NBAD

[212Mavguy]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mesa-Boogie-Buster-Bass-200-Guitar-Amplifier-Used-/391703346242?nma=true&si=zX6bOk

 

Have a Heritage HB-2 (think that's what it's called) and it needed some company. Already have cabs. Think that if it arrives with all the glass intact that it might sound pretty great compared to what is currently offered in the hybrid or solid state market offerings. Even with the high shipping cost I think that I did at least half way decent for dollar/ price point value. At least I bought an American made amp to go with an American crafted instrument. The cabs have American speakers...

[Gitfiddler]

6 6LS's!! Looks like a Boogie fireplace!

 

[Genericmusic]

[bolero]

wow...you could roast marshmallows behind that!!

 

congratulations

 

*edit*

 

and don't be flicking any boogers on that fuzzy duffle bag!

[212Mavguy]

S'mores, anyone?

[tbonesullivan]

Does it come with a free back brace to help move it?

[duhvoodooman]

That's a SERIOUS amount of glass!

[212Mavguy]

It arrived today! I unpacked it and let it warm up for a couple hours before firing it up to let the filter and tone caps get above freezing...a couple hours later the massive trannies were still very cold to the touch, but I was not worried about those. The power tubes appeared to have barely been used, still breaking in. There was a small amount of scratchiness in a couple of the pots, but I think twisting them back and forth fifty times will go a long ways to quieting them. I ran it into a pair of 16 ohm cabs to drop the impedance to 8 ohms, used both 8 ohm outs. All speakers were JBL, the 12's were MI-12's rated for 75 watts each, the 15's were G135's rated for 200 watts each. I could see using jist the two 15 cab at 16 ohms for a more compressed sound, also a bit lower volume as well. It was plenty loud, oh yeah!!! Had no problems rattling the wiindows and kitchen cabinet doors.

 

How did it sound? warm, fat, and round, low volumes sounded great, the preamp had a lot of gain available, when I turned the gain up things got more compressed, and sustain-y. I'm confident that if it were hooked up to a sealed back cabinet that it would be able to sound more than a bit punchy! For giggles I plugged in my H555 guitar and it sounded like a great single channel guitar amp, clean and Fender-y to quite grindy with the gain turned up, just like a great single channel guitar amp. The EQ section sliders worked, the switch worked, the fx loop worked, no problems with anything, the eq footswitch and back panel were both missing, but since it's a bass amp, easy enough to find the small eq switch on the front panel and use that, and no back panel meant that the tubes run cooler. The sides of the power tubes were hot of course, but after running for 15 minutes the tops of each power tube were cool enough to leave a finger on with no problem as far as burning, surprisingly cool, not much above room temperature! Mesa does tend to bias their amps cold, so that will help that sextet of 6l6's run for a long, long time. Easy to feel the heated warm air rising, but because of the generous spacing between the power tubes the iron stayed surprisingly cool, as did the huge power tranny. The speaker mute switch worked, so it is possible to use the amp directly into the board with silence in the room of needed. There is also a pin one lift on the xlr out to the board for quieter running in some live situations. I could imagine that I will get some different sounds from changing out the preamp tubes, one for the single channel preamp, and one for the phase inverter. I am guessing that the stock ones are Shuguang, Chinese, those were what Mesa was using in the early 90's when the amp was made. They did not make Buster Bass combo amps or heads for very long, so not a huge number produced. I got this all tube amp for the price of a nice solid state amp head, the sound was pretty darn nice, sounded like a tube amp as far as harmonic content.

 

Schweeeeet!