Mesa/Boogie F-50 Combo

Amp was made "07".I think the features are great.my style is classic rock.2 chans,switching yes.Loops yes.I use her everywhere.Lots of power..Shes tube and works great.

Excellent--You can keep your fender twins.Clean is great.Gibson les paul standard with humbuckers..suits my style fine and that is classic rock..No noise at all.I've never had it past two in the clubs I play,cuz she gets to loud,however,i'm going to take her out to my garage and turn her up,and then we'll see.Distortion is great.

As far as dependability goes,Shes brand new,so i haven't experienced that,and i hope i don't.I hate it when nearly new amps break down.Manufactures need to recall bad amps and not screws us out of our money.We would more likly buy another one from them,instead of feeling screwed.And that is good customer service.

I wrote to the company and never heard from them.The same from the store..After the sale,there wasn't any follow up,and I bought two amps,one for me and one for my brother..

I've been playing 30 years..I would buy again,but i would reasearch about the other Mesa amps first. I love the looks,sound,ease of use and the power for such a small amp.I compared to fender,crate,and marshall..I wish it would have all three lights on the foot switch.,Its important to know what mode your in before you hit your axe..I might look for other foot controls to see what might work better.At my age,wheels would be nice also.

50 Watts
2 Channel
Contour
Reverb
Effects Loop

The overdrive has a deep satisfying growl that will send Marshalls fleeing. Cuts through the mix very well with its low mids. Sounds great for detuned riffage. Pairs up very well with Duncan JBs and/or Vintage 30 speakers.

Cleans are chimey and bell-like. Not the warm bluesy Fender clean but more of a full range clean with good presence and deep bottom end. Sounds great with a strat.

No problems after 8 months. Had some tube rattle which was remedied with a new set of tubes from Mesa free of charge.

Phone call returned within 2 hours.

I love this amp. Best sounding combo I have heard. It sounds so good I don't want to use any effects.

The clean channel has lots of headroom and the eq is great. For distortion you may want to run and EQ in the loop for better tone shaping.

One note: The reverb sucks. Get a processor or pedal because the amps reverb is pretty useless.

I own the F-100 combo version of this amp. I purchased it in 2004 and I think it was about 1 year old around purchase time. I play mostly heavy/stoner stuff using an Ibanez Ar300 with Super Distortion Pickups and an old Westone with same pickups. There are 2 channels on the amp, with a footswitch, effects loop and reverb. There's a "silent" mode on the back for Direct Recording (good for home recordings if you have a bitchy g.f., but the sound from the D.I. isn't great). The is also reverb. I use this amp for everything from Live shows to recording to practice and it's versatile at any volume. It has A LOT of power, and you can choose to drive your tubes at 60 WATTS, or just use the 100 WATTS switch to drive them less and get a clearer sound. I like 60, it's dirtier. this is all-tube, and it uses 6L6 tubes in the power amp area and 12AX7's in the preamp. It also has a "countour" mode that acts like a sort-of ok replica of a Rectifier Tube preamp.

This amp has sustain galore if you use it with lots of gain, and you can also get a much more bluesy sound at lower gain, just crank the master for more balls. There's a presence pull knob on the Clean Channel gain which makes it bright and nice and if you crank the gain on the clean channel, you get a nice broken overdrive sound, at around 1/2 way. The distortion channel is wicked. Having that countour switch will make it act more like a "booster" pedal than anything else, which is good in lead sections or for adding dynamics to songs without buying 2-3 pedals and mucking around while you're singing at the same time. The distortion has balls and the bass on that channels just kills. The clean channel has TOO MUCH bass, meaning that at 50%, it's muddy. The one thing I don't like about the amp, especially the clean channel is that the EQ on it does not have a lot of headroom (I can't get a nice rich clean sound unless I crank the bass and then it's mud around the low strings and high and tinny on the high strings).

it suit my style of music just fine, since I mostly only use overdriven sounds. The noise factor is there the more you crank the gain, but hey, that's the price to pay for balls in some cases.

This amp was VERY reliable for 2?? years, but then came some problems. It kept using up power tubes ultra fast (blue coloration, sparks at some point). Mesa doesn't bias amps (or so I'm told), they use a fixed bias, this means that as long as you're using their brand name tubes, you should be fine... Wrong. I have changed the tubes in this puppy twice in 4 months and I've blown 2 power tubes since then, which in turn blew the fuse and so on. CARRY extra fuses and TUBES at all times. I have sent it for repair at a local shop and they sent it to yorkville who are a licensed Mesa repair shop. And it came back in worse shape I find. Aside from that, this amp is build like a tank and is heavy as hell to carry, but well worth the $ if you're smart enough to invest in a good tech (send it direct to Mesa). I've gigged all around and often with this thing and it's taken a lot of beatings and is still in good shape. Shit, even the tolex is long lasting.

Called Mesa once and they told me which dealers around town could help me, they called me back ASAP whenever I had questions. 100% on Mesa's part, BUT since I'm in Canada, it costs more in shipping that it does to repair the amp, so...

I've been playing for 14 years, I've owned a lot of amps, sold them all one after the other and landed on this big boy and I've never been happier (minus the tube issue, which could be solved by a proper tech). I have 3 electric guitars (2 Ibanez, one Westone), one acoustic (76' Fender), a Pyramid bass (hofner ripoff from 1964 my dad owned and never played). I would rather own this amp than a rectifier, as to me the tone is better, dirtier and less clanky than a rectifier, but that's all subjective, since I hate rectifiers.

i bought this amp from ebay. i play every weekend in several different bands r/b. rock, latin rock,blues- you get the idea. i bought this amp after trying one out at guitar center. this amp is relatively light and compact and simple to use and can cut through a 7 piece band i play in. the footswitch has a light for channel switching but no light for the reverb. why could'nt boogie add a light for the reverb?

when i got this amp from ebay i didn't like the sound but when i sent it to boogie to repair a master volume pot they also checked the tubes and they replaced the power amp tubes which they said were shot. what a difference. this amp now has a great almost fenderlike clean and a singing sustain on the drive channel. i like the clean on this amp better than my mesa mark iv. to my ears the mark iv has a little better sounding drive channel but not by much. the f50 is way lighter to haul around and sounds great in everything i do. it also real easy to dial in a great tone.

i always bring a backup amp but have never had to use it. i've used the f50 for over 9 months and after the initial servicing at boogie i have not had one problem with this amp!

this company is great. unlike the crappy service i got from fender,mesa boogie takes care of their customers. i own 4 of their amps & every time an amp needed a service they fixed the problem quickly. you also talk to a live person when you call up the company and they don't shuffle you around.

ive been playing for over 20 years. i own 7 fender amps,4 boogies,jc120, peavey 6505+,carvin bel air,and rivera duo100. guitars i own 2 prs's,gibson les paul, 2 strats,jem, and gibson 135. i bought this amp because it is relatively light(compared to other tube amps),it is small, and it has nice usable tones.

2 Channels W/Contour Switch
50 Watts

I've been meaning to write a review on this amp because I've been so happy with it. I even wrote to Mesa. I'm serious! I've owned many amps over my 17 years of playing and this one is the best for many reasons. This amp is great for all genres of rock which is what I play most of the time. It's so versatile though. You can get awesome blues sounds as well. It's got one of the warmest sparkling clean sounds I've heard although it's so dynamic I rarely need to change from the rythm channel. It has more gain than most of us would need and does tend to get a little noisy in those higher areas but that's to be expected.

Have never had any problems with it. I've owned a couple of Mesa amps now and have only replaced tubes.

Never needed them.

At around a grand new, it's a little spendy but it out-performs anything in that price range. I'm playing it through an American Standard Strat and love this combination. I would certainly buy it again! The only thing I wish it had were a switch to take it down to 25 watts from 50. This thing is super LOUD. I know they make a 30 watt version though. If you're considering buying a combo please check this one out. It looks simple on the outside with no fancy BS but it packs a lot of tone.