Mesa/Boogie F-30 112 Combo

30 Watt tube combo, two channels, each with volume, treble, middle, bass, reverb and master. Class B power amp design with a pair of EL-84's, 4 12AX7 preamp tubes, parallel effects loop, solid state reverb. I give this amp a 9 for features, it basically has everything you'd need for a gigging situation. Very straightforward design, easy to dial in your sound. Plenty of power for garage-band blues-rock jamming, or gigging in small clubs.

I use this amp for straight ahead jazz, using an Ibanez George Benson model archtop, and for Blues-Rock in the Allman Bros., Robben Ford, Clapton style, using a Fender Custom Shop Tele with texas special single coils. When I first bought it, it was really noisy, due to a power supply design problem ( more on that below ). I finally got the power supply modified, and it was still a bit noisy. So I replaced the power tubes with JJ EL-84's. BIG IMPROVEMENT! For Jazz, the clean sound on this amp is excellent. With my Benson, the sound is Fat, warm, delicious! The reverb could be smoother though, I wish they had used a tube reverb circuit. For blues and Rock using the Telecaster the clean sound is again very good. Even at low volumes I can get a sweet, sparkly, slightly compressed tone which is useful for rhythm or lead playing. The distortion channel on this amp just sucks unfortunately. The second channel, even with the contour switch engaged is just unusable for any lead work. Randall Smith must have been on acid when he designed this one. I have owned the following Boogie products in the past: Mark IIC, Studio 22, Quad Preamp, Mark IV head, and Maverick 1-12 combo. All of them had much better overdrive sound than this amp. Fortunately, you can use a Fulldrive II pedal in front of the amp and get a good lead sound this way, just using the clean channel and ignoring the channel switching. So I give the amp an 8 for the clean channel, and a 2 for the distortion channel, for an overall rating of five.

Bought this amp used on eBay. When it arrived, it worked for about two days, then started making horrible farting noises and a nasty snapping sound from inside that made me think it was going to electrocute me. Shit! I'm an electrical engineer, so I pulled the chassis and found that the primary filter cap in the power supply was arcing and getting really hot to the touch. BAD SHIT! I measured the power supply and found the transformer was putting 495 volts across the 450 volt rated cap. DUH! So I called Boogie Service and they told me they knew about the problem and there was an upgrade required to 500 volt capacitors. I finally got the new caps installed and the problem is fixed but I'm worried about what else might happen with this thing. I don't think I could rely on it for gigging at this point.

As described above, I had to call Boogie for advice about the power supply problem. Everyone there was actually very helpful and easy to deal with. The support guy called me back the same day! I wish they would make the warranty transferable though, to protect people like me who get an almost new amp, bought used.

I've been playing guitar for 30 years, and like I said above I've owned a lot of amps through the years. This is not one of the better ones unfortunatley. If it was stolen I would not buy another. My favorite amp was probably my Mark IV head, which I sold cause I was tired of lugging around a separate head and cabinet. At this point I'm probably going to sell this amp and suck it up and pay out the big bucks for a high end amp like a badcat or a carr or two rock. Even for $600 I think there are much better choices out there.

Mesa F-30 1-12(vintage 30) tube combo made in 2002. 2 channels - clean and dirty with contour on dirty channel. Reverb, effects loop, footswitch included, indivdual tone controls for each channel. Also a neat feature is the "silent recording feature. This will kill the speaker to record in silence, so your neighbors don't kill you. For a so called "basic" Mesa it has more than enough features to cover all the bases.

I mostly play Rock, jazz and blues. The more i play it, the more i like it. This amp is a welcome change from my Duel Rectifier, not so much as feature wise, but a different flavor of tubes(EL-84 vs. EL34's) and obviously power (30 watts vs 100 watts). I play a Les Paul Standard, Ibanez AS-120(think 335), and a cheap Kramer tele copy that puts any american Fender to shame (sad but true). This amp likes both single coil and Humbuckers. The clean channel is by far the best i have ever heard - bright and warm reverb is nice also, very smooth, very easy to get a great tone. The Dirty channel does take some coaxing to get right, but after fiddleing for a day or two I found the "sweet spot". You will not get the Rectifier sound out of this thing so look else where, but you will get a realy nice Santana-like lead with the contour engaged, as well a a great crunch for rythym work.

This is my second Mesa and I absolutly swear by them. I also own a Duel rectifier Solo Head with a 4-12 cab from 1996 that has seen a lot of stage work and never had a problem with it - only replaced the tubes still sounds great today. I am positive this amp will stand the test of time. It's built like a tank

I have dealt with Mesa in the past for different questions regaurding specs and such, and have always been called back in a day or two - they stand behind their product. No complaints here

I have been playing since 86 and have been through just about everything- Marshall, Fender, and others. I feel that Mesa Engineering is on top of the game when it comes to tube amps.
This is a solid amp that does a great job of producing very musical tones.
If it where lost, would most likely get another one.

2002.....2 channel (switchable with foot control).....with contour on channel 2.....30 watt.....complete set of controls for each channel....celestion vintage 30.....

play a stock rickenbacker 360 through it....cahnnel 1 clean is about as good as it gets......am considering selling my blues junior (which i bought specifically for the clean)....channel 2 leaves something to be desired, but add the contour and you have a really nice (and easily adjusted), distortion......

the first f-30 that i took home was the floor model, and the clean (#1) channel never worked.....guitar center exchanged ....no questions asked......only had a short while so the jury is still out on this one....

initial reaction is that the build quality of this amp is second to none......there is nothing about it that was skimped on.....don't forsee any problems but have heard that the customer service is very responsive....

been playing off and on for 30-some years....playing the rick 360 through it....have a blues junior which will now collect dust (or i could use it as an extention speaker with a back-up amp built in!)
the 2nd channel without using the contour seems a bit thin but how many strong points can one amp have......great clean sounds, and very nice distortion which comes on nicely as you roll on the gain....the reverb is very nice....not as strong as the blues junior but that was overkill anyway.....plenty of reverb for any setting......will update this review after a few months.....

Simple, 2 channel amp. Minimum controls (for a Mesa), clean and lead with an added "contour" switch for the second channel which works pretty well. Effects loop, which seems more complex to adjust than it should be, my Mark III had a plug and play effects loop that I much preferred. Reverb is nice, and has separate controls for each channel.

I was actually Les Paul shopping, and happened to plug one into the amp, I was done. The clean channel sold me. It is really nicely voiced, I brought it home and plugged my Gretsch in, and it sounded really nice. I have had Fenders, VHT, Mesa Mark III (loaded simul/ev) and a tremoverb and am currently playing a Trainwreck Climax. I was not really amp shopping, but the idea of having a nice little 30 watt amp for studio/small venue just made sense. The clean channel is really nicely voiced, and the lead channel is a little questionable. I would have bought this amp in a single channel and gladly put pedals in front of it...

My Mesa's have been the best!! The amps have been perfect, not so much as a tube failure since 1989.....I do however follow the warmup and cool down steps religiously....

Probably one of the best in the business, a real person actually answers the phone. They have answered several questions and were very helpful.

I have a lot of confidence in Mesa products and service. The other 2 amps I have had from them were built like tanks, and were really dependable. I think that this amp will be a lightweight, compact versatile amp covering sounds from light jazz tones to classic rock. If I was looking for super high gain, I might look elsewhere, but have found in the past that not very many amps cover both clean and high gain very well. The Mesa Tremoverb probably did the best job covering the most territory, and the VHT did the best overall high gain...but was a little clinically sterile in the clean dept. I will most likely use only the clean channel (with pedals).