tonymckenziecom's Metal Music Gear Setup

I have a substantial number of tube amps, but the Mesa Boogie Road King II is one of my favourite pieces of gear. Why? Well the thing is, this amp has EL34's in there, it has 6L6's in there, it can flip between cabs at the press of a switch, it has at least two loops, it has output settable volumes, either tube rectification with a sag switch or regular rectification if you prefer that (I do). Each channel has at least three settings with small switches on the front of the amp and it's possible to 'mix' EL34's and 6L6's tubes for completely unique tones or of course just choose which tube tones you prefer.

There really are so many features on the Road King II that to write it all down could be a problem here. BTW The Road King I was not comparable as I had one of those before I bought the RK II.

This amp is used not just for metal tones. There are four channels and each has it's own tones, the clean really IS clean but channel four is the one if you want incredibly good lead guitar tones. I bought this amp near enough new and took a look inside. There were a few 'factory' mods to this amp which worked but did not quite look as they should for a German maker and with a cost as high as the Hagen costs. Overall a better amp if you use the Diezel floor pedal (I think that's called a Columbus) and much easier to try and control.

The RA100 seems to 'follow on' from an earlier amp design, but includes a power soak on each channel. This feature alone is very powerful and useful mainly in the studio where I use it. You can easily achieve a very overdriven tone (within the limits of this amp) on the top channel while the crunch and clean tones are exactly that. It is extremely well made but a heavy head to log around.

The TSL100 is a very underrated and generally unreliable amp mainly to the main board having issues about the biasing of the tubes. However, I used this amp on my 2006 'Eniac' album and had tones that I have never achieved with any other amp to date - and I have loads of tube amps.

The fix is simple, get a replacement board and fit it, it solves the issues forever and the amp returns to an incredibly good sounding lead tone. Don't listen to moaners... they don't know quite how to use this amp.

The Grandmeister seems to do it all. There's reasonably good tones (if a bit toppy in use), it includes many effects right on the amp, the output is variable and there are four channels all with boosts.

Overall build quality is good, but the amp does tend to run a little bit hot in the studio. Its a small amp and can easily be carried around. The floor pedal is recommended.

While the Marshall 1960A cab is to be found almost universally, I have always used this cab for so long I don't even remember when I started using it. These days, I use almost every amp I have through the 1960A cab (I also have one 1960B cab). The ones I have are generally fitted with the Celestion 70 watt speakers and can be operated in stereo or mono inputs.

While I have used other speaker cabs these really are such an all round useful cab I have never found anything better.