All the nicest amps have my favourite old-school toggle switches.
If only it weren’t for your paltry 110-120V power. 😂
Those amps simply did not exist in my yoof.
You could get a 60s Vox AC 30 for a month’s wages, or even a Marshall Plexi on a flexi-payment scheme, but no Mesas at all, and even rarely Fender amps.
Mesas here are like Rickenbacker guitars. There hasn’t been a new one available forever. 🤷🏼♂️
The impression I got from the East Coast dealers I talked to was that "Mesa tried to go too big, too fast when they expanded nationwide" from Cali (mid-'00s following the nu-metal craze), so service and production suffered. Heard somewhat the same re. PRS from a local former master luthier who took a buyout. 🤔 🤷♂️
The Nomad has been a pain in the butt BUT I love the damn thing. Benson tone? Yes. Pearl Jam tone? Yes. Slayer? Yes. And yes, CP, it is LOUD. 😮 😆
More to your point, Dave...we didn't have the same amps either in our yoofs cuz Mesa was still boutique, making shit for Jerry and Carlos...when DID Mesa go "big" -- late '90s? I still had my Marshall 30w that I got in HS (85ish?) and a Fender Princeton 40 🤔 ? The only reason I bagged that Mesa was cuz they discontinued the model and scratch n' dent. Hint hint.
You gotta either be crafty like you two and/or know someone who is. Luckily I found Tom in Nfld. 😜
The first proper band I was ever i, in about 1989 or so somehow had 2 Peavey Special 130s. I will never know how they turned up, but they were loud and deeply unsatisfactory.
@DyDave @InUnfunky my first “real” amp was a Yamaha G100 212. It had a respectable distortion channel. The clean was brittle. It could get rather loud and I “Working Man” stress tested it with an Ibanez Les Paul copy with Super 70s neck and a DiMarzio Super Distortion bridge. 😁