Mesa/Boogie F-30 112 Combo

2+1 tube amp. All Pointed out by all the others
30W SO LOUD!!!

There are 2 kinds of amps: the ones with a thousand options and sounds and the ones with their own voices. This little big amp DO HAVE his voice! And what a voice!
Very well crafted, Beautiful (but not Fenderous) Clean channell. I love the countour channell (I know, is not a "channel", but the sound is so different with it!). When I try it I was toughtfoul about the non-countour distorted channel. But now I like it very mutch.
It hasn't got a metal distortion, but if you play LOUD it goes wild!
Obviosly is a single cone combo, so you can't have the sound of a good cabinet, but the bottom end of the F30combo is impressive.

a little Noisy like a good tube amp would be

I think you can hear it on line on my band internet site for march 2008 (we're mixing the new album): www.lastazionedeipensieri.it
I play a Schecter C1 Classic wuih Duncan's pu.

I bought it used, I think it has 4 or 5 years but is almost new and perfect.

dunno

It has ONE sound x channel. But I like'em a lot.
try before you buy. But if you buy you'll be satisfied.

The amp is a nice lightweight 1x12 combo with dual channels for lead and clean. It has a seperate drive bass mid and treble, reverb and volume control for each cahnnel. These can be footswitched with the supllield footswitch. It must be noted that the footswitch is really nice and chunky with 3 bright lights on it one for rythm, one for lead and one for contour (this is an extra boost facility that lives on the lead channel). There is a pull bright on the rythem channel. Around the back of the amp we have a send and return which has mix control as well as extra speaker outputs. The footswitch input is tuced around the back too. There is also a silent record out put and speaker kill switch. Typical boogie they've thought of everything!

Wow. I have to say that this amp is a perfcet pro gigging amp. It is not too expensive and there are loads around 2nd hand now for not too much. It is relativly lightwieght so it is easy to carry upstairs or to practice or whatever. It is easy to shuffle in front of the support bands gear when you take the stage etc. It is loud enough for pub gigs with great power tube break up. Cracking crispy vox crunch. The overdrive is very thick and 'classic' and the boost on the contour gives the top end a bit extra for the odd solo. For decent gigs it always mic'ed up and there is plenty in the amp for stage volumes. If I ever get to Wembley then I will have to plug it into a 4x12 I suppose!
The overall sound is very valey very classic and nice and thick. Impressive stuff.
Unlike the earlier reviewer I find the reverb a bit too long which can sound a bit 'splashy'. This is of course purely subjective. I suppose I could change the reverb tank if it really bugs me in the long term.

Boogies I have found to be very reliable but we shall see. Class A amps have a habbit of frying so we will see.

I am very pleased with this amp I have gigged it for 6 months and its perfect. Ligt loud and fullsome. What more can one want for...

(sorry for my bad english... i'm french) I got this amp since more 2 years. I bought it cause i got a 5150 for repetitions with my band and gigs and i would like to found a sound similar in a little amp to play in my flat. Well, my choice goes normaly to Mes/boog.
My F30 was built 3 years ago. It has 2 channel with an "coutour extension", that you play like a third channel (with your footswitch).
The tunings are simples (like on 5150), gain bass mid treble, reverb, master. ok, same for the second channel, there is a non-adjustable fx loop. There is a headphone jack. I use it especialy with an Ibanez S540 LTD with EMG 81 and 85 pickup, i use and Dean DS 92 with Dimarzio superdiso in bridge and Hot Rails Seymour Duncan in neck. I use this amp only at home and it has too much power for what i do with it. 30 tube power watt (it kicks all ass). It is easy to use, it's some kind of plug and play, that i want (remember 5150)...

i play first metal (thrash metal exactly) and then some blues/rock.

Clean :
from a pure and fine clean to a grass clean with some crunch in the back (i can get the same sound as on the intro of ... and Justice for All - Metallica). If i turn the gain to the max i get a pure hard rock sound that i can turn with the neck pickup in bluesy disto.
So 11/10 for this channel.

Crunch, is a little bit limp, flabby, but with powerful pickup it's ok. You can get easely marshall sounds (cause, in part, of the EL84), you can play some old 80's Slayer.

with the contour option, you have kind of Metallica Black Album sound ! it's enough at home. I have record with it some tracks for my thrash metal band and the result is pretty good !

contour channel is a little bit noisy with my EMG pickup.

it's a solid amp, the name mesa/boogie is a waranty ! I just have a tube prob (but i'have experimented something with 3 cabs...).
You can blindly depend on it.

never deal with them, so i can answer.

It's a very good and versatile amp, with classic sound but very good sound. At this moment i hesitate to sold it to buy a Mesa express head 5:50 but i can't choose for this moment.

Features are ok,clean,distortion,crunch channels.
Brite switch on the clean channel.

Clean channel is great.
distortion is ok if you like classic rock.
Not enough for metal.
You would have to go with a rectifier for that.

Didn't have it long enough.
Played it for about a month and took it back.

Did call them and they were very helpfull on the phone.

I have played everything from solid state to tubes.
I cannot afford a rectifier. So i an getting a soild state for
now.

2 channels, foot switchable (also 'contour' and reverb are foot switchable as well). 30w all tube combo, 12" speaker. 2 EL-84 power tubes, 3 12ax7 pre-amp tubes. Bought it brand new, came with all the goodies incl the cover which I think is kinda cool. This amp is HEAVY and for 30 watts it is LOUD. Actually has a headphone jack (which I've always found odd that lots of Mesas have this feature?), FX send and return. Bass, Treble, Mid, Gain, Vol and Reverb for each channel, a feature I really like.

One thing I REALLY wish: has this contour switch which is a little bit of a boost and some sort of mid-scoop only for the hi-gain channel. REALLY wish it just had a simple boost foot switchable capability that worked on each channel. Also, the channel and contour buttons each have a light, but the reverb foot switch doesn't. ??

Main feature it has that I like? TONE, and lots of punch. The clean channel gets a little hairy when you get the gain up around noon and the vol past 2 o clock or so. It's a sweet clean--it's not Fender clean, it's Mesa clean, and I think it's beautiful in it's own right. The reverb on this amp is really good too, unlike a Mesa DC-5 I had before, the reverb was worthless on it.

This is a great, giggable amp if you play rock and roll. I will say, the span on the gain control for "rock and roll" type rhythm work is narrow; go much past 9 o clock and you're into Mesa type gain, which is awesome in my opinion. But there isn't a lot of Rolling Stones type gain on this amp. The clean side with the gain close to dimed is close to that, but not really. Again, it's nice in it's own right, but different. You'll have to try out, see if you like it.

What this amp does really well is badass crunch, with lots of bottom-end. One thing I should point out, I use the amp as a combo at home, but run it into a Marshall 1960A cab for gigging, and it has PLENTY of low-end and PLENTY of hi-gain crunch which sounds really nice live. VERY punchy too--you can hear yourself up there, even with Bonzo over there on the drums (that's our drummer, like John Bonham incarnated).

The clean is acceptable--nothing like Fender sparkly clean, but as I mentioned above, good in it's own right. Maybe a little more like Voxy clean that has a little edge to it. Works for me!

I hate to rate this without years of gigging it behind me, but I will say this. I had a microphonic tube right off the bat--this amp had set at a dealer for well over a year and probably got played a lot in the shop. I contacted Mesa, spoke with a knowledgeable tech/engineer whatever, and he is sending me 2 power tubes and two preamp tubes for my trouble--nice!!

See above, from everything I hear and have seen in my short span of ownership, they're the BEST.

This will be the amp that I use the rest of my gigging career, probably through at least 2008. I'm a satisfied customer.

Great features available. The reason I bought this amp was for the features. 2 channels plus a contour switch for 3 footswitchable sounds. Reverb, two sets of EQ yadda yadda yadda.

Awesome! I use this for blues with my stratocaster, rock with a music man axis and metal with my Epiphone Junior (emg-81 does it). This is a very versitile amp. I put gain at about half way for my stratocaster, gain all the way for the music man, and gain all the way with contour on for metal. Its not very noisy with humbuckers but the single coils are a little buzzy. At high volumes it sounds very good but as others have said, a closed back cabinet is a little nicer for bottom end.

No problems yet and not expecting any based on mesa's reputation

Haven't needed them

Great amp! For thsoe who say it isn't a metal amp, try hooking it up to a guitar with an EMG-81 or another active pickup, that helps boost the gain and sustain to unbelievable levels.

I bought a 2006 model of the F-30 112 combo. It's got 2 channels, and channel 2 has a mean switch on it (contour). All channels are footswitchable. This amp is great. It can do anything. I play it clean and it sounds as good as a fender with a little more grit to it. Channel 2 is awsome, it needs a lot of time spent with it to get it right, but the end result is out standing, contour is over the top. It's not quite recto but close enough. The amp a lot of natural low end so keep the bass to a a very low amount. I personally play a heavy southern rock style of guitar so this amp sounds great for me. I also play jazz and blues from time to time and this amp will do it. The only thing it wont do is heavy, heavy metal. It's just not big enough to get that tone. The tubes in this amp is more british than modern american. For most styles of music this amp is great if you spend some time with it. Hard core and metal just require bigger amps. This thing is as close to an all in one amp as i've ever seen. The 30 watts is loud as all. I play in a church band and we have a huge 600 seat sactuary and this thing fills it. We mic the amp but most of the time never need it. This amp can play anywhere, it just needs to be miced in big venues, but so do big amps. This thing has all the power I will ever need, but play it. You may need 6L6 tone, i like EL84 tone. Play around. You may not like it. That doesn't make it a bad amp. you just have a different sound in your head.

The F-30 sound great. All the channels are great and produce the sound that I need. It creats the sound in my head. Again, It has EL84's. It's going to be more AC/DC and not PANTERA. It all depends on what you want. If you want more modern sound go with the F-50 or F-100. If you want more modern than that go with a recto. It sounds great for what it is, but all amps do different things and will sound different. Again, play with different stuff you may like it, you may not. It just depends on what you want. It will get noisy at really high volumes, but hey it's a tube amp. What do you want? When played at recording/ practice voulems there is no noise. When turned up to about 10:00 there is a litle noise on the distorted channels, but that's to play live. You will be miced,and it's nothing to get your pants in a bunch over. Again, it's a tube amp.

This thing is built very sturdy. It hasn't let me down so far.

They are great. I called to see what other tube options there are for the amp. They called me back and told me that because of the way the amp is biased the only tubes that will work properly are mesa tubes. The bias in all mesa amps is a permanent bias. You will never have to pay someone to do it. Saving money is good. Their tubes are actually very good on the price, and they work great. They also took the time to explain how to properly retube the amp (one at a time). That's great customer service if you ask me. They took the time to explain things to a new commer to mesa products.

I've been playing for 10 years and always went with solid state or marshall. Boy was i wrong. They aren't any more expencive than a good marshall. My advice is to play as many amps as you see fit. You may not like this amp. You may like it after some tweeking. This amp truelly does take some time to get it to sound great, but it does. It's not really expancive, and it gets the job done.

2006 model, I play just about all styles of electric guitar, rock, jazz, blues etc. Two channels plus, has channel switching etc. I use this amp as a professional guitarist and it has PLENTY of power for me.

Sounds fantastic at just about every setting, very subtle controls in a nice way. The clean channel isn't too clean, can do everything a nice Fender can do and more, we really don't want too clean a channel and if you want it will do "sterile" clean too. The overdrive channel is stunning also, sings from the lowest amount of gain to overkill gain. Of course I like the less gain since I use .o11 strings and get sound from my hands. I use four warmoth strats, a warmoth tele and a new Les paul VOS. All of the guitars have been Pleked. Most have lindy Fralin Pickups

No problems with reliability. Don't use a backup amp

Yes, they are very customer service friendly. 5 year warranty

Jeez, I'm giving this a 9.5. I've been playing since childhood ( about 36 years ) I'm a guitar tone nut and own about $15,000 worth of vintage narrow panel tweeds, plexi Marshalls, Supros, etc. My amps and I are on plenty of records/ CD's. Plus I've loaned them to many a great guitarist to record with. This Mesa F 30 is an incredible amp that I wish I had for most of my career. Its so easy to use and get GREAT sounds. One of the best sounding amps I've ever used considering its price, newness and ease of use. Stacks up very favorably against just about anything out there.

2005 f30 1x12" combo, 2 channels, clean + dirty, w. a contour-mode on channel 2, loop, reverb, footswitch included, you know the features. Playing rock, hardrock, metal, and alot of other styles. Mostly using it at home for practice, but take it to rehearsals once in a while.
Well, for features it has got what i wanted when buying it. Knew what i wanted. And not missing anything, so it got to be a 10 here.

Using the amp with fender telecaster deluxe (single coils), patrick eggle(humbuckers w. split-switch), and an ESP(humbuckers). Sounds good with all the guitars. Can do cleans very nice, crank the gain on the clean channel, and there is some very nice bluesy tones there. Channel two have that vintage, liquid voicing that boogies are so famous for. NICE! Push the contour-button, and you almost enter the rectifier-area: a lot of crunch and metal sound, but it is NOT a rectifier! Close, but only almost!
The amp can be a little noisy on channel two at very high volume settings, but not that i didn't expect that from an amp driven by only two el84. That being said, this amp can be insanely loud!!! If you are playing rock, blues, or anything not involving "chugga-chugga", i think this amp will deliver. Haven't used it live, but at a gig where everything is miced i think this amp will do it. Only "negative" thing i can think of is it can sound a little thin at high volume, it hasn't got the low end when being pushed. Nevertheless, amazing how it holds up in a band-sit anyway! Plug it into a ext. cab, and you got the bottom end. Tried it with a mesa boogie 2x12" 3/4-back cab, and the sound is just BIG! Nothing missing in the low end!!!
For the noise at high volume, and the missing low end in a high volume band sit., i give it a 9 here.

Well, when i bought it the tubes were rattling a bit. Tried to get it fixed, but they "couldn't figure it out...the amp sounded fine to them!".....well, on my way home from the repairman i dropped by another music instrument store, thinking "hey, wonder if the repairman ever tried other tubes!?"......bought a couple of new tubes (groove tubes, btw)....and no more rattling! Fixed it myself. Other than that, it has never let me down. giving it a 8 for the rattling factory-tubes.

Never dealt with them

I have been playing the guitar since 1983, mostly rock and metal, but also some cover-bands, a little blues and such. I own a lot of gear; pedals, guitars, studioequipment, cabs, and yes: even SOME cables! :-) Did compare it to the marshall 601 combo, and what a disappointment! The marshall sounds like you are playing into an empty can that has been holding cat-food! Well, maybe not, but i love the mesa sounds, have had some triaxis/2;90 setup, have a single retifier, so i knew that i wanted mesa....maybe not fair enough for the marshall..... If it was stolen i would get it again if i had the money. Mesa Boogie is really expensive here in europe!
The amp sounds really good, with the "exceptions" mentioned earlier, low end missing on high volume...but that is expected with a 1x12" combo with an open back design rated at 22 watts! Other than that, i can't complain, and think it is one of the most versatile amps i have ever had, have ever played, and have ever wanted. I have had a lot of different amps, guitars, pedals, rack-setups, a.s.f. in the past, and nothing of it has been as versatile as this little devil. well, maybe the triaxis was a little more versatile, but when it comes to "grab-and-go", nothing (that i have tried!) beats the f30. The triaxis is capable of a lot of different sounds, but to find them you have to go through a lot if parameters to get there. I had the triaxis for about 7 or 8 years, sounded good and all, but got tired of tweaking. Too many options, when all i wanted was to play the guitar :-)
Overall I think this is a very fine amp that can do almost every genre. Some better than others, but it does a pretty good job overall!! For that, I will give it a 9.

Basic features, you have heard it all before. Got rid of the amp before I had a chance to use the direct out for recording. Used it at one gig and let a friend borrow it for another. Seemed to do the job but required a bit of tweaking to dial in the sound in both cases. It's plenty loud but noisy even for a tube amp.

Nice clean sound but cranking up the volume and the gain causes the noise to become a little overbearing. Channel two has a lot of grit but the distortion is not all that pleasing. I have other el84 amps that sound much better when being driven really hard.

Hey, it's a Mesa, should last forever if you don't trash it. Mine was an early issue and was on it's third owner when I picked it up. It was a little more noisy than new ones in the store but I think it had some need for recapping. Way to many crackles and pops even after I replaced with all new tubes. I'll give it a 7 because it was old.

I called Mesa about the noise. They recommended a local tech for any repair work but I sold the amp before doing anything more with it. The guy at Mesa was very nice and had a great deal of patience.

Overall, a nice little amp. I could see myself purchasing another if the price was right. It's a very compact little amp that is great for bedroom and very small venue but I'd stick it on top of a 2x12 at least for a club to broaden the sound a little.