Matamp 1224mii and Mesa Boogie Lonestar
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2016 6:02 pm
Saw this post in the Matamp Owners group on Facebook and thought it was interesting. Don't know how true it is or if it's just Matamp fanboys. I was always intrigued by how crazy versatile the Mesa looked but never made a connection between the two amps.
Background is that this poster has owned the original, first 1224 mk11 since 2004.
Background is that this poster has owned the original, first 1224 mk11 since 2004.
Sold it once (2006) to a guy called Mike Castle. He discovered a lot about its history. Seems that Mesa Boogie had their Hands on it and reverse engineered the valve switching in/out circuitry before 'pinching' it for the Lone Star range. They also reassembled the tone stack incorrectly. If you recall Jef, the tone stack had very little effect.
Mike took the amp back to Jeff and Dave Green at Matamp and he rebuilt it with new PCB's under Dave's guidance. It then sounded a lot bigger, and less 'dark' than it had done.
I got in touch with Mike about six months after I sold it and begged to buy it back, and as Mike had got the bug for amp building, he ordered a new one from Dave and sold me this one back.
He kept the original oxblood fronted cab so I ordered a pair of cabs in burgundy rexine with lloydloom fronts, G12H and G12M speakers combined.
Matamp also removed the 'Nick Guppy' name plate and binned it (they'd apparently got into an expensive legal dispute with boogie over this amp!)