Mesa Boogie Express 5:50 Combo

Mesa Boogie recently added the Express

series of amplifiers to its vast line of tone

generators. The Express is offered up in

two formats to meet the musical tastes of

players of any genre. The 5:25 features two

EL84 power tubes and a smaller bottle

design that lends itself to the early breakup

and warmth heard in many vintage

British amplifiers. Our review model, the

5:50, features a duet of 6L6 power tubes.

If you’re not familiar with 6L6s, they lend

themselves to nice, sparkling clean tones

with a distinct, rich bottom end (think early

Fender). The 6L6 also comes across as

smooth in high gain situations and is definitely

one of my personal favorites.

The Express features Mesa’s Duo-Class

power switching circuit. The switching circuit

allows the player to choose between

Class A/B at 50 watts or Class A at five

watts. Peter Stroud, musical director and

guitarist for Sheryl Crow, PG columnist and

tone chaser extraordinaire, shed some light

on this subject and put it into terms that

are easy to understand: “When the amplifier

is in Class A mode, it is being pushed

much harder – think of it as the power

section on ten, full throttle – providing

more break-up, midrange and sag, which

is great for that vintage, bluesy rock vibe.

In A/B mode the power section provides

much more headroom, producing tighter

low-end sounds and a more prominent

top-end.” It’s a great design, and Mesa is

well-known for inventing this dual class

power section.

Out of the gate, the price of admission

on the Express 5:50 is justified by its

incredible flexibility and ease of navigation.

The 5:50 offers the player two separate

channels, each with two modes and independent

EQ. Channel 1 provides Clean and

Crunch while Channel 2 provides Blues and

Burn. Other features include a tube-driven

reverb and separate, footswitchable Contour

knobs for each channel.

“Although Channel 2 Blues was intended for moderate gain,

I found it to be my favorite tone center for full-on, smooth

distortion rhythm and lead work. This channel picks up

where Channel 1 leaves off; great blues tones are to be found

with the Contour disengaged in Class A mode.”

For my test drive, I used a Gibson Les

Paul BFG loaded with a Seymour Duncan

Custom Shop ‘78 model humbucker in the

bridge position and the stock P-90 up front.

Channeling It

I started with Channel 1’s clean setting

to get comfortable. Each channel

provides six knobs: Gain, Treble, Mid,

Bass, Reverb and Master Volume. In A/B

mode I was able to get some very pleasing

clean tones with decent headroom.

When I switched down to five watts, the

amp was absolutely beautiful and really

opened up, becoming very expressive

and making even order harmonics more

prevalent – these are the natural harmonics

that make an amp sound great, giving

chords and single notes rich, secondary

overtones. What’s killer about this channel

is when it’s pushed, by cranking up

the gain and rolling up your guitar’s volume

knob, you’ll hear some awesome,

fuzzified, distorted clipping sounds. Roll

down your guitar’s volume knob and

you’re instantly back to clean.

The crunch setting on Channel 1 was

most impressive to me in full power A/B

mode. I was able to get some thick, bold

distortion sounds. I first thought of this

amp as a low-powered vintage affair, but

I suddenly found myself in a dropped

tuning, ripping out aggressive higher-gain

rhythms. The low-end wasn’t extremely

tight – instead it was a little more organic

and somewhat spongy. This seems to be

a signature quality in most

Boogie amps – some folks

will like it, some won’t.

I was really knocked out by

the amp’s versatility when

I started messing with the

Contour. The Contour knob

allows the player to V-scoop

the EQ to their heart’s content

in any channel, and by scooping

just past the point of the

amp’s standard midrange

voice, I found fluid lead tones

with plenty of sustain.

Before moving on to Channel 2, I experimented

with the tube-driven reverb. I’m

generally not big on using reverb, but this

had a natural, organic feel. You could certainly

tell that there was a tube behind it

and it was sweet and transparent when

properly adjusted. You can adjust its level

with the knob on the faceplate and bypass

or engage it with the included Express

5:50 footswitch.

Although Channel 2 Blues was intended for

moderate gain, I found it to be my favorite

tone center for full-on, smooth distortion

rhythm and lead work. This channel picks

up where Channel 1 leaves off; great blues

tones are to be found with the Contour

disengaged in Class A mode. Burn is over

the top, just as advertised. By placing the

Contour knob in an extreme setting with

the amp in full-power Class A/B mode,

this channel was capable of venturing into

Metallica, Dimebag or similar territory with

no problems.

The Final Mojo

The Express 5:50 speaks in a variety of

voices and sounds great doing it. The low-powered,

old school tones were extremely

convincing and the A/B full-powered gain

sounds were huge. You could spend hours

dialing in variations, yet the amp still feels

simple and thoughtfully designed. Its variable

power makes it perfect for home

recording situations, but the amp will shine

in studio and live applications as well. If you

want to cover a lot of ground with speed,

ease and quality tone, this is a winner.

Mesa Boogie

1x12 $1199

2x12 $1299

mesaboogie.com

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