Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier Solo Head

You'll get a great tone the same moment you'll switch it on. Well...to get tones out o' this tank is easy as drinkin' water but since the Recto is capable of very complex sounds it's important to learn to use it well. Also, the manual is very poor written and leaves you alone to try all the features and it doesn't explain all the combinations you can achieve by changin' type of tubes, sylicon or tube rectifiers clean or dirty, modern to vintage, vintage to modern and all the combinations between them.

Oh man...sound is class A. Never heard so many tones so good closed all togheter in a amplifier. It can replicate an old marshall but it can do more and more Vintage tones are the best. Very powerful with lot of attack It seems to be more for rythm than for lead sounds but it works great for single note solos too! Mine isn't noisy. Distortions range from litlle overdriven sound to brown to extra fuzzy and you can handle it from the guitar volume too. Lot of dynamic. Some tones, on some combinations, are a little too muddy.

It is built like a tank. It's made "all tubes" and tubes are tubes so take your spares valves with you on the gig

I'd buy it again because I love his aggressive sound that I never heard on another amlifier. I wish it had lot of switches for to change all the combinations between tubes and silycon rectifiers, channel cloning, clean and dirty tone because with those switches the amp wouldn't be limited to only two channels.

This is one of the best heads available dispite the trademark mesa/boogie high end buzz. While not very versatile, It does what it does better than any other head I've played. I've been using one for over two years without a problem.

I use Sovtek EL-34's and change them every six months. The 6L6's sounded like mud to me (I'm a Marshall fan not a Fender fan) I also installed a adjustable BIAS and run the tubes at 50ma per side. Boogie runs 'em too cool for my ears. e-mail me and I'll tell you how to do the mod yourself

If you need assistance from Mesa/Boogie they are very helpful

100W tube head. 4 12AX7s --> 4 6L6 or 4 EL34. Not particularly versatile - 2 channels with 2 voicings (so 2 clean, 1 clean 1 dirty, or 2 dirty). Individual channel gain controls, levels controls, and a master volume. Buffered parallel FX loop. Switch for either solid state or tube rectifier. Bias switch to enable quick tube swaps (6L6 to EL34). Switch to lower output to 75W to enable cranking at low volume. Slave out. Looks amazing (polished chrome treadplate face). Power to spare. No option to tap power transformer for different countries' voltages.

Dirty channel has the distortion sound from HELL. Beautiful round "brown" Marshall on 11 early VH meets Zakk Wylde sort of tone, even with 6L6s. Ability to dial in lots of gain (sort of like the VH 5150), but IMHO sounds nicer with medium preamp gain and cooking the power tubes. A little more boost (like with a TS-9 with drive on "0") gives a silky lead tone.
Clean channel can be set to either a bright sparkly sort of clean or a more vintage tube sound. The bright option could use some more volume (to achieve a balance of clean/dirty levels the clean gain has to be quite low to avoid clipping, which means the level has to be high and the dirty level low to balance out).
With a bit of tweaking and some FX possible to achieve a nice clean sound and an AMAZING dirty sound. Maybe not the amp for a top-40 pop band, but just the thing for a hard rock/metal gig. The dirty channel cleans up quite nicely when the guitar volume pot is rolled off, and with a bit of compression can produce a viable clean sound.

Build like a Mack truck, and looks like it. Only problem I've had with mine in a year of use is a scratchy pot, which some cleaning spray fixed in 5 minutes. Buying in USA and using in New Zealand (240V at 50Hz) meant replacing the power transformer, but no other work has been necessary.

Never dealt with company since purchase - never needed to.

I went from a MIDI preamp/gazillion FX/power amp/stereo speakers setup on which I'd work my way through 100 presets in the course of a night to MESA head/2FX units+a few pedals/mono cab on which I use maybe 5 different sounds a night, and with the 5 that the MESA gives me that suits me just fine!
A big tube head is more inconvenient than a tidy rackmount setup, but has more authority. The head looks cool, and if you can't deal with the hassle the Dual Rectifier comes in a 4U rack version.
I wish the channels were switchable by MIDI (a la the Marshall Jubilee head) - the channel switch pedal is just one thing more to get in the way.
My previous amps have been Marshall 100W JCM800, then ADA MP-1/Marshall Tube Power Amp. Although not as flexible as the ADA, the Dual Rectifier makes up for it in tone. I purchased mine after extensive comparisons with Marshall JCM900, Marshall SL-X, Soldano SLO-100, Soldano Hot Rod 100, Laney 100W head, and heaps of rack preamps. It was really no contest, and a fraction of the price of some of the rejects.
Overall? If you are in a rock/metal band, GET THIS AMP!!!