Mesa/Boogie Express 5:25

I am updating an earlier review, so give no ratings.

The Express has been excellent in 15 months' service. It has done about 4 gigs and countless hours' rehearsal. No problems at any time.

I switched the power tubes to cheap and widely-available JJs from Rapid Electronics two months ago, without problems or any noticeable change of sound.

The amp is used mainly in Crunch, Clean and Burn modes, in that order. I still don't rate Blues mode, even though I like blues music. Practice is on 5W mode, gigs and louder rehearsals on 25W mode. Some care needed when switching, as the two modes don't sound the same unless EQ is tweaked.

I use an home-made 8-ohm extension cabinet most of the time, in combination with built-in speaker. I use no effects, but have a home-made volume-changer "solo switch" in the effects loop; very useful. The DIN lead for the supplied multi-footswitch looked fragile and I only used its channel switch anyway, so now I just plug in a single generic footswitch for the channel.

25 watts switchable to 5 watts.
2 channels with 2 modes each
effects loop and 10" speakers

During the 9 months I have had this amp, I have used it mostly on the 5 watt setting both for practice and gigs. I switch to 25 watts for outdoor gigs or larger venues.
Almost every tone in classic rock can be found in this amp - from a sparkling clean tone to very heavy gain. The clean mode of channel 1 is very full and fat sounding with excellent dynamics. This channel gets a very nice bluesy grind to it with the levels cranked up. Very Fenderish. The Crunch mode on Channel 1 has a substantial jump in gain and sounds very much like a classic Marshall.
Channel 2 has the Blues mode and the Burn mode. The Blues mode to me sounds like a cranked Fender amp and the Burn mode is very high gain.
As you move through the various modes and channels the tone controls affect the sounds on Channels 1 the most, providing a wide range of variation. When you get to the Burn mode on channel 2 the tone knob's effect is very subtle. The end result is, if you like playing with lots of gain you had better like the basic tone of this amp because you can't change it very much.
I have noticed a bit of a lag when changing channels with the footswitch. Not a big problem but you have to be prepared for it.
I have swapped out the stock Russian made Mesa tubes as I am not a big fan of the sound. I have put in a mix of NOS preamp tubes and JJ power tubes with no ill effects, even though the bias set at the factory may not match the tubes I have installed.
Mesa should look into providing tubes from some other manufacturers for those us who are not in love with the Russian tubes.

No problems at all.

No idea, since I have not talked to them.

I mainly play this amp with my TV Jones pickup equipped Strat. The sound is great with just a guitar, a cable and the amp. I do use pedals with it, both in front of the preamp and in the effects loop with no problems.
This is a solid and versatile amp that I highly recommend to anyone looking to cover all of the classic rock sounds. I am sure that with the right guiatr/pedal combo you can play metal as well.

Just bought this amp for the 2nd time and love it. Features are incredible from its small size, huge sound and the ability to dial in ANY sound you want short of scorching metal. It sounds so sweet and to me, the size is what sold me on it, TWICE!

I am using a Taylor Custom Solidbody electric with this amp and have also used it with a Gibson SG and Les Paul Studio. This amp can go from the most round, supple delicate cleans in the 5 watt mode to classic crunch and velvety blues all with a flick of a switch. I bought this amp when I was searching for a new amp that would give me a GREAT clean, good reverb and some crunch thrown in. The 1st one I bought at GC and of course in GC fashion I had to take the one off the floor. Missing the cover, manual, and even had a scratch on it. Got it home and found it had some sort of hum/buzz so I returned it and decided to wait for them to get one in.

In the meantime I bought and auditioned a Fender Blues deluxe, Hot Rod Deville SE, DRRI, Blues Jr, Line 6 Spider Valve, Vox Valvetronix 30 watt, and even a crate palomino. The Hot Rod SE gave me a GREAT clean but the drive was awful, plus the sound wore thin after two days and sounded harsh, thin, sterile and flat. Decided to go with the Express 5:50 2X12 GC had in stock and that was magical but way too loud, and also not as delicate with the cleans.

Bottom line is I finally found another 5:25 but had to drive 2 hours to another GC to get it. This time they had the cover, the manual kit, catalog, etc. It was MINT except some bonehead turned it on with the plastic tube sleeves meant for shipping. They gave me a new set of Mesa tubes and away I went. I have been in love ever since as with my Taylor Custom Solidbody it is pure magic.

The cleans, especially in the evening in 5W mode are the best I have heard beating all of the Fenders I have tried. The blues sounds are top notch and the crunch is as well. AC/DC is EASY on this amp. The Burn channel is nice but not a marshall distortion. I can get tons of sustain in the burn channel with my Taylor. Hit a note and it lasts and lasts just like a Les Paul. The amp has no problem and the burn channel is GREAT for solo leads.

I have a metal muff pedal I use if I want to go super heavy and it sounds amazing.

For $1049 this amp just can NOT be beat. The versatility is out of this world. You can dial in ANY sound you need except extreme metal, and a pedal can do that no problem. For those who say you cant get a good sound, READ the manual and realize how the tone knobs work. They are 100% different than say a Fender or Marshall in the way they work.

I can get a sparkly bright clean, a thick round clean, a flat clean or a dirty clean all with a tiny bit of twist on the gain and treble/bass knobs. Take the clean channel, turn up the gain to 12 and the volume to 11 and treble and bass at about 3-4 and mid at 9 and the contour at about 11 and the sound is pure tube distortion, thick, creamy and fat.

I can go on and on and on about this little amp and it sound quality. Best I have heard for under $2500

Have not owned it long enough to evaluate reliability but no problem and i found out the 1st one i had that buzzed was one room in my house where any amp buzzes when plugged in. No issues at all.

Never had to deal with them.

I am a relative newbie to guitar and wanted to start with good gear. I can play somewhat as i took lessons when I was young and for the past 4 years have messed around learning as much as I could. I LOVE this amp. The size is so nice, its build amazing, it style and design top notch and the sound is A+. I compared this with MANY fenders from $500-$1200 and this beats them for versatility. I even A/B'd it against the $1200 fender supersonic which to my ears sounded brittle, thin and bright. Express won. Also tried the new Line 6 spider valve and was disappointed in that one. No contest, express wins. Tried a Peavy Valveking and that was horrible, express wins. Tried a crate, a vox and others. The ONLY place for improvement I can see is if they made this with a 12" speaker instead of a 10" as it does sound a tiny bit boxy compared to the 5:50 but not by much at all. It appears Mesa is releasing this amp with a 12" in 2008 and I will probably buy it. This amp is amazing and a keeper.

all the features have been covered, so lets get to the important stuff.this amp has a lot of features,and i thought it was just what i was looking for until i played it.

the clean sounds on this amp are good, i could use them, no problem the blues/ crunch sounds are also nice, great reverb, but the burn channel is a muddy mess, and the sustain on single notes just is'nt there. it's like you hit the note, it sounds, and it starts to die.it leaves you out there on your own.there is no "sweet singing sustain"

been playing 34yrs,owm a parker nitefly SA, akramer pacer deluxe, a line6 flextone3, and a carvinx100b all tube half stack. this amp had more featuers than all the others in this class, but the out and out lead tones were dissapointing, it's just not my sound!

Already covered. Four different gain levels, switchable, rolled into two channels. Separate eq per channel. Long-tank reverb. Extra eq stage called "contour". Footswitch switches channel, reverb and contour.

Perhaps the amp's best feature is its small size and weight (combined with great tone). As an average six-foot slob, I can lug this thing with ease -- for miles, I should think, if necessary.

The sound quality is, in a word, sublime. First of all, unlike previous reviewers, my sample of this amp is extremely quiet at idle. No complaints on that score at all.

The clean channel is beautiful, perhaps more Voxy than Fendery, and has a lot of headroom with the amp in the 25W Class A/B setting. With the amp in 5W Class A, headroom takes a dive, but the amp goes into gorgeous power-tube distortion on the clean channel at fairly low volume (the neighbours won't be pleased in an apartment building, though).

The various preamp distortion settings -- Crunch, Blues and Burn -- take the amp from mild breakup to full-on searing, creamy distortion. Classic rock and blues tones are all in there, no exaggeration. The amp won't get fully into Rectifier territory, but it really gets very close.

I can get a harmonic-rich, brutal, generally wonderful modern rock chord sound with the standard 498T bridge pickup on my Les Paul, with the preamp on Burn, gain about 2/3 of the way up, and the power amp on the 5W setting so that power-tube distortion comes into play as well.

The little 10" speaker is a very big surprise. Sounds huge. Dunno how they did it, but I don't feel that it's second best at all.

This is my first Mesa amp so I can't compare with other models, but I can say the sound possibilities are greater than with any other amp I've tried -- and I've tried a lot in my 30 years of playing.

Best of all, the sounds are so authentic, complex and rich -- tube tone about as good as it gets.

Dunno.

Dunno.

Can't give the 5:25 an overall 10 because it's so goddam expensive. Maybe not so bad in the USA, but here in South Africa the thing is the price of a middle-class month's salary after tax. Hectic, but almost worth it...

This is the latest line in Mesa's range, and the new entry level (replacing the F series). I think they're an incredible amp for the size and price (even at Australian prices which have to include a lot of extra shipping/distribution costs etc). Two channels, each with a wide range of gain and tone options. Footswitchable reverb and contour control, lots of switchable options including (the star feature) a power amp section that runs at 25 (ish) watts OR low power single ended class A EL-84 (5-7 watts). I've gigged it many times with bass and drums and it can hold its own without micing (even with only a single 10" speaker!), add a mic in front and you can have as grunty a guitar sound as you like in FOH (if you're using a PA). Note: I'm talking about a band of mature players who listen to each other and play for the song, not a thrashing competition. The low power section is great for quieter conditions and recording. It's not a mute switch, there's still substantial volume, but you can now use the clean channel with master volume all the way up, so you can get more authentic classic amp sounds that compress and break up sooner. There are always extra things you could wish for, but I think Mesa have included so much in a small package that they deserve congratulations. I'm being conservative with an 8 rating here, I don't want to be extreme and give lots of 10s (which should be almost impossible).

The sounds are really gorgeous (lame word, I know, but you'll see what I mean, beauty and substance). If you A/B with a more average amp you will really notice the extra detail, rounder sounds, quality of the reverb and effectiveness of the EQ. The rhythm channel is EQ-ed with more bottom end possibilities and a wide gain range from clean to AC/DC crunch. If you find the spot on the gain knob (around 4ish) where the volume is about the same in clean and crunch modes you have a really versatile gig setup where you can simply flick the switch depending on the song and not have to fiddle with anything else. The lead channel also has a really wide range of sounds from quite clean boost (jazz/country) through Robert Cray, SRV, Clapton, Hendrix to Santana. The overdrive quality is round, it can be gritted up with some extra treble and mids dialled in, but essentially it's not a chainsaw, it's a hot knife through butter (man, how esoteric should I get?). I love the way that a can solo with a really high gain sound, bags of sustain and sweet harmonic feedback, but every note is clear and musical. It may not be your sound if you're a Slipknot (is that how you spell it?) fan, but most will be impressed, I'm sure.

I've only had the amp a few months, but gigged and played it quite a lot in that time. It looks and feels really solid, with lots of design features to keep the knobs and internals safe and secure. The footswitch (included) is a really solid unit, and its cable and connector seem robust too. I've owned a few Mesa amps in my time and none of them ever gave me any trouble. Keep a spare fuse in your kit and (maybe) a pair of power tubes just in case, and you can be really confident without a backup.

Customer support in Australia will be taken care of by your dealer and the importer/distributor (Pro-Audio). In my opinion it should be very good, but I haven't had to return anything. You pay a fair bit of money for Mesa gear here (there is no discounting) and most dealers take their responsibility to cutomers seriously.

I've been playing electric guitar about 25 years, most of that professionally. I've used Fender, G&L, Ibanez guitars (and others) and Rivera and Mesa amps mostly. If stolen/lost I'd replace this straight away, I've come to really like everything it does and it's smaller/lighter than my Rivera R-100 (which I use for bigger stages). I considered Fender blues junior, Peavey Classic 30, Traynor, Laney and some other options, but as soon as I played the Express 5:25 I knew nothing else would give me all these benefits, and I would be happy with it for a long time.

Made 2007, tube amp. It seems to have come from the product line of Nomad, then the F-series, each time taking the best features and refining them further.

The amp is spec'd very well, as you expect from Mesa. The 2 independant channels each have 2 modes and this gives a huge variety of possible tones.

The switchable 5 watt to 25 watt gives even more options.

I used this amp in studio for recording and just jamming, and in rehearsal with acoustic drums, bass, keyboards and other guitarist. 25 watts was plenty loud enough, I probably had it no more that half way. I feel there would easily be enough power for pub gigs.

The sound from this amp is excellent from clean to hard rock. At 25 watts, the clean will begin to break when cranked, but it is still a very impressive clean.

Some say the speaker is a little boxy, but I was pleasantly surprised how good it sounded with a 10" speaker. 10" especially suits the 5 watt mode. I tried the Express on 25 watt mode through a 2 x 12 with decent speakers and it sounded huge! I would have no reservations playing live un-mic'd in a pub/ small gig.

The amp is extremely loud for its rating and can easily cope with loud drummer and other guitarists. Mesa uses a special circuit to deliver the power on the attack of the note. I felt that the sustain was compromised, because after the inital attack of the note, the volume seemed to drop of considerably.

For studio, there are many tonal variations.

So far, I rate the sound quality at 10... but...

Unfortunately, this amp is very noise when not being played. I returned the amp because of this. I've never heard an amp this noisy when no guitar is plugged in, on the clean channel. I tested it side-by-side against other amps (including Mesa Nomad 100, Fender Champ), and later against a Mesa Lonestar. I measured the noise at 58 decibel, the other amps rated around 48 (which means the Express is TWICE as loud). It kind of sounds like you have low quality effects in the loop!

I tried another express 5:25 in the shop and same problem (to confirm it wasn't just my express).

For me this was reason enough to return it because if Mesa have cut corners/ poor design here, where else would there be problems.

Note: When testing the noise in the shop be use to have your ear on the same level as the amp, or you'll miss it until you get it home like I did :-(

I swear I had a problem with the Reverb, seemed to be shorting into the master, but could not reproduce it when I took it back to the shop. However I only noticed this problem after playing for over an hour at home at highish volume - clean channel gain at 12 and master at 12 (with the stock speaker). So maybe this was me doing something wrong, maybe a faulty model? Either way as I returned it to the shop because of the loud background noise I guess I'll never know.

That aside, the amp seems very solid and I have had excellent results with other Mesa amps.

My local dealer was very understanding and did refund me. I hope they don't just put me down as a fussy customer and do actually forward my comments about the noise to Mesa.

If Mesa don't know that people find things like this a problem then they'll never fix it!

I've been playing for years, and play with decent kit. Amps I've owned include Mesa, Fender, Marshall and Caslbro.

I wanted to love this amp, the spec is right, the build quality appears good. But the background noise and problem I had with the reverb put me off.

It's a great amp as long as you don't mind the noise level. But for me, at this price, I consider this a design flaw.

I'll buy a Mesa again, but will consider the Lonestar.

2007 Express 5:25. This is an amazing amp and when compared to the competition, it is an amazing deal. Dual Channels with Duo-Class power section. They've replaced the 5 band graphic switchable EQ with a contour knob .. one for each channel. Basically as you turn the contour knob clockwise it goes from flat to the classic V setting.. with the V getting more pronounced as you go. The only thing on my wish list was that the Class A 5 watt setting switch was on the front and possibly footswitchable.

This amp covers everything amazingly well... except for producing a huge low end chunk of a high gain amp going thru a 4x12 cab.. if that is what your looking for, you bought the wrong amp. It still amazes me when I read 'I keep the gain and bass maxed' ... that is just going to sound like crap... The manual covers some suggested setting and they are excellent... I can produce a massive heavy metal, tight, tight... blooming metal tone with the burn channel, gain at noon bass at 10:00... volume at 9:30 or so. Add a tube screamer type pedal for solos and you've got a lead tone that is sharp as a razor. Why would you look at a little amp with a 1x10 speaker and expect it to sound like a closed back 4x12 stack?? Ok, haveing said that.. this amp i amazing at clean and crunch tones... simply amazing.. with the class a/b setting you get big fat warm, big bass tube tone... with the class A you get a more midrange/treble tone what produces an awesome crunch tone...

The only amps I've ever had problems with have been mesa amps.. but I've never had an issue with a mesa combo... I love mesa amps and have purchased about 10 new mesa's brand new and I'm always trying new mesa amps at my local dealer... I think mesa needs to do a much better job of QA when they send out new amps, they claim that the issues appear after shipping... issues have been like reverb not working... or some bad part producing a tone issue.. once fixed your good to go but still... I do think the wood construction of the cabinets are second to none.

10 here.. along with VHT .. Mesa is the only company that seems to really care about taking care of issues someone may have with a purchased product. Treat them with respect and they'll return the favor.

This is a great EL84 amp and when compared to the competition it is an amazing deal. the 1x10 configuration really offers a versitile and unique tone.. This is a great little amp!

Got this amp in July 2007. Very versatile to play many styles of music. Everyone knows how many channels. Alot of functional goodies here if you need them.

Love the Boogie clean, love the the crunch and can be a different kind of clean with just a slight breakup with the control of your guitar. The Blues I don't use too often so I use the Burn. Alot of gain with the Burn but not metal type gain. Would have to use a pedal for that. Reverb is an improvement from other models.
Controls are independent such as gain, treble, mids, bass, reverb, master and contour for each channel. Foot switchable channels, reverb and contour. Reverb is all tube. Very cool. The amp is a rocker and will give you a mutitude of tones. Plenty of volume for a convervative rating of 25 watts in class A/B. It's actually 30 watts and possibly more with the dynawatt circuitry built in. Don't be fooled with the 10" speaker. The way this amp is built electronic wise, the Dynawatt circuitry and the dimensions of the cabinet will give you a big, big sound. Very decieving! Now for the class A settup. This is a full throttle of 5 pure watts. The tones are juicy, simply amazing. Dont believe me, test one out at the stores and set it up with the 5 watt class A. It will blow you away. Be prepaired to buy it. It is costly of just over a grand. When an amp can make a crappy guitar sound really good, you got a really good amp. I got to rate this amp a 10 because it delivers what Mesa Boogie say it can do and some. Very please with this amp. It's gig ready. For big avenues, just mike it.

Never had a problem with Boogies except for tubes.

Customer support. No worries here!

Great AMP period. Just pricy!

As stated below. No presence control. Has plenty of power. Very cute little amp. Awww..

Uing an American Deluxe strat with SCN noiseless pups S1 switching. Engage!! (The S1 switch, for more bass). I also play an Epi LP through and sounds very harsh. The tone is rather compressed typical of EL84 tube amps. Very boxy sounding, almost muted. Sounds a lot like my Super Champ on clean. I don't like the crunch mode, sounds like they removed the bass and added midrange, way too bright. I don't care much for the blues mode either, sounds hoaky. The burn mode does even come close to the type of gain for me. Keep your pedals. The strat sounds very thin, even with the S1 engaged, the LP on the burn channel is the best of the 3 distortion modes, but does not have the gain it claims to have. Extremely loud little amp. Clean channel sounds nice but would sound a lot better with a decent speaker.

My last Mesa was ok, but cheaps pots as always. It ain't gonna last forever.

It don't git no better than this.

Been playing since i jammed with Hendrix. I mean his records. I had to trade this in for the 5:50 beacuse for $100 more, I got a 6L6 amp with the bottom end I need. Not a bad amp by any means, just overpriced by say, $300 or so. A lot of ticks here with the 5 watt class A setting, but it won't help the boxey tone and cheap, harsh-sounding Eminence speaker. It does not have rectumfrier gain, not even close. I keep the gain and bass maxed, still not enough except for maybe classic rock, rythm playing. It only lasted two weeks. The 5:50 is much more balsy, especially when cranked.