal'.
I've never had to use a distortion pedal with it.

I have depended on it as my sole amplification for nearly 17 years and it has never let me down.

Never needed any customer support.

I've been playing over 30 years. I run a recording studio and own loads of gear but only ever use the Boogie on the road (along with a Trace Elliot Acoustic combo for ...er...acoustic guitar).
If it were lost or stolen I would probably try a newer model Boogie.
I love the sounds I can get and the looks of the audience when it is in full song!
It can get a little noisy at times - but so can I.
It is a very big amp in a very small enclosure. I got fed up carting huge 4x12 cabs around and the Boogie is ideal for small venues and for larger gigs.

I love it!

Made in 1992 I think. This amp is very versatile, I play rock, metal and blues and this amp does it all. This is an all tube amp, 5?12ax7 preamp tubes and 4?EL84 power amp tubes. This head has enough power for gigs.

I'm using it with ibanez RG1570 or gibson les paul standard+ and it compliments eachother very well. This amp isn't noisy at all and once you play a little with the controls you get a sound to die for.

Never had a single issue with it, Mesas are known to be very reliable.

never dealt with them.

Prior to that I used to own Marshall JCM 900 HI gain dual reverb. 100w head. When I tryed my friend's caliber, I was blown away by the huge sound quality difference, so I had to get one. This is one of the best rock amps out there, with a very 3D clean sound and a superb reverb. What would I wish more? :D

not sure what year it is but i do know its a early 80's form what i'v been told.
its a 2 channel amp with effects loop, deirect out for recording (very handy) with 4ohm and 8ohm outputs for cabinets
i was replaceing some EL 84 tubes and i was impressed on how easy it is to retube this thing yourslef,
this amp is perfect for classic rock, and seatlle rock enrioment, takes a while to get used to the controls but when you get the hang of it its very easy to dial in,
that is really my only compliant bout this amp is i wish it was a little more user friendly, other than that i've never been under powered. i paly in a band that palys loud at good size gigs and i've never had to worry about not haveing enough gutts.

i paly a fender strat with standard american pickups and it is the prefect sound for what i am doing.
my band plays a mixture of classic rock/ blues with a little twist of seattle rock and this amp works absolutly perfect! its got a clean sound that just melts your soul and the distortion needs to be cranked alittle bit but once you get the levels worked out the distortion makes me fall in love with this amp all over again. it's just awsome!

i havn't had a problem yet and i've palyed alot in the past year, Mesa has gone the extra mile to make a tank of an amp. i have just reaplace the EL 84 tubes have no idea how old the where they came with the amp when i baught it they where still working when i baught them i just wanted to repalce them (prevenitive matinance) has never let me down yet

never had to call them, never had a problem =)

i've been palying for 13yrs i have owned fender, and marshall amps and they dont even come close to mesa's superb quality of sound and product. if it got stolen i would proably cry and then buy another one. i love the clean channel, and that tube distortion is just incredable its the sound i have been searching along time to find this sound the only other amp that i would get besides this one is the mesa studio 22 (wow what a sound) if you can find one=)

I believe that my 50 cl. head is a 1986. For the style of music that I play, (basically Funk, and Rock) This amp has served me well. I t is a 2 channel amp operated by a simple one button footswitch, it also has an effects loop and a direct line out. I do use the effects loop but the direct line out I have never used ( I dont realy do any direct recording, I use mics. instead)The only thing really that I feel the straight 50 cal. lacks are seperate Bass Mid & Treb for each channel, although if u spend enough time dialing in all of your equipment ( took me a few hours, lol) then it really doesn't hinder me at all. Basically it would be faster to get the intial set up with seperate controls for each channel. This amp is VERY loud, I have never ever had a lack of power ( or even had to turn my overall volume = meaning the mean value between both my master and volume pot) past 5. This amp has been used in clubs that hold 2000 pers. and never as I said had a problem.

With this amp I am currently playing two very different guitars. The first is a Hamer USA Mirage 1, this is setup very much like a Strat 3 single coils, trem bridge, it differs by having a set neck and coil tapping capability(seymour dunc, Hot Rails). This is the guitar that can really sing through the amp, crazy sustain. The other guitar is a Hamer USA 25th Anniversay, ( semi-hollow, all mahogany, set neck, with Sey Dunc '59 & JB Pickups, tune-o-matic hard tail bridge). The 25th obviously with the humbuckers takes advantage of the dirty channel, yet on clean at LOW volume, higher master, It can obtain some warmer jazzy tones.

Asfar as the amp being noisy, with the Mirage = the amp is silent, Yet with the 25th = The humbuckers do make the amp a little noisy.

The clean channel maintains a clean sound if the volume control does not exceed 5 , The way mesa set this amp up , is basically as u turn the clean vol up you are adding crunch to it ( yes to a certain extent you can correct this or adjust it rather by using your master, but not past 5)

The distortion channel is just that DIRTY, it took me a long time to get the right amount of distortion ( with retaining tonal qualities) out of this amp. The best advice I can give to all is READ THE MANUAL!!! sounds silly but I swear take the time to understand how everything works and it will get all the tones you want. As I said before it is the initial set up that is time consuming, but once it is done thats it.

I have used this amp for many gigs, practices, even as a beer holder LOL. I has never failed!! I have maintained proper service ie. tubes & cleaning. Afterall if you want an amp to last you must take care of it. It does hurt to shell out the $150. for tubes

I Have delt with Mesa and what can I say. These guys go wayyyyyyy beyond helpful. I had a Marshall 4x12 cab and I wanted to wire it to 4ohms to direct match the output of 4ohm jack on the back of my head. Honest to God the tech at Mesa gave me exact wiring instructions, for a non Mesa product....you tell me ??? helpful???

I have been playing about 11yrs. I think I have covered just about everything. I changed from a 4x12 to a 2x12vert Mesa cab and achieved a totally different sound, (one I like even more). I learned alot from reading the manual!!!!!(for the 8th time) Now the amp is setup just way I like it and as far as switching back and forth between to very different guitars, I make only one amp adjustment (clean channel vol)

I hope that this has been hopeful to someone......peace out!!

4 x EL 84 power tubes.Simlpe amp.Got it used.I had lead master control knob installed by Mesa.It seems it has everything that I would need in a guitar amp,but then I like my gear to be on the simple side.

A strong 9.Nothing is perfect.The addition of a lead master knob makes it a lot easier to balance the clean and the distortion channel.I have nothing to complain about the clean sound.It is very present,organic tube sounding.I love it.The distortion channel also sounds really nice but it does need to be cranked a little to show it's teeth!I will not sound impressive at bedroom volume.

It should last for long time now that I have sent this amp back to Mesa for repair and modification(lead master knob).while it was at Mesa, they also told me that they moved some components to improve the heat dispersion within the amp.Nice work.

Here they get 10+.Lets face it,I am just a small guy with one of their used, old, discontinued models of amps.(I also own the 100w son of Boogie amp,which I am really found of)I am sure they must have incredible amount of dealings with customers from all over the world.Yet they still answer their phone,talk to you,and try to help you out as much as they can.I thought this type of customer service must have gone out in the 90's.Can you imagine sending back an old amp that were made by Marshall,Fender,Peavy or whatever the company to it's maker and expect them to perform modofication on it?Or to perform improvement on the amp even though I did not ask for it? I don't think so.Let alone just trying to speak to an knowledgeble person is almost impossible now days.This practice at Mesa probably is not a doller wise practice.But it sure impressed me.They have made me a die-hard Mesa fan!

I have been around a block or too.I started playing when Hendrix was still wailing,Crapton still using SG.I have not had the opptunity to play Mesa's latest products,but these two old amps and it's creater ranks number one in my book.