The Mesa Boogie Lonestar review

A few days ago one of the small guitar shops near me put a couple of pics up on Facebook of some new stuff they had acquired. One of these items was a Mesa Boogie Lonestar Classic Combo. I've been curious about these but never ran across one. I've talked about how much I love Andy Timmons tone and style of playing. And I've owned one of the Mesa Boogie Stiletto's that he uses but I've always wanted to try out a Lonestar so I jumped at the chance to go down and check it out. I grabbed my current favorite guitar and headed to the shop in the middle of the afternoon and spent some time checking it out.

The Mesa Lonestar is similar to the Stiletto in many ways. They are both two channel amps with a dedicated set of knobs for each channel, a master volume and a boost volume. They both have switches on both channels to choose between 100 watts and 50 watts (the newer lonestar's also have a 10 watt setting). You can also choose between a tube rectifier or solid state rectifiers, and there is a variac switch on both amps to help knock the power down and give it a spongier feel. They also are both very demanding amps in that they don't let you hide, every mistake you make is amplified and put in your face and you hear a huge difference depending on which guitar your using. And that is where the similarities end.

In contrast to the Stiletto the Lonestar has an active EQ and sounds great at lower volume.  It was much easier for me to find usable sounds. Channel 1 reminds me of a Blackface Twin while Channel 2 reminded me, surprisingly of a JTM45 type sound. Fender cleans and vintage Marshall in the same amp? yep. The Variac switch makes more of a difference on the Lonestar than the Stiletto. On the Stiletto there was a softening of attack and a slightly looser feel but on the Lonestar the gain gets into tweed type of sponginess. The lead sound was thick and solid. It has a ton of loose low end that can be to much and can get farty sounding if your not careful but pull the bass down (or use a TS type pedal) and you get a thick lower mids that sounds awesome. The gain switch and two gain knobs on the 2nd channel take you from Tweed to MK 1 type gains.

Andy Timmons Lonestar's and Stiletto's

Using the Variac on channel two with the three way switch set to thick and a decent amount of gain rolled in I was able to quickly dial in a sound that covered everything from gorgeous cleans to early Van Halen just by switching pickups and changing from using my fingers lightly to nailing the strings with my pick. This amp is a dynamics players dream. In the Thicker setting it sounds like an early MK 1 which quickly inspired some Santana type runs.

As versatile and easy to use as this amp is it isn't for everyone. I'd really like to try it on a small 4x12 cabinet and see if it tightens up the bottom end and gives it a little more focused sound. It's very low mids heavy and while it certainly has a lot of gain on tap I would never call this a high gain amp in line with a Dual Rectifier. If you want modern metal or even 80's shred keep looking this isn't for you. But if your longing for a variety of vintage voiced amps the Lonestar is certainly worth a listen.

This review is completely unsolicited and any opinion is my own.

The Great Amp Debate in my ADHD Mind

I have a confession to make. I don't currently own a tube amp. I want one, but I can't make up my mind on what I even want or need. I sold my last Great Amp a couple of years ago. It sounded awesome and it was built like a tank. It was a Mesa Boogie Stiletto Deuce and I loved the sound of it. But I wasn't using it for anything. I wasn't in a band anymore, and it was LOUD, even when I knocked it down to 50 watts and switched on the built in Variac switch to knock off another 20 percent. Then I rewired my 4x12 cabinet to 2x12. It was still LOUD and had a ton of presence. I've owned Fender, Peavey, Marshall, Crate, and Mesa Boogie amps. I love the sound of a Les Paul through a Marshall. Last year I bought a Stratocaster and I've been exploring different sounds. Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Gilmour and even some country sounds. Clean sounds, with a little breakup and an overdrive pedal. I'm suffering from a common problem that the internet has made worse. Internet Information Overload causes something what I like to call Paralyses through Analysis. And for someone with ADHD I think its even worse. 

A few months ago I was reading an interview with Mike Piera from Analogman. He was talking about getting a pedal from a customer to fix and the inside looked like a computer. He couldn't fix it. This well known, very expensive pedal is now a door stop. His point was hand wired pedals are easy to fix. This got me thinking about boutique hand wired amps. There are a ton of them on the market, they sound great and if anything goes wrong any decent amp guy, or electronics guy for that matter, can fix it. So I started looking at some of the more popular manufacturers. Dr Z, Divided by 13, Fuchs, Shur, etc. I also looked at more obscure manufacturers like Valvetrain, and Samamp. I like that Valvetrain sources most if not all of his parts here in the USA. And Samamps built in VAC circuit would knock down the volume to reasonable levels when I'm playing at the house. Even Vox and Fender are getting into the game. So that should settle it, right?  

Recently in my research I stumbled upon this article on Bogner's site In which Andy Marshall of THD Electronics talks about using high end PC boards for consistency and also durability. I've also found this article on the Mesa Boogie site, where Randall Smith explains for similar reasons why they use PC Boards. He also talks about Point to point boards as subject to warping from moisture. They like to soldered parts that could break but use high quality PCB boards that will outlive most of us for areas that probably won't. Of course, it brings the price down too and that's always appealing to those of us who still have day jobs. Still, if something should ever happen I've got an expensive door stop. 

My mind goes back and forth, if I could afford them all I would buy one of each, but that's not an option right now in my life. I've always been impressed with Mesa Boogie and my guess is I might end up with the new Mini Rectifier or Transatlantic. Then again every year there are new amazing amps being put on the market, and I can't wait to see whats next.