Mesa Boogie Stereo Simul-Class 295 tube amp

Viky
do you still have the 296? email me

Hi all, i own a boogie 295 smul class rack power amp in excellent condition, and the tone corresponds to the description above. unfortunately I'll need to sell it for money need. what's a 295 boogie amp from 1986 worth?

Well it WAS fun and it SOUNDS great! I hooked it up today and it is without a doubt a full range amplifier with a very smooth frequency response. The difference compared to my John Curl designed Parasound amps is a huge improvement in tonal quality and, surprisingly, imaging as well. The vocal imaging was slightly scattered at times with the SS amps but now it is COMPLETELY unified and centered. It's actually very musical sounding. Listener fatigue would eventually set in with the ss amps in my system, but now with the tubes everything sounds a little softer with no loss of detail. It really just sounds very natural and accurate. Needless to say I'm very surprised!

Well, although I haven't been able to find any specs on the frequency response, I did find this on a guitar forum today:

"On to tone....that is subjective, but I think those old poweramps, the Strategy 400/500 and Simulclass 295/395 were made to be toneless. What I mean is that their appreciation is based on their ability to have a non-coloured tone, which allows the preamp to do all the sculpting. Without a preamp, the difference in tone between the 4 old mesa poweramps are minimal, because their job is to POWER your system with a clean set of tubes.

What you do get is a warm, and extremely round (thanks to the presence control) clean tone to start with. None of thise sterile, tinny stuff you find with alot of newer poweramps, but a fat juicy tone to start with. I think if you buy this power amp, get a good Mesa Pre and power it through at least a 2x12, you will be more than satisfied with your tone...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

fretfire4405-04-2004, 01:29 AM
Ahhh, The strategy 400. Now thats an amp! This Mesa amplifier was specifically built for touring professionals that were using multiple(as in 4) cabs or more. Its loaded with 12 tubes. And it is built like a tank. Its sound is unmistakeable. As was mentioned, the headroom is incredible, and thats what drew many players to it. Its sound was so pristine clean and warm, this amp actually jumped genres. Besides us guitarists in search for the ultimate tone, as well as bassists looking to rumble rooms,audiophile guys (that means HUGE stereo heads) were buying these, modding them with RCA inputs, and using them to power their Nakamichi tape decks, their $5000 record players and other super high end stereo equipment. It was so popular to mod these amps, that for a while, Boogie took those mods, added a VU meter to it and called it The Baron power amp. Its just a stereo system optimized Strategy 400! And yes, it does sound that good. Those audiophile guys are sticklers for transparent sound and amps that DONT color their music. And boy do these amps deliver. Its claim to fame is its headroom. You can push it to unbelieveable levels and it wont break up. It'll just sit there glowing brightly while its tearing not only the paint, but the plaster off the walls while causing structural damage to the club. Glass windows dont last long around this amp. Its BRUTALLY loud, and equally heavy(weight wise). It delivers EXACTLY what you pump into it. So if you're looking for a power amp to color your tone a bit, and help your preamp by softly compressing and shaping its output, this isnt the amp for you. You'd probably be more happy with a 50/50. If you want a BRUTALLY LOUD, EXACT representation of the signal you're running into it. Then this is your amp."

I also found that the Mesa owners manual for their Quad preamp says that preamp was designed to be used with the simul-class 295 and the Strategy 400 power amps and that they don't recommend that it be used with other amps.

It sounds like fun to try but I don't want to waste my time if it's just going to sound less than good. I'm thinking this may be enough info to warrant at least giving it a try but what do you guys think, "sounds like fun" or "waste of time"?

Remember, the goal of a guitar amp is to color the sound, not to provide flat amplification. Your 295 is designed to begin clipping when driven hard. This is great for guitar, but not so good for hifi. In fact, one of the goals of the Class A setting is to allow the amp to smoothly transition into overdrive as guitar volume is increased - it allows for very expressive playing.

By combining the 295 with an appropriate guitar preamp (Mesa Triaxis, perhaps) a player could get preamp distortion, poweramp distortion, or a combination. I believe the Triaxis could also control the Simulclass settings on the 295.

I would expect a lot of roll off at both frequency extremes.

You don't see many of these separate guitar preamp - poweramp setups these days as rack systems are out of favor at the moment. Guitar players are a very traditional group and don't adapt new technology easily - kind of like vinyl freaks!

I don't know, but I have often wondered how a Marshall 50+50 stereo rack mount amp would sound in a home system. I see these for sale, and they are not sold new anymore. They sure look cool anyway. They look cooler than most high end gear.

I have always wanted to try the MESA Baron amp. It was dissed by the magazines because it had sound altering features that you might see on guitar gear but does not cut it in the purist high end market.

I have tried some pro solid state amps, like A-B International and it did not sound that great. It's really live pa gear and kind of noisy. Dedicatied high end is better.