Mesa Lonestar/Stiletto Alternatives?

[she.cries.wolf]

I'm looking for an amp to play instrumental music and came across the Lonestar. As much as I really like it, it's way out of my price range. I only want to spend upto about £600 if possible?

Type of artists I like playing are -

Dream Theater/John Petrucci
Neil Zaza
Marco Sfogli

I really want to find something which provides the MESA style lead guitar sound for playing expressively, but also sounds good when your playing with a bit less distortion on the Neck pickup or when you roll the vol back on the Bridge pickup. Also a nice clean channel would be a great addition.

Heres a 3 links trying to explain the sound -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-1Dbc1TH8c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8hH6w3hvVU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70M2qpPJRmM

[HTH AMPS]

check out Jet City, that'll float your boat in the £600 range.

[she.cries.wolf]

check out Jet City, that'll float your boat in the £600 range.

Cheers. Just looked. Would you recommend the Depth Mod or the Original?

[she.cries.wolf]

Oh and also. Doesn't Jet City have more of a British tone rather than a US tone?

[HTH AMPS]

The Jet City amps are based on Soldano-type designs, so I'd say they're very Amercian sounding - I have the JCA100H and did the depth mod myself, it IS worth having imo - really gives the amp serious balls.

[Stevepage]

Jet City's are very cool amps. I have the 20 watt combo and when turned up loud it sounds awesome. Cuts through better than a JCM900 that my mate used for a jam recently.

I'd also recommend the Laney VH100R and change the power amp valves to 6L6's.

[HTH AMPS]

Its funny you should mention how the JC amps cut at gigs - I rehearsed with mine recently and the lads said it was hellish loud.  It wasn't that loud, it just cuts well. 

fwiw, I think the clean/crunch channel is the star of the show on that amp.

The OD channel is really nice, but its too much gain for my old-school needs  :lol:

[stonevibe]

I have the Jet City 50H and matching 2x12 and live it is like a canon!

Cuts through the band and has loads of gain, sustain with single coils and with hum buckers its a beast. Its more biased towards a US sound at higher gain settings, but basically it sounds a bit like a modded Marshall on 6L6 tubes.

I also own a Mesa Lonestar Special and I would say it is nothing like that amp.

[ericsabbath]

the jca circuit is pretty close to a rectifier, except for the part where it doesn't sound like cr@p  :lol:
the stiletto is also a rectifier with some JCM 800 DNA
it's a cool amp, but muffled and no near as open and clear sounding as any actual soldano clone
sounds more like a mudded up Laney
except for the build quality, I'd take a laney over the stiletto easily

[Atomshipped]

You could check out on of the Blackstar HT series amps; the ISF knob allows you to do an American or British tone and anything in between. I could be wrong but I believe the British is meant to sound like a Marshall and the American is meant to sound like a Mesa Boogie. Regardless, I've heard a lot of people can pair an HT amp up with an equalizer pedal and can some pretty good Mesa tones. It's definitely worth a try, at least.

[shaman]

the jca circuit is pretty close to a rectifier, except for the part where it doesn't sound like cr@p  :lol:
the stiletto is also a rectifier with some JCM 800 DNA
it's a cool amp, but muffled and no near as open and clear sounding as any actual soldano clone
sounds more like a mudded up Laney
except for the build quality, I'd take a laney over the stiletto easily

muffled,muddy...stiletto?...I recently had the joy of playing a stiletto and a soldano slo/haynes mod, and thought how nice a rig my buddy has-his stiletto definitely lives up to its namesake,and it was a nice mate alongside the slo