Mesa/Boogie Stiletto Deuce Head

2004 model, I think. Pretty early production. Does everything I want it to do. Has clean and crunch with 3 modes of each. Effect loop. This isn't a bedroom amp, so no headphone jack. Has too much power. I play in the garage and other people's back yards, mostly. Draws cops.

Play an LP '60 Classic and an American Standard Strat through it. I play punk rock, of a very unmelodic and un-Good Charlotte sort, and some blues on the Strat. It'll do very loud, heavy distortion, without becoming muddy, loose, fizzy and bass heavy like a Dual Recto. It'll do a decent job of construction worker music tone, like AC/DC. It has a nice clean. It tends to hum very quietly when you're not playing it. I see these complaints about piercing, icepick highs. Maybe it's my ears, but I can't get this one to do that. Then again, I haven't really tried. There's lots of dials, they have lots of range, and they all effect each other. If you're prepared to spend the time fiddling, there's a sound you can love somewhere in this thing, almost regardless of your tastes. I really love this thing.

Never without a backup. It's a tube amp. This thing seems to eat power tubes. Even if it were an unusually bulletproof SS unit, you'd still want a plan B to avoid wasting people's time if a beer got spilled in it or something. I baby the amp, but tubes barely make it to 6 months. I've had it apart. Beautiful construction. The solder joints are all good. All the components appear to be in perfect condition. Maybe it's just hard to get good EL34s.

Called Mesa once when GC sold me some dodgy tubes. You can't ever get a live body, but they return calls. They called back in about 1/2 hour. The guy on the phone was maybe a little brusque, but I got good info from him quickly, with no messing around not understanding the question, etc. I'll take brusque over blithering idiocy any day. 5 year warranty I haven't used.

Playing about 12 years. Aforementioned guitars, a Vox wah, and a Something-or-other Liquid Chorus pedal. Oh, and an f-50 combo amp and some no-name imitation Bogner speaker cab. I'd buy another one if it disappeared. I love everything about this amp except the cost of new EL34s. I compared it to a Marshall Plexi reissue and a JCM 900. It won, obviously. I liked the sound better than the JCM 900, it did more than the Plexi reissue, and it seemed better-made than either.

This is one of the first versions of the Stiletto Deuce (not the newer "Stage 2" version).

I use this amp with my band along with another guitar player. More than enough power for the situation.

I give this a "5" because only one channel sounds good - the clean channel. The second/dirty channel is insanely bright even with my Les Paul (I mainly play a Strat with my band) and no amount of screwing with the EQ or modes provides a usable sound with with either humbuckers or single coils.

Fortunately, boosting up the clean channel with a pedal sounds really good so, rather than using the channel switching, I just control gain with the pedal and the volume knob on my guitar.

Except for normal power tube replacement, the amp has been fine for the 4 years or so that I've owned it.

Never contacted them.

* How long have you been playing? What other gear do you own?

Around 25 years. I own some other amps - blackface Fender Champ, Fender Blues Jr., original Marshall Microstack, Peavey Rockmaster preamp/Classic 60 poweramp, a bunch of pedals, a couple of Strats, a Les Paul Custom, SG Junior and some other miscellaneous guitars.


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

I'd buy something else.


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

Clean channel is really good sounding with lots of "thrust." Dirty channel sounds like ass.


* Did you compare it to other products? Which ones? Why did you choose this one?

Not really. I went with this because I wanted something similar to a Marshall but not the same old sound and more versatile.


* Anything you wish it had?

A usable dirty channel


* Anything else you'd like to share?

Just to restate that I'm reviewing the first version of this amp and I've heard that the newer Stage 2 is much better. One of these days, I'll buy something else but, for now, the amp serves my needs.

This amp is not short of features at all. Read the other reviews for the full list (or go to the Mesa website). I can't decide on what my personal favorite feature is, it's a neck and neck race between the 50/100w switch on each channel or the tri-mode switches. You can nail almost any sound you want.

Live set up is rather simple. Squier Tele Custom -> BBE Green Screamer -> Boss TU-2 -> Head. I'll probably be rid of the Green Screamer once I get a proper footswitch that can engage the Solo boost. The Squier is totally stock (other than a new graphite nut). And it sounds great.

This is the quietest high-gain amp I've ever heard. I generally use the Tite Gain. Playing in a punk rock band there's really no need for a clean channel.

Haven't had too much experience as I bought it a week ago. But Mesa seems to have a great reputation for reliable equipment. My Crate Blue Voodoo made it through a two week tour, but s*** the bed soon after. I don't expect this to do that any time soon. Thing is built like a tank, so I'm going to take a shot in the dark and say it'll last a few good tours.

Never dealt with them.

I've been playing about 12 years. Have had my fair share of equipment for a 22 year old. This is by far the nicest piece I've owned. Great features, amazing sound. I'm fairly sure this is my amp for years to come. It can make a stock $200 guitar sound amazing, I can't wait to see what it does when I have a chance to plug in my more expensive guitars. Can nail a wide variety of sounds. More Marshall-esq than all other Mesas due to the EL34s. Sounds kind of like a JCM 900 on steroids. Can easily go between low and high gain sounds.

This will be the central part of my rig for a long time to come. And if it were stolen I would have to track the MFer down and stomp him and take it back.

Spongy/Bold + Solid State Recto/Tube + 3 "cleans" + 3 "distortions" + 50/100 watts
Thats 2x2x3x2 = 24 options per channel (except the bold/spongy is master, not individual)
I use my mesa mainly for it's clean and it's fluid drive. both sound amazing, and so do the other options. I keep it on solid state recto, and bold. but we'll get into that in the next section.

Here's my chain...

PRS (singlecut trem, or swamp ash special)> Boss GE7> Ernie Ball Vol> Snarling Dogs Wah> TU2> MXR Dist+> BOX OF ROCK> MXR Blue Box> AMP (Mesa Stiletto)

then
FX send> Boss BF3> Line6 tap trem> Line6 echo park> EH holy grail> FX return

She sounds great, I use pedals on the clean channel for lighter distortions, the mesa fluid drive is my "really loud song" or "super freaking loud solo" tone. Mesa's love Paul Reed Smiths, that's just how it is... (sorry to you lp and strat guys, buy a marshall...jk).

The distortion on the fluid drive is fantastic for modern rock sounds, you don't sound like your buddy's dual recto, you sound distinct and will compliment other sounds very well. My lead guitarist uses a Fender Deville and Fulltone distortions and we blend really nice. Love it.

I dropped it once from my 1960a Marhall. The tubes fell out and the transformer bent out of shape. I practically cried. It was a quick fix though and I had it checked out by a certified mesa repair shop just to make sure. It's lasted nearly a year since and sounds just right... it gets a 9 in Reliability

I don't know

I've been playing for almost 6 years now, this is my favorite amp (less the Road King) and sounds great with my favorite guitars. I can't stand the thought of losing it, but if it broke I'd either replace it or buy a different Mesa depending on what sounds I needed. Mesa and PRS... like ham and cheese... duh

I've had this amp for probably 18 months-2yrs now and I'm still finding awesome sounds. This amp is still surprising me. It's really cool. I love the extra control you have over the power section.

2 channels, each channel has 3 modes, can be set to 50 or 100W and can be set to tube or silicone rectifier diodes.
Built in footswitchable solo boost.
Bold/spongy switch - Drops the power a little to produce nice soft power amp break up.
It has an effects loop that can be switched out if you think that the loop being there is affecting your tone. When you switch the loop out the solo function is disabled.
And it looks mean.
It gets a nine because reverb would be handy.

This is probably the most versatile amp i know of (real amp that is, none of that modelling rubbish).
I was looking for a marshall sound without the harsh upper mids. I tried a bunch of other messa amps but they all had too much gain for me. I had almost given up hope when a friend of mine told me to try the stilleto. After trying it, I couldn't stop thinking about it and I was forced to by it.

THE MODES
The three modes on channel 1:

Fat clean- I recon you can get some cool Jazzy sounds with it. And if you crank the gain you can get cool lead sounds with plenty of sustain. I use it when I want to pretend that I can play jazz.

Tite Clean- This one is lovely. It goes from sparkly clean to a bit of break up to a kick ass blues sound.

Crunch- I find this one too bright even for my les paul. I almost always use this channel with the presence right down. That said it's still a great sound. Crank it for a cool rock distortion thats not so rectofier sounding.

Channel 2

Crunch- similar to the crunch on ch1 but warmer and less piercing.

Tite Gain- Kinda like a rectofier with EL34's. With a bit less gain. Cleans up quite nicely for a crunch sorta thing.

Fluid drive- Quite fat sounding. Doesn't clean up well. It makes for a killer lead sound with the gain cranked almost a bit fuzzy. And you can get some cool hard core sorta sounds out of it too.

The possibilities are endless with this amp. You can get so many great sounds by changing between bold/spongy or silicone/tube rectifiers.
I just love the power amp break up. I use it on 50W, spongy, with the tube rectifiers selected. But if you set it 100W, bold, silicone, you can get some cool recto-ish sounds.
I play punk rock to indie to church stuff and I've never had a problem (except it being too loud for church)
The nine is because the crunch on ch1 is too bright.

It's a mesa. I've not had a problem with it and it's been gigged pretty hard over the last couple of years.

I've been playing 7yrs. maybe 3rys seriously gigging.
I play Gibson LP studio > TS808 clone > Zvex Fuzz Factory (so much fun) > Boss CE-2 > MXR phase100 > Carl Martin tremovibe > Boss DD-20 > Stilleto w/ Celestion Cab.
I also use a Vox AC15 and befor the stilleto I had a digitech 2120 to a carvin stereo tube 50 power amp.
I love that I'm still finding awesome sounds from this thing. And I'm pretty confident that this amp can produce anything that you're looking for (It has for me so far). The problem is that there are only two channels and a million sounds.
The brightness of the crunch is mu only problemo.
If the Recto and 5150's are too much for you and you can't pull a sound out of a marshall then you should definately give the stilleto a try.

THIS IS NOT YOUR ORDINARY MESA!!! SOUNDS LIKE A JCM!!!!
I first tried this amazing piece of monstrosity, a couple of months back in a music store with mesa 2&4 *12 Rectifier and also road kig cabs... Man was I blown away!!!

This amp has 2 independent channels of Clean (fat clean and crunch), dirty (Cruch and Fluid drive) with extereme independent controls over both channels with 2 power out selections of 50W and a face melting 100W. Your overall sound can also be boasted and toned with my fav. feature; the solo and output knobs. You wont beleive how much tone, body and volume these will add to your overall master tone. Along with many different dials and toning switches, the sky is essentially the limit what you will hear outta this amp...
It is packed with EL34s, which put the mighty Marshalls on the map!!!
.....read and look no further!!!

Before even getting a hands-on on the main features, I was basically blown away with the extremely powerful and AWESOME tones this mp was delivering. I coulnt beleive it!!!

I ll be honest!!! I am a Marshall guy! Since the first time I heard Guns N Roses play, the powerfull, golden, brown, crispy, down and dirty crunchy tone of Marshalls got stuck in my head. I refused to play any other amps for 15 years. Untill I met this fellow!!! why?

My biggest problem and concern with my belowed marshalls have been the reliability!!! I never knew if I was gonna blow the power section of my JCM 800s after 30 mins into the gigs, or the sound cracking when I reach 11 :)!!! WELL my friends!, this amp wont crack or blow. It sounds like a JCM 800 but EVEN BETTER!!! Its crispier and more powerfull, it won crack even on top volume!!! I can create any marshall plexi tones, to the raging metal ones!!!

I do alot of ebay. I owned, baught and sold many mesas, as much as marshalls and peaveys over the years. But never wanted to jam with a mesa on stage... why? I came across the DUAL & TRIPLE RECTIFIERS tons of times. My biggest problem was the sound not going thru the mix with the satisfactory push and punch. They always sounded like, as if I were playing a bass guitar with tons of high ended distortion. May be rectifiers delivering too much groovy bass outta 6L6s, was he reason. I never got enough definition on my guitar tone as I would with a marshall.

I talked to a lot of fellow sick guitarist friends, who are diehard, loyal mesa fans and owners, some of whom are even famous or studio musicians. They actually complained about the very same problem. Some of them would even use Marshall cabs, change power tubes or even dared to borrow my increadible JCM 800s, JCM Slash (same as a silver jubillie) or Plexis to cut thru the mix on stage. I thought that was weird. Beacuse mesas by themselves sound extremely good. They are perfect for studio recordings!!! So, I always been biased a little. But when I tried this amp everything was changed. I got one for myself and most of my mesa-head friends followed in!

I only own and play Gibson LesPauls!!! (I am not a fender, PRS or any other guitar guy either) but all my biased opinions aside, I gave this amp a chance with an amazing 62 Amarican made hot coiled fender strat, PRS Standard and Custom 22 & 24s, PRS MCCARTY, some ibanez, all my gibsons and a bunch of old mexican and korean fenders and other brands. The outcome was awesome. Any guitar will sound amazing on this head. But as far as Gibson, PRS and Fenders go, YOU WILL BE COOKING WITH GAS MY FRIEND!!!!!! lemme tell you even more!!!

The 2 independet channels can be independently adjusted to give ya 50W and 100W of head shaking tones. Since I use open coil humbuckers on my guitars (saymour duncan and gibson picups) I usually use the 100W option on the clean channel. For my pick up choice, the channel wont get distorted at high volumes but clean channel on 50W will. Its a different story if you use closed faced humbuckers. The sound wont break even on top notch clean volume on 50W selection. I didnt and dont think I will have to use the 100W for dirty channel, unless I am touring stadiums around the world. It is loud enough on 50W as it is! thrust me!!!

For lower volumes (late at night or along with acustic guitars) I use bunch of pedals. MXR 10 EQ, Marshall Jachammer (Distortion), Cry Baby Slash, Boss CH1 chorous, Boss DD3 Delay and Boss chromatic tuner. I love the set up and sounds great!!! even better on this head!

Extremely reliable and versitile!!! I did and will gig with this amp with eyes and ears shut no problem!!!

They are great. They will be just as excited as you when you call em up!!! I hold the guy on the phone close to 2 hours for tone options and high end set ups. They were great. Also refer to the manuals, they will have a huge impact on the tone quality. They have been extremely cool and friendly!!!

I hate to say it but this amp is what a JCM WISHES IT WOULD HAVE BEEN!!! as I said I am a marshall guy, but this is the one and only mesa I will take over any JCM hands down!!! I think this wil be a dangerous alernative, and later on the standard to many rocking amps out there!

As many of you know mesas come with scary price tags! Also the maintanance is very expensive! the damn thing packs more tubes than damn russian nuke!!! it is expensive to maintain and replace parts! but its worth every pnny. trust me!!!!

Most mesa owners are well damn aware of the value of their amps and take great care of them. So if you are lucky enough to come across a used one, dont think twice, sell you kidneys or liver but get this amp!!!

I hope this was usefull!
cheers!!!

Mine is one of the first Stage II's that rolled off the line. I acquired it in April 2006 and it was shipped directly from the factory. Check out the specs for the features and you probably all agree that its all in there. I wish it had switchable fx but that's no biggie. (I really wish the modes could be footswitched like the HK Triamp! however then it would be a 3k amp) Mr smith deserves a 10 for packing this much performance in this or any price range.

This is where the action starts. I LOVE this amp. If you're into classic rock I doubt you could do better. This is the Stage II so all 6 modes flat out rock. I used to own a stage 1 and with the exception of Crunch on channel 1 it left me feeling lonely, dry, and underutilized. Stage II on the other hand is an awesome piece of kit. Its so awesome with buckers that I hardly ever plug my strat in - my LSS is for the Strat and I NEVER plug my les paul into the LSS. This is the amp for any brit sound you can ever want. The distortion is just right for this genre of music. The clean is very very good and I will not say its breathtaking because that is reserved for the Strat feeding the LSS! -> Heaven! Overall you've got 6 usable and authentic modes for $1800. Not bad. The Stage 1 in the used (discontinued) market seems to be fetching between 800 and a grand and that is a very good deal for channel 1 crunch. Because that mode by itself is worth the 1K - closest to a Plexi you'll ever find. Stage II is a bit more aggressive and I guess, although I am a huge Hendrix fan, I am a bigger fan of the 70/80 el34 hi gain marshall inspired brit dominance - Here the stage II absolutely kills anything else out there and annihilates the Marshalls.

Yup. I've owned 4 boogies amd currently own two - Stiletto Deuce II and LSS. They are very reliable.

They are outstanding chaps. whether its a question about features, or new products or just about anything Mesa these guys are prompt, respectful and knowledgeable.

15+ years. Although when I walk into a store and see a kid ripping I feel very undertalented. I'm an average player but i do have good ears and instinct for tone. I own this, the LSS, Boss AC60, Ibanez TS808, Visual Sound H2O, Gibson Les paul 1988 (Slash's sibling), Fender Classic Player (2003 or 4). I will only compare it to amps over a grand and lets put it this way - if you know that classic rock is what you want then this is it.

GET THIS AMP AND BE COOL!

Check the Mesa site, any pro can tweak this thing for a ton of great sounds. I do wish it had a footswitchable FX loop.

It sounds almost transparant, what I mean by that is it really shows of your skills. It needs to be played at full volume for the best sounds. It easily gives you great clean sounds and classic rock sounds. For more modern sounds you might need a booster. My short guitar list is as follows, 81 gibson Les Paul Silverburst, 84 Les Paul Custom, Ibanez Prestige S1520 w/ Seymour Duncans, Parker Mojo w/ Seymour Duncans, USA Kramer custom with EMG's

THIS THING DOSN'T SOUND LIKE A RECTO!!!! THANK GOD!!!

Its MESA, Built like a tank, I've owned this one for 6 months

I called when I first got it with a couple of questons. They called back within 15 min. and answered everything.

I've been palying for 16 yrs, and I've been a Marshall man for most of it. I can't wait to get into a studio with this beast. If it were stolen I would hunt down and draw and quarter the SOB who took it. And yes I would buy it again.

Lots of stuff to play around with...

I have owned this beast for over 3 years now. At first (and second) I wanted to mod the hell out of the sucker! After several tube changes (I am back to stock boogies) and different axes, I have a really great lead tone! The bass still sucks though...Gets really difficult to get a punchy low end out of her, but for that I usually use a Keeley modded DS-1. The clean absolutely kicks ass!

This head is not without it's cons, but I do have to admit that I have the best lead/solo tone I have ever had.

No issues! Surprised the hell out of me...Just about everything I have owned with tubes blows chucks after a few months...this one is not tempermental at all! Good job!

In the past they were the best, but with all the bitching I did about the head to them...WEll, I guess they don't like me anymore!

What else can I say...

First of all, I'd like to begin by saying that I bought this amp as a "temporary" replacement for a Splawn Quick Rod 100 that I need to send in to have serviced. It was selling at a good price and I thought it would get me through for a short period of time. After so many mixed reviews I really wasn't sure. Man, I'm glad that I made this choice...simply awesome!
As far as features go, it pretty much has everything on a guitarist's wish list. Seperate 50w/100w switching on both clean and drive channels, master volumes for each, and yet another seperate output control for overall volume. This is awesome as you don't need a Hotplate or another power attenuator to get great tone at a very low volume. The Spongy/Bold switch is good for this too as "Bold" cuts great live and "Spongy" brings down the volume and softens up the attack for apartment level playing. The voice switching capability for each channel is also very cool as it essentially gives you 6 amps in one. There's a lot more, but you can check that out on the Mesa website.

If your looking for some serious Marshall tones (on steroids), this is a great choice. I've been hearing a lot about the Stage II and the higher gain capabilities with new voicing in most modes, and that was part of my hesitation in getting a Stage I. Actually, this amp has plenty of gain, and for solos I push the front end with a TS9-DX and then it absolutely screams! I've owned dual and triple recs, VHT's, Bogners, Soldanos and a bunch more and this wasn't at all the disappointment that I expected in this area. It seems to me, that a lot of amps with a ton of gain in the preamp section lack character...bigtime! (ahem...5150)
I still want to try the Stage II, but I have a feeling that I'll keep this amp regardless, and maybe get a Stage II as a second. The clean channel is full and warm sounding as well. For those of you wondering the true differences tonally between the Rectifier series and the Stiletto, for one the clean channel is much better on the Stiletto, and the Stiletto doesn't seem to be as one dimensional to me. The Rec's get a great aggresssive sound, but it always seemed like I was tweaking it to find some tone that just wasn't there.

Built like a tank, and have always had good experiences with Boogie's reliability, so I expect no difference here.

Haven't had to deal with them, so no opinion.

Again, I think that this is a tremendous amp, and I also think that some of the knocks from reviewers have been a result of the settings that have to be applied in order to get a great sound. When you get to tonal nirvana, you'll find that the knobs are all over the map. Don't expect to set the treble at 7 or 8, and the bass at 5 and have your perfect tone. It takes some tweaking, and the amp is very sensitive to any tone attenuation, so be patient,and the amp'll be kickin' in no time!