NAD: Ace in the hole! Mesa Stiletto Ace 2x12

[Aceman]

Hence why it will likely be an amp I crank in my house and record, not one I take to gigs. The Classic 30 with a neodymium Celestion UK Dog 12" speaker will be the main gigging amp.

That's a tasty little lineup right there!

Marshall/Mesa awesome
Mesa variety
Peavey > Fender tube goodness
And some Mark Bass to make a mark with the bass

[Mincer]

Hence why it will likely be an amp I crank in my house and record, not one I take to gigs. The Classic 30 with a neodymium Celestion UK Dog 12" speaker will be the main gigging amp.

Well, with that amp lineup, I don't think I'd ever need anything else, for gigs or recording!

[jimilee]

Just Mike it, you’ll be fine. I saw Jimmy Eat World, with a small Princeton looking amp. They were playing Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.


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[SlyFoxx]

As far as weight it could be a 4 bottled beast with more iron. So really it's almost like 75 pounds of feathers which of course weigh next to nothing by themselves. So if you don't think about it when you move it does it really weight anything?? Humm.

[Demanic]

As far as weight it could be a 4 bottled beast with more iron. So really it's almost like 75 pounds of feathers which of course weigh next to nothing by themselves. So if you don't think about it when you move it does it really weight anything?? Humm.

If you look at it as just another form of exercise, you'll love gigging with it.

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[Fender_Punk]

Hard to beat a mesa v30, especially for recording. In a small or medium-size closed-back 212 like that I would maybe/ideally swap one of the v30s for a mesa c90.

I was playing my Sheraton (w/ Gibson mini hum) and one of my Teles through the Stiletto today. I tried both guitars through the Stiletto with just the V30s, sounded great.
I then looked at the length of speaker cable for both Mesa amps. The Stiletto speakers are on a very short leash, can't plug them into the 5:50. I can however, put the 5:50 on top of the Stiletto and plug the Black Shadow MC-90 into the second 8 ohm jack, giving me a 3x12 setup. That really sounded huge, especially with the volume up.

I'll try to record some clips this week. Let me know if you prefer SM-57 or E906 Mics to mic both V30 and MC-90 speakers (I have a pair of each).

That's a tasty little lineup right there!

Marshall/Mesa awesome
Mesa variety
Peavey > Fender tube goodness
And some Mark Bass to make a mark with the bass

First off, thank you! High praise and I'm glad you appreciate my line of thought enough to detail it and say I rock. If it wasn't for this forum, I'd be far less knowledgeable of the options available and it would have taken far longer to find the right tools for me to craft the sounds I'm after. Thank you to you and everyone else for sharing their thoughts and experiences on the gear they've used and/or owned. Also thank you for welcoming me both when I initially joined as a teenager and when I came back after a long hiatus. I love this community. God bless you all.

As for Peavey vs. Fender, It's not even that Peavey is necessarily better, but it's certainly a good value-for-money, and cheaper than buying or easier than building a 5F3 circuit Tweed amp. I'm also proud that all my amps are built in USA (Although I did love my Canadian made Traynors, especially the YCS-50 I recently traded).

Just Mike it, you’ll be fine. I saw Jimmy Eat World, with a small Princeton looking amp. They were playing Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.

Exactly! Use the best stuff for the studio, use the most pragmatic stuff for the gigs. The Peavey sounds, great, and with the OCD on my board I can easily get the levels of gain the Mesa provides (especially when used on the dirty channel of the C30).

EDIT: Also, the HQRP footswitch that came with the Classic 30 also works with the Mesa Stiletto for switching channels and activating the solo boost.

[Aceman]

I feel ashamed sometimes I only really use the tight gain channel, and really vey little eq. But damn, it is just my sound!

Every now and again, do yourself a treat and explore the other 25 tones that amp has!!!

[Fender_Punk]

I feel ashamed sometimes I only really use the tight gain channel, and really vey little eq. But damn, it is just my sound!

Every now and again, do yourself a treat and explore the other 25 tones that amp has!!!

To each their own. I'm sure it's a great sound and if that's all you need, why venture off the beaten path?

I have already explored a few different settings and can advise the Fat Clean with gain and T/M/B/ all set to 1 o'clock with a Les Paul is a great pushed clean sound.

Tight Clean is the cleanest, highest headroom clean channel one could ask for in a EL-34 amp. Tele chicken pickin' is best done on this setting. I like everything at noon with master cranked. Somewhere in between a MIG-50 and a cranked AC-30 with the gain set low. Makes all my guitars sound angelic.

The Crunch setting on either channel sounds exactly as a Plexi should. Tight Gain is a la JCM 800 and Fluid Drive is just insane amounts of gain.

I know some folks hate these amps but I have yet to find a bad tone on mine.

[Aceman]

The Crunch channel is really awesome. Very flexible. Not that it is not exactly the same on both channels. slight , but noticeable EQ differences.
And whilemthe tight gain is JCM 800 territory (no wonder I love it!), it gain go into hotrod territory

The Fluid channel really has more of a Boogie tone about it. Kind of like " At; that much gain we couldn't help ourselves, some Mesa slipped in there!"

[dave74]

If you do use both cabs together for a 3x12 v30/c90 setup, then use your pair of 4ohm outputs from the Ace. If you run them both from the 8ohm outputs the amp could get hot after some time, depending on how hard it was being pushed.

[Fender_Punk]

If you do use both cabs together for a 3x12 v30/c90 setup, then use your pair of 4ohm outputs from the Ace. If you run them both from the 8ohm outputs the amp could get hot after some time, depending on how hard it was being pushed.

To be honest, I was a little skeptical of this advice when I first read it. So just to be sure, I checked the user manual for the Stiletto Ace. Regarding Speakers, it says,

"These are the Speaker Outputs for connecting your cabinet(s) of choice. Your ACE is not very sensitive to impedance mismatching and therefore we encourage experimentation with regards to speaker loads. You may feel free to try an 8 Ohm load on the 4 Ohm jack or a 16 Ohm load on the 8 Ohm jack as you may discover a characteristic that the mismatched load imparts on the sound that is desirable. MESA 4x12 cabinets are wired in Series/Parallel and are rated at 8 Ohms and these should normally be connected to the 8 Ohm jack. When using two MESA 8 Ohm 4x12 cabinets, connect them each to a 4 Ohm jack as doubling the load on each jack produces a total load of 8 Ohms and is a proper impedance match."

All that to say: You are correct and I will proceed as advised going forward.

[devastone]

I was wondering what the speakers were if you are hooking them up like that. If the V30s are 8 ohms and the C90 is 8 ohms, you are under 4 ohms total.

[Fender_Punk]

I was wondering what the speakers were if you are hooking them up like that. If the V30s are 8 ohms and the C90 is 8 ohms, you are under 4 ohms total.

The 2 V30s in the Stiletto Ace are each 16 ohms, wired together in parallel for an 8 ohm load. The MC-90 in the 5:50 is an 8 ohm speaker. So combined they create a 4 ohm load.

[devastone]

With 50% of the power going to the C90 and 25% going to each of the V30s, just FYI.

[Demanic]

With 50% of the power going to the C90 and 25% going to each of the V30s, just FYI.

It'll probably sound fantastic.

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