Mesa/Boogie F-30 112 Combo

Dont' know year of manufacturing, think 3 years ago, before the Express era anyway.
versatile enough, 2 channels, bright switch on clean and a contour on the drive/gain channel.
Way enough power boys & girls... no more >100 watts for me, cooking a low wattage is the way to go...

Les paul, classic with a SD JB in the bridge and a 59 in the neck (no great match IMHO, but that's another story)
In a classoc rock/pop cover band. Amp has to be versatile..
And, here's the story, what a sound, what a distortion. Smooth and brutal. Is this possible ? Yeaahhh it is. This is a marshall sound at its best. Balanced, light crunch to good singing solosound. I also recently purchased a Marshall silver jubilee, but its gotta go. ice pick marshall rubbish, why o why do i even try. Boogie for me, all the way. Really boys and girls, this is the sound for me.oh, almost forgot, thsi baby sounds terrific on low volumes. I also had a month with the MB express, forget it. The F30 blows 'm all away...

I'ts a boogie, i'm not expecting any problems, but you never know.
none thusfar. Only a month under my wings so don't really know.

never dealt with Customer service.

As i mentioned, also got a people's favorite, marshall jubilee. forget it, ice queen trebly, yak.
Mesa is king, all the way, versatile and only concerned with one thing, SOUND. And value for money, buy 'm now...since the express came out, these baby's are a steal

Features are pretty straight-forward with this amp; gain, treble, mid, bass, reverb, and master volume for each of 2 switchable channels. The amp has a clean channel, a drive channel, and a contour channel, which increases the gain and scoops the mids. A parallel effects loop, with a level control is available via the back pannel. The amp is 30 loud tube watts, which is certainly enough power for me, and the stock 12" speaker sounds great. This can be a very versatile amp, and could easily do anything from country to metal, and anything in between. It may not provide enough gain for EXTREME metal, but it has more than enough for anything I play; the gain knob is usually at about 9 o'clock, and rarely ever gets past 11 o'clock. About the only thing that I think would be a good addition to this amp would be the ability to switch it to a lower wattage setting, like 5W or even 1W for lower volume environments.

I use this amp with several different guitars with both double and single coil pickups (Gibson '58 Les Paul reissues, Gibson Howard Roberts Fusion, Gibson EDS-1275 doubleneck, PRS Custom 24, Fender '52 Tele reissue...) and a few effects (volume pedal, wah, chorus, phaser, and flanger in the front, and an RSP intelliverb in the effects loop) and it does a great job with everything I plug into it! I play a variety of different styles of music, but a lot of classic and progressive rock, and this amp is very well suited for those styles (and many more!). There is some slight operating noise at high volumes, but nothing out of the ordinary for an all tube amp. The clean channel can range from being very clean to being quite crunchy with the gain control increased. For me, this works out well, but for a player who needs a very clean sound at a very high volume, the headroom may not be there. I love the drive channel! If I set the gain at about 9 o'clock, I get get a great crunchy overdrive sound that will clean up when the guitar's volume control is backed off on. Another thing that I like about this amp (and the main reason that I decided on the F-30) is that, although it sounds best with the master volume half way up or more, it also sounds very good at low volume levels. This is an area where a lot of all tube amps that I was auditioning did not do so well. All in all, a fantastic sounding amp!

The amp seems very well built. I have had the amp for several years now, and have never had to do anything more than change the power tubes. Seems, so far, like this amp will last a long time. I would have no problem gigging without a backup.

I have only needed to deal with Mesa/Boogie once. Shortly after I got the amp (within a month), the volume started dropping here and there, and the sound became very "fizzy". When I decribed the symtoms to the Mesa rep, he had me check the appearance of the power tubes (one of which was glowing red, much more than the other). He determined that I had a bad tube and proceeded to send me a new set of tubes. The tubes arrived within a matter of days and the problem was solved and has never occurred again. The rep was friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. If I ever have another problem with this amp, I would feel very confident about dealing with Mesa/Boogie. It appears that they are genuinely appreciative of their customers and stand behind their products.

I have been playing for more than 30 years now, and I have owned a fair bit of gear over the years. Ironically, this is the first all tube amp I have ever owned. I had searched for a tube amp that sounded great at both high and low volumes for a few years before comming across the F-30. I also had a hard time finding an amp that could produce the kind of overdrive sound that I liked - thick, rich, and big sounding, but not fizzy/fuzzy and overly distorted. I wanted to be able to play chords with intervals other than roots and fifths and have it sound clear and pleasant. This amp does everything I need it to do. Unfortunately, this model has been discontinued, so, I guess I will have to find a used one if I ever need another!

Features have been covered enough already, but I'll just say that everything I would want out of a gigging amp is there. It doesn't have a billion different knobs and sliders, but it doesn't have to.

This is an excellent sounding amp, to say the least. You can get some really pristine clean tones out of it, as well as some really MEAN sounding distorted tones. All in all, this is an excellent all around amp. For the stuff that I play (classic rock, hard rock, old school metal), this is easily one of the best sounding amps I've worked with.

Volume wise, the amp is plenty loud, and cuts through the mix really well. I've gigged quite a few times with the F-30, and have not had any volume issues at all...except being told to turn down at times. :)

As a side note, I've tried using the amp with an attenuator, and found that the amp actually sounds just fine without one. As with any amp, it doesn't really come alive until the speakers are pushing some serious air, but it doesn't need to be cranked to sound good. The stock speakers also sound just fine, and I don't feel the need to change it.

I bought the amp used, and while it came with quite a few dings and dents, there were no functional issues save from bad tubes. I think that speaks volumes about the build quality. :)

Bought this used, so did not have to deal with Mesa Boogie directly.

I've been gigging on and off for almost 15 years, and while I don't consider myself a professional, I am very serious about my music and my gear. I've researched and played through at quite a few amps before settling on the F-30 as my main gigging amp, in big part due to the solid tone that it produces, and the built quality, versatility, and light weight helped sealed the deal.

2004 model: clean,lead and contour channel, reverb. effects loop, recording out, 2x el 84; 4x 12ax7, quite not a feature-monster, but pretty versatile though.

first thing: the distortion is really,really,really ultra. you can get a brutally insane overdriven sound. problem is: the amp gets darker and sweeter and mid-heavy if you run the distortion flat out, so don't expect any mid-scooped metal in here. (the contour channel only makes the sound fatter and louder). reminds me somewhat of the fender hot rod deluxe...
nonetheless: the sound is really brutal and fat, just not the scooped-metal-kind. if you're expecting a rectifier you will be pretty disappointet, though the f 30 definitely has some rectifier genes.
to get that typical metal sound, i'm using an equalizer, and...here goes the metal !
the clean channel is very sweet, warm and vintage-sounding, no hi-fi sparkling clean, but nice fat and crunchy with a little gain dialed in. in combination with power tube distortion a very nice classic-rock sound, works well with the guitars volume (also in the od-channels)
one thing left: if you dial in bass to about 3 o'clock the sounds becomes flabby and muddy, so be careful with the bass pot!
this amp can get seriously loud, it's quite not as loud as my mesa roadking, but a little louder than my hughes and kettner edition tube 20, which really screams (and is tonally the total opposite, but also VERY nice)
i'm using this baby mainly with my prs-guitars, but it also sounds good with some of my cheaper guitars - yamaha, epi and ibanez,
very nice amp.

the amp has some noise, though it's not as noisy as some of the revievs said before (try changing the preamp tubes;) ) but even if i run it flat out, there have been no issues with it yet. though i must admit i'm a little concerned because of some of the earlier reviews, so we'll see.

the company always has been VERY helpful to me, great customer support.

a very nice amp, if you can get one on ebay or so, it's worth quite a bit of money, matches well with my other amps, (mesa roadking and hughes and kettner edition tube 20 ) i like the fat overdriven carlos santana attitude of this thing very much, if it would be stolen i'd definitely try to get another.
another word on that: don't go for the express series amps, they are a rather bad choice in comparison with the f series imho.

Features have been fully covered by other reviews. If I could design it, about the only things I would add is a tremolo and a separate reverb for the clean and dirty channels.

This is where this amp shines. I have a Gibson Les Paul Studio, Gretsch 5120, Dean Strat-wannabe, and my kid's junior strat and they all have a unique voice through this amp, and you can find some sweet tones for all. I have owned several amps in the past and have never heard such a difference in my guitars. I play anything from classic rock and blues to hard rock to rockabilly to metal, and this amp can cover it all. The cool part of this amp is that each knob really does something, you can't just max out all the bass, mid, treble and gain and hope to get a good sound from it. One of the sweetest aspects of this amp is the clean channel, give it some gain and it breaks up in a way I have not heard from many amps. Using the tone controls you can take it from a tinny crunch to thick syrupy tone heaven. Turn the gain down and it has some wonderful jazzy smooth tones. On the distortion channels, you want to keep the gain at or below about 12 oclock or you get really muddy and lose all the character of your guitar. I keep the gain around 7 or 8 oclock and just turn it up and let the amp breathe and let my humbuckers do the work. This amp is capable of very "metal" tones without the gain maxxed out.

For some reason, one of the retainers for the tubes is too tight. If I clip the retainer over the tube, it pulls the tube to the side and makes a bad connection and it makes a horrendous farting noise. I just leave the retainer off that tube and never have a problem. I guess if I were moving it around a lot i would look into that. Other than that, no issues with the amp at all.

Only called once, to order new tubes. Responded to my email that day.

I think this is a great amp. Seriously good tone if you dial it in. As with any good amp, can sound crappy if you set it crappy. Definitely not a "one trick pony". I have been playing off and on for 12 years or so. Had a Marshall AVT 150, Fender Princeton Chorus, couple other junk amps. Some day soon I am going to build it a Flame Maple case and redo the grille so it will look as good as it sounds. I wouldn't sell it and would hunt down and kill the perpetrator if it were stolen or lost.

30 watts, 2 channels, reverb, contour (lead boost), 1 X 12 speaker.
Nothing fancy, juat a great small amp.

Great

No Problems

No problems

I have had mine for almost 4 years and still love playing it. For years I played with as little equipment and effects as possible. But in the last year or so because of having to play more variety of music I put together a nice pedalboard that wound up being stereo out. I now run the F-30 along with a Deluxe Reverb RI that has had quite a few upgrades. Those two amps work together like nothing I've ever heard. I can turn them down to dinner music level or crank them to glorious sweet singing guitar heaven. The two clean channels compliment each other very well because of the different voicing and if you switch to the gain channel with just a little drive then "clean" sound of the fender still cuts through and adds great definition to the sound. If you are able to try this set up - do so - you will love it.

Hi , I am back from my 2004 review. Go-a-head and scroll to #4. This F-30 is the **** if you are looking for a small light weight amp with features you need if you play out a lot. Great for you blues players with a push pull gain to take it from reg fender to deluxe. Great for you Metal MoFo's that want to throw your hair ( or the lack of, like I ) around in circular motion. I really dig the chan switch from clean to dirty. If you have a Strat you will really appreciate the tone in your mid switches. Heart warming for me with harmonics like no other. If you play on a an SG or Les you may have to roll off some of the gain and tweek a tad, but that's fun too..... right? It also has a "push over the cliff" (if you will), with a switch that takes the regular dirty to down right high end Monster-y ( if there is such a word) . I highly recommend lining 3 up in a store and plugging into each because they are all close to hand made still. Each one will sound different. ( Maybe one has been on the sales floor too long, good thing, or bad thing, use your ears.)

Keeps up with any amp under 100watts. Lot's of different tonalities can be obtained. Great distortion and lot's of it. Great amp for seasoned players. For you new-B's with $$$$ , this is a great buy, trust me

Very reliable , have had mine for 3 years and not a problem. It's a Mesa.

Never needed it

30 years playing in real bands

www.zipperheadrocks.com
www.rolloverrocks.com

Yes I would call my insurance company to replace if had to.

This amp is for the player that uses their vol knob on the guitar. If you do not know what I am talking about and just use your guitar full tilt all the time, don't bother with the clean chan. Use the the distortion chan.

Do you know what year the amp was made in?

No. Probably in the mid to late 90's.

Is the amp versatile enough for you and the styles of music you play? What are those styles?

I play straight up rock, blues rock, folk rock, roots rock. I find it to work well. It lets the guitar retain its woody tones very well. That's what I need. Nice tones. Breaks up nicely. Usual good amp stuff.


How many channels? Does it have channel switching? Effects loops? Headphone jack?

3 channels, foot switcher, reverb on it, too. EFX loop yes. Headphones yes. Silent recording switch on back.

The channels are a clean, crunch, and contour. I am mainly interested in the clean channel, but with much tweaking of EQ, volume and gain, I found the crunch and contour channels to be useful as well. At first I didn't like them. I had no use for that much distortion. But I learned to "tame" them by turning them on and cleaning them up as much as possible. That leaves just the perfect amount of distortion for what I need.

What features do you wish it had? Why? Are there features you never use?

Wish it had tremelo, but that's a Fender.

Where do you use this amp? Does it have enough power for you?

Use it in my home studio. More than enough power. Worry about neighbors at times!

Feel free to enter any other features (stereo, tube or solid state, etc.).

It's a tuber. When used in "stereo" with my Marshall or Fender solid state amps, I get a great FULL BALANCED sound! Probably everything the guitar has got to give comes out that way. (I rarely use one amp on its own anymore!)

What guitar and pickup styles are you using it with?

I usually use it with single coil Telecaster and Strat type guitars. Also Les Paul and Epiphone semi-hollow humbucker types.

Is it noisy? On what settings, and in what environments?

I think this thing is made with the studio in mind. It is very quiet for a tube amp. Just a little hiss that you can't hear once you start playing.

What kind of sounds can the amp make? How much variety?

Not a lot of variety. Just a warm reproduction of what your guitar has got. The contour and crunch channels give it that Boogie hard rock sound.

It's got a reverb tank. Can even get some surf sounds with it!

Is the clean channel distorted at high volumes? In what settings?
How brutal is the distortion?
Breaks up well. Nice warm overdrive for leads. Crank it and it howls! The crunch and contour channels give a poor man's Rectifier sound I guess.

Can you depend on it? Would you use it on a gig without a backup?

I had a Boogie Studio 22 that gave up the ghost after about 15 years of service so I know it's probably not immortal. This one still soldiers on after ten years or so. I use two amps at a time anyway, so no worries about backups!

Just gotta keep spare tubes around.

Great reputation, but no personal experience.

How long have you been playing?

Off and on for over 30 years. Seriously in the last seven or eight years.

What other gear do you own?

I'm a collector. Junkie? Six acoustics. Seven electrics. Four basses. Five keyboards. Electric drum set. About 50 analog pedals and 10 rack units. Three Boogie amps (Mark II, Studio 22). A Marshall Valvestate and Lead 12. A Fender Acoustasonic and Quad Reverb! Ashdown and Fender bass amps. God I'm sick!
Everything's old. Everything bought used in Pawn Shop raids or new in megasales in music stores. I ain't rich but I do invest a lot of time in the hunt!

If it were stolen or lost, would you buy it again or get something else?

I would consider it a sign, and resume the hunt for another Boogie of some sort! As long as it's in the same ballpark, it really doesn't matter if it's exactly the same kind or not.

what do you love about it? What do you hate?

I love it because it's a Boogie. One of the finer things in life! I would like a little more headroom, but I am smart enough to understand that this is the low F on the totem pole. Play a good song and who cares if it's good or junk? Good music sounds good even on AM radio!

I bought these amps about 4yrs ago. I play classic rock, blues, country, country rock, raggie etc. The amp has two channels, effects loop and a speaker off switch. I use the amp in big and small rooms, it has more then enough power.

The clean channel (channel 1) is the only one I use, the overdrive channel (channel 2) in my opinion sounds really nasty so I don't even bother with it, but the clean side is very nice. I can cover just about anything except super hard rock with this amp. All I can say is the amp sounds so good I get compliments almost every night.

The only thing I've ever had to do with this amp is replace the power tubes other then that it keeps on going night after night. I might add that I do have to replace a handle on one of the F -30s but that's a pretty small price to pay.

I've only had to buy tubes from them and they got them here in a hurry. Never had to deal with repairs.

I've been playing for roughly 40yrs and I've went thru a bunch of equipment in my days, everything from double stacks to transitor crap. If these amps where ever stolen I would buy another one in a heart beat. What I love the best about the F-30s is what the sound guys say about it and the crowds. The only flaws that I can see in the F-30 is the reverb is wimpy and the distortion side just sucks but I didn't buy the amp to play metal, I just love the clean channel

Made in USA, two channels + contour. About 50lbs. Stealth design and looks. Built like a tank.

I play a custom shop strat with SCs. It is perfect for ANY style music. The amp can get kinda noisy, but that is typical of amps that can achieve such massive amounts of gain. I can get fenderish cleans and marshall type gain. Awesome. The clean channel breaks up at high volumes but in a good crunchy kind of way. And the distortion kind get brutal in contour mode without have to crank the gain up.

Changed pre-amp tubes. No problems.

Awesome amp. Period