Mesa/Boogie 50/50

Pretty basic, but that's the way i like to keep it. Read the other reviews, don't feel like writing a book here. Plenty of power, and it's very loud, especially through a good 4X12 (crate, mesa rectifier)

Love the tone from this thing, kinda sounds like satans inside the room with you when you crank it up....kinda spooky. Overall very quite, love the thing. Straight up boogie tone...

Only had it for about a month, no problems, don't expect any. I've got other mesa gear and had no problems from that gear either. I guess when you buy something from a good company, you get quality gear....

never dealt w/ heard good things though...

Overall i love the damn thing. It's loud, got tone from hell, and then some to spare. Very happy with it, although i wouldn't mind adding a mesa 295, to power even more 4X12's. I switch b/t my triAxis and vtwin rackmount, but mainly use the triAxis, and vtwin as my backup. Running through a Crate 4X12, and sounds great, and i'm going to add a mesa rectifier 4X12, so it shall sound even better. Anyways, i'd be very pissed if someone stole it, and i'd probally track them down and, and, and use harsh language or something. Oh well, if you're looking for a good power amp, and want to scrap the head, and don't want to shell out the xtra bux for a 2:90, buy a boogie 50/50, it's damn awesome.....

This amp is pretty old I think, but it has new valves in it (mesa valves). I use it to play all styles but mostly metal. It is a very simple amp, just the way I like it, pure tone. It is nice and transperant, and runs on a class A setup (sounds better but has shorter tube life). Has two 4 ohm and 1 8 ohm speaker outlet per side, which is one loud 50 watts (also has half power switch which is actually 15watts a side, not 25!). I use it in my bedroom and at gigs, sounds good for both but its true quality is only released on high power with volume over 5 (LOUD!)

I am using a Jackson Randy Rhoads, which doesn't have all that much bottom end. Since buying this I have had to turn down all the bass on my Marshall JMP-1 presets(killer combination by the way!). It is not noisy at all, it just gives pure, quiet, tone. Clean channel will slighty distort at high volumes, but you can gig with this thing on 3! playing metal!

No problems yet, about 1 month old (used). I can't afford a backup so this is it. I trust a Boogie more than anything else though.

Haven't had to, but I hear they are very good.

I have been playing for about 3 years, and am addicted to tone. I would love to get the Triaxis as my next purchase. I would definetly buy one of these again, it is perfect for me. I now understand how Boogie products have such a great reputation.

This is an older one (1989), but as far as I know no different from the new ones. Simple straight ahead tube power amp. Features prescence and volume per side, plus low power switch (sounds like crap), and fan (nice). Nice feature about Boogies is you don't have to worry about rebiasing when you get new tubes, provided you stick with the Boogie STR420 6L6GC. Nice feature if you're on the road or your tube dies at a show, just cary a back up tube or two, turn it off, pop the tube in, and turn it back on. These tubes also carry a 6 month warranty against failure and are only $18 a pair. Drawbacks-you can't get any better sounding tube than the average sounding Mesa 6L6s without getting inside the amp and changing their standard bias or voiding the warranty.

Great sounding. Great bottom end, very punchy, very clean, very warm, extremely loud. I can't imagine anyone needing a 2:90. This amp seems to have enough power for any stage. I go up to three on the power amp with the volumes on my pre amp set on five, and it is Extremely Loud, yet the clean stays clean. I bought the amp used and it had groove tubes, which sounded a little better on the distortion, but didn't have as much headroom or outright power compared to the new mesa tubes i just bought.
I use this amp with a Mesa Studio Preamp. I've had this combo for about 6 months now. It sounds very nice for clean to mean at the drop of a hat. It definitely does justice to the Mark IIC+ metallica scoop tones and incredible bottom end, but can go to squeekly clean just like that. Unfortunately the 4x12 cab I use is a little flabby and farty, but the 410 I use with 65 watt speakers (Carvins no less!) is much tighter but still has a lot of the balls. I've been thinking about going for the V-Twin rackmount for the nice recto sound, but I can't find anybody who wants to sell one. Plus I'd have to choose between the Studio Pre and the V-Twin. Damn.
The setup is a little noisy, but it could be the guitar cord, preamp to power amp cords, power amp, pre amp, guitar, etc. who knows? Strangely it's noisiest with the volume of both sides at 0, turned to 2 and up it almost disappears.
I too have the pop sound when I turn off standy. Just enough to make you cringe a little, but not too bad.
I am confident saying that this has got to be one of the best sounding 50 watt stereo 6L6 power amps.

Never had a problem with six months of regular gigging/practicing, sometimes two shows a day at full blast, even with old nasty tubes. And it is 10 years old. I depend on it, but do I have a choice? Not really, who can afford a backup? I think it will definitely stand up. Mesa has a great reputation, and they've earned it. They stand by their stuff and it's very reliable.

Never dealt with them. Seems I always buy mesa stuff on Friday. They don't work on friday (pay day?), so I never call. I only buy used anyway, so it doesn't matter. However, my local mesa dealer is the coolest music store I've ever been to. I go there to hang out.
At all other music stores the salesmen get pissed if you try to plug into a solid state Crate. I go into my mesa dealer and they voluntarily hand me a one thousand dollar hamer to let me play any and all the thousands of dollars of mesa tube amps, just for fun. I gotta say, the Heartbreaker is one fine amp, but I'm falling for the V-Twin too.

I've been playing almost 7 years, clubbing in bands 'semi-professionally' (?) for 3. I fell in love with tube amps, then fell in love with mesa's and old fenders. Gotta love some of those marshalls too. yeah, we'd all play those old amps if it were a perfect world. Hands down, they've got the best tone. But since we can't all could afford the many cab and amp combinations to get us these different tones, especially live, plus we can't carry and set up that stuff by ourselves, we use modern amps. I think that Mesa makes great modern amps. I.E. if you need channel switching, reliability, and decent live tones and versatility, like so many of us do, then choose mesas. Also, if you need brutal distortion or metal tones, then you mesas aren't bad. I never thought I'd be using one of those cheesy rack rigs, but here I am.

This is a very straight forward unit with on eitherside (A&B) a volume and a presence control. Also on the frontpanel you'll find a power-switch, a standby-switch and a half power-switch (25 W). On the backside you'll find six speaker jacks (2x 8 Ohm & 4x 4 Ohm), signal input jacks and a ground-lift switch plus ofcourse the four 6L6 tubes which are fan-cooled. Mine is an older type (7. 50-50 X) built aprox. 1993. I've been using it since, first in combination with a Mesa Boogie Studio preamp and a Roland GP16, later on with a V-Twin rackmount and a Rocktron Replifex with several types of guitars but mainly a Fender Strat with EMG pickups.

Overal sound quality is very good, clean sounds from my V-Twin rack come out crystal-clear and overdriven sounds very thick, all this ofcourse with tubes in good condition. On my amp there is noticable more hum on one side than the other side but not annoying.

Having had some problems in the beginning wich was due to damaged powertubes (from transport probably) i have never experienced any problems, so i would say this is a very reliable piece of work.

At first i had some problems with a loud "pop" when switching in from standby mode i've contacted Boogie and they sent me new driver and phase split tubes (12AX7's) a new standby-switch and a new capacitor. However having tried this the "pop" was still there. I've contacted them again and they told me this was due to the very smal but powerfull mains transformer ofwich ,besides replacing for a weaker one (risking a big negatively change in sound), is no solution for. So i've learned to live with this nature of the beast. A friend of mine recently bought the latest fifty/fifty with exactly the same fenomena.

Very good! Not too expensive but definetly worth it's money. Maybe Boogie's 2-ninety has more features and power but this has to be payed for ofcourse. But if you need a good reliable tube poweramp with not too much power (lesser tubes to replace each time), the fifty/fifty would be an excelent choice!

As usual I'll start by saying that I feel that nothing deserves a 10 or a 0 - no matter how good or bad it is mainly because there is ALWAYS room for improvement, and even if the unit only switched on, it deserves a 1 ). The 50/50 is an all tube (valve) Stereo Power Amp. The controls are simple, and it's all that's needed. In the tube amp world, simplicity is definately the key to glorius tone. Volume and presence controls for each channel, power switch, standby switch and HI/LO power switch are on the front panel. A ground lift switch sits on the back panel alongside 2 input jacks, and 4 speaker jacks (2 for 4 ohm, and 2 for 8 ohm cabs, left and right channels). A fan cools the power tubes. Inside, there are 3 12AX7 tubes that phase-split, and drive input to the power stage. The power stage consists of 4 6L6 power tubes in Class A configuration. The power supply and output transformers are chunky. The 2U rack case is fairly heavy guage steel. If you've ever picked up one of these amps, you realise that it is "heavy" duty. Definately built to take it. If you want a million switches, bells, whistles and so on, go buy a 747. If you want an amp that's LOUD, transparent and warm, then buy the MESA/BOOGIE 50/50.

* Glass-House Heaven! * There's no other word for it. There's no substitute for the tone of tubes. It's the most transparent 50W per channel power amp in it's class that I've ever used. It is also ballsy and LOUD. Signal path is all analog in Class A configuration. The only semiconductors in this amp are 5 diodes. 4 for the main rectifier, and one for bias supply rectification. This makes for pure tone without discoloring your front end sound. Direct comarisons with other power amps clearly show up the difference. Even with hard distortion, individual notes in chords ring through with the Boogie. They are somewhat lost in other amps using the (more common) Class AB setup. I was thinking about trading in my 50/50 for a newer amp, however after testing other power amps (using my own rig and guitar) I decided that I couldn't match the sound of the MESA/BOOGIE 50/50. So here it is, still with me, alongside my Marshall JMP-1 and Rocktron Intellifex in the rack. If you ever come across this setup, try it out, you'll know what I mean. Even down at lower volumes, this power amp sounds great.

I have had no problems with this amp. Other people I know who have this amp have had no trouble. Boogie use fixed biasing in their amps. This is a plus so that vibration or old trimpots won't put the bias out after years of use. It also stops the "screwdriver sligners" from adjusting the bias away from original design specs. To ensure correct bias, you only need to buy matched power tubes. Boogie's tubes are colour coded for this pupose.

Haven't had to as yet, although a techinical question emailed to MESA/BOOGIE months ago is still unanswered.

The MESA/BOOGIE 50/50 Stereo Power Amp completes the perfect combination with my Marshall JMP-1 and Rocktron Intellifex (see my review on the Marshall JMP-1). The sound I like could be described as the "brown sound" of the early Van Halen records. Whether I'm playing LOUD or down low, the tone remains the same. The MEAS/BOOGIE reproduces it exactly. Pure magic. My axe is a strat with a Dimarzio PAF-PRO humbucking pickup in the bridge position. After playing for 16 years, I think I now have found the right pre-amp and power amp combination. After many heads and combo's I won't ever need to look back. For me, tone means MUCH MORE than volume, or fancy features. NEVER compromise tone for features. You'll only regret it and be frustrated. As I previously stated, simplicity is often best. After all these years, even in the event of transistor/mosfet/digital technology, tubes still produce the most pleasing sound to the ear in guitar amplification. Randall Smith and others at Mesa Engineering have done well with the 50/50, and it is a credit to them.

not too versatile,two channels(stereo)but not channels as in "switched"it has gain and presence controls,lo/hi power and a ground lift-simple effective rock power.never did I doubt this amps ability- but I bought it on rep and because my friends repair company had incurred a bad debt on this repair( inever knew why it malfunctioned in the first place but it never screwed me)and i got a great deal on it.

I used the 50/50 with a seymourised strat,a custom hybrid(my favourite guitar,a jackson soloist clone i had commissioned larrivee to build me because jacksons then were about $2000 us)a charvel neck thru,and a korean tele.singles,humbuckers,teles,even a bartolini triple coil Jazz pickup.the amp spoke volumes for rock but I could not ever get it to clean up enough,even with the vintage single seymours on my strat.always used it as an alternative to my mosvalve 80/80-great amp,i will send a review soon)or in tandem with it on a switched system if the gig was prestigious or paid enough for the hassle of lugging all that delicious gear.truth be known,if i'm in the mood and the band deserves it,i'll bring the whole damn studio on the stage-as long as it doesn't get in the way and still adds to the sound...god I love gear...

to reiterate the last bit,i bought it on a bad repair bill-a friend of mine was a savant at repairs and had built a really flowing enter[prise fixing and installing and everythjing.this amp came in fried, I got a great deal after the repair never got picked up,and it never failed me again in five years and two re-tubes.yes,depend on it. ps-It never got dropped.

no idea.afriend of mine used to(i guess still does)know some guy from vancouver..Goodman?...he(my friend) got treated well,but ive had no contact whatsoever

I've been playing 26 years and it shows...sorry,.. where was I?... as far as other gear I will say i am a gearaholic, I am 38 and my only other expenses are rent and exotic car-motorcycle-mountain bike-fill in the blank,yeah I have lots of other gear,synths,exotic basses cool furniture,blah blah blah

100watt stereo (50 per side) all tube rackmount guitar power amp. Volume and presence controls on the front of the amp for each channel. Single 8ohm and two 4ohm speaker outputs per channel. Standby switch so you can keep the tubes warm during your breaks.

It's definitely a loud 50watts. This amp is so warm! It does way over 40 lbs and I've got it in an 8 space rack with my other gear so it IS heavy - but the sound makes it worth it. Before I had the Mesa Boogie I was using a Marshall Valvestate and the sound is like night and day. Nothing like the sound of tubes!

I've only had it less than a month. So far so good.

I have a Digitech 2101 preamp/processor that I use with the Mesa and then a Marshall 2x12 slant and Marshall 4x10 slant that I use for a stereo setup. The Mesa works great with this system. I play full-time club work playing funk/rock/dance stuff and this amp definitely provides enough power for me.

This amplifier is a stereo tube amplifier that imploys 4 6L6 tubes and 3 12AX7 for drivers and a phase inverter (I believe). It contains a volume control and a presence control for each channel. It is 50 watts a side that go into either 1 8 ohm output per channel or. 2 4 ohm ouputs per channel. This baby has tones of head room!

Very clean sounding. I use this amplifier in conjunction with a KORG A-2. A very good unit that I plug a lot. The A-2 has a +4db or a -10db selection on it. On most amplifiers I have to go with the -10db setting because it will prematurly disort on +4db. But the 50/50 handles it well without unnessary distortion. It's great.

Well, Mesa stuff is usually pretty good on tubes. I change mine a little over every year. I have however had one problem with it. The ground lift switch at the back has to be on constintly no matter if you are using it in a rack or not. I don't know if this is for all the 50/50 but it is with mine. If this switch is not switched then there is some massive buzz that is louder than the guitar. If it's switched everything is fine and sweet. But it has never broken down and the fact that the tubes are fan cooled then it definitly saves on having to replace the tubes.

I called Mesa Boogie about the ground lift problem because at first I didn't know what it was. I suppose I had accendently flipped the switch in moving it. They suggested the tubes had gone bad, it wasn't that but they were very kind on the phone and called me back from California to Canada. That has to say something about their service.

Sure, but I am probably unloading my rig for a combo type amp. The only thing about this amp and characteristic of all tube amps is that it is very heavey. And when it is in a rack with other equipment then it is hard.