questions on mesa/boogie lonestar's?

[RhoadsDude1022]

Hey guys, been searching around for amps lately and came across definite g.a.s lol.

ANyone heard of the lonestar from mesa?
its supposed to be quite versatile, any ideas? any one know the pricing on the 1X12? Can this amp do 80s hard rock/ metal?

thanks- andrew

 

[kaknight]

Re: questions on mesa/boogie lonestar's?

It looks amazing! the wattage switching seems like a great idea. I would wager that you are looking at close to $1500

 

[RhoadsDude1022]

Re: questions on mesa/boogie lonestar's?

hmm sounds like a decent price for all that versatility. and the reverb looks amazing! lol.

anyways think it would be able to do higher gain stuff? it says once you switch to the high gain, it kicks in really well. Any thoughts?

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: questions on mesa/boogie lonestar's?

hmm sounds like a decent price for all that versatility. and the reverb looks amazing! lol.

anyways think it would be able to do higher gain stuff? it says once you switch to the high gain, it kicks in really well. Any thoughts?

I played the 1x12 combo a couple of weeks back. If you dig back you should find my post.

The feature set is excellent. But it suffers from the standard mesa 'lack of cut'. The cleans are really nice, especially with humbuckers, sort of blackface in character. Any eq position sounds good. But I get the feeling there isn't enough personality to the midrange, especially if you want to cut through a mix. The overdrive channel sounded nice, but didn't make me wet my pants. Once I realised the cleans weren't for me I only gave the overdive a quick look. Didn't seem like an 80s gain machine to me, but like I said, I only checked it out briefly. At least it didn't have the constipated overdrive that the mark3s onward exhibit.

Play it yourself. You never know, you may love it. To me it seems like yet another 'not quite a fender, not quite a marshall' two channel amp. But that may be what you want.

HEAVY, too. And I thought the blue look wasn't Mesa's best. But at least you know you can rely on it. I had a very nice blue Angel, and that thing served me well.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: questions on mesa/boogie lonestar's?

They are pretty cool amps. I checked them out at the Mesa store on Sunset Blvd last weekend. If you're looking for a rock/metal type sound, I'd recommend going with a head/cab setup, just to keep the lows tighter. The combo is a bit loose sounding. Now that the Tremoverbs have been discontinued, you can get those at a decent price, and they have basically the same features. I thought I'd like the blue/silver look of the Lonestar, but it looked a bit uglier in person IMO. Nice amp tho. The halfstack looked pretty killer, but much more money.

 

[That90'sGuy]

Re: questions on mesa/boogie lonestar's?

I really liked it with some tweaking.

The cleans are definitely a wink and a nod to the Fender Blackface era amps. I fell in love with it. Notes really blossomed and chords rung out beautifully with single coils. I got a great warm tone with P90s and humbuckers.

The distortion channel is good enough for classic rock. I like it on a lighter overdrive myself, it was fun to mess around with blues. It can get gain, but not near as much as the rectos (which is a good thing IMO).

So all in all, it's worth a play. To me, I base value on many things. The Mesa is good, but for the price range of others in it's class, it pales in comparison. I won't be selling my Triamp or my '70 Vibrolux Reverb anytime soon for it.

However, I see this as a new direction for Mesa, and one in which I support. It's great seeing blackface type cleans here, it blows away the other clean channels on it's brethren. The distortion is more sophisticated as well. If Mesa keeps this up, I may be interested in purchasing one. No matter what other people say, I thought the blue/silver look was really striking and I have to admit that it attracted me to the amp in the first place. In a place like Guitar Center, an amp that looks like that sticks out like a soar thumb, besides I'm always up for trying new gear and I'll be looking forward to anything new Mesa puts out from now on.

 

[RhoadsDude1022]

Re: questions on mesa/boogie lonestar's?

ok, im gunna go and try out both the solo 50 head, the recto verb combo, and the lonestar