Mesa 5:25

CHRISB50

How versatile is the 5:25? I want decent cleans through to a rocky OD. What I've seen on the t'interweb it sounds pretty good but does it need to be dimed to sound any good? I'd need the master volume to make it useable at home. Does it still sound good at bedroom / living room levels?

Ta all.

JayGee

Very, No, & Yes respectively :-)

CHRISB50

JayGee;88739" said:

Very, No, & Yes respectively :-)

Lovely, sounds hopeful. Cheers pal.

gjonesy

Theres a 50 for sale on here, you could ask @thisisguitar (lynden) for his opinion

thisisguitar

You can switch it into 5 watt mode (Class A) for home or recording and get a good sound without too much volume. 

CHRISB50

Cheers gents.

I'm still gathering the pennies at the moment so it's not an imminent purchase. Just want a hit of info at the mo.

monquixote

I tried one at GAS Fest and it seemed to be very capable at clean and dirt at all the volumes I tried. 

Also consider a Supersonic 22 which is reasonably similar. 

stickyfiddle

JayGee said:

Very, No, & Yes respectively :-)

Agreed. Best amp I've ever had. Sounds great at pretty much all settings and volumes

Kebabkid

They're good. I think the 12" speaker sounds better than the 10" but also have a try of the 1x12 5:50 - that really sings and the obvious clean headroom associated with the increased wattage makes a big difference.

thisisguitar

I do think the 50w 1x12" edges the 25w 1x10", Kebabkid is spot on. Never ran out of clean headroom onstage either. Fx Loop worked happily with a load of pedals too. If you want a heavier sound from it it really tightens up with a closed back 2x12 cab under it. 

I will add a certain bias towards the 50 has nothing to do with the fact I'm selling mine on here!

Kebabkid

I had the 5:50 (2x12), which had a great spread, but the amp weighed a ton (nearly 80lbs). However, and this was after I sold it, I tried a 5:50 1x12 and I couldn't believe how much tighter the sound was. It was a lot more manageable at 54lbs too and I believe the 5:25 (1x12) is 45lbs in weight, so not a massive difference.

As 5:50s seem to be going very cheap at the mo, whereas the 5:25s can hold their value, you should check them out.

JayGee

thisisguitar said:

I do think the 50w 1x12" edges the 25w 1x10", Kebabkid is spot on. Never ran out of clean headroom onstage either. Fx Loop worked happily with a load of pedals too. If you want a heavier sound from it it really tightens up with a closed back 2x12 cab under it. 

I will add a certain bias towards the 50 has nothing to do with the fact I'm selling mine on here!

I love the little 1x10" for it's sheer portability, it's the ultimate grab-and-go package, amp in one hand with a bunch of lead tucked into the  back, guitar in the other, pedal or two in your pocket if you really insist and you're good for most pub gigs. Even viable by public transport (or a couple of hundred yards walk from the nearest car park) if it comes to that... 

It does duty as a "house" amp at a pub jam night on a regular basis with sludgy doom-mongers plugging in straight after jangly popsters getting acceptable results with no more than a few seconds of knob-twiddling

A closed back 2x12 (I have the much derided MDF era Marshall 1936 which I use in parrallel with the on-board speaker) turns it into an absolute rock-monster which will fill a surprisingly large room (well into "if you need more amp than that you're better off just mic-ing it up through the PA..." territory) and doesn't look quite so ridicuous next to the other guitarist's Marshall JVM and oversized Randall 4x12 or the bass player's insane 1x15 + 4x10 Trace-Elliott Stack of Doom. I've put it through "house" 4x12s a few times too with quite magnificent results...

At the time I bought mine there wasn't a 12" option for the 5:25 but I'd been happily using a Super Champ with a 10" speaker as my sole amp for over 20 years, I'd previously had a play with a 1x10" Mesa (Subway Rocket? - long time ago, can't remember...) and loved it so I didn't remotely see that as a deal breaker. I fully intended to A/B the 5:25 against the 5:50 (which wasn't much more expensive) but in practice I just sat and played the hell out of the 5:25 for about 30 minutes and never even bothered switching the bigger one on :-)

I know I'm going to be coming over as some kind of gushy Mesa Fan-Boy here but, really and truly, after 5 years or so of ownership, if Randall Smith rang up tomorrow offering me an endorsement deal with a signature amp the only things I'd change would be to put "Crunch" mode onto the other channel (swapping it for "Blues"), and put the amp end of the foot switch cable somewhere more accessible (or just lose the non-locking, insecure DIN connector in favour of something a little more "Roadworthy").

thisisguitar

JayGee said:

 the only things I'd change would be to put "Crunch" mode onto the other channel (swapping it for "Blues"), and put the amp end of the foot switch cable somewhere more accessible (or just lose the non-locking, insecure DIN connector in favour of something a little more "Roadworthy").

I heartily agree with those ideas!