Mesa Boogie Review: DC-5

History: I'm just a budding guitarist. Been playing around 8 years and in that time I've done a few gigs. I'm into all kinds of music: rock, blues, jazz, metal, pop etc!

Purchase: Bought this amp second hand for £600. I was studying a performing musicians course at the time and needed an amp. Mesa have a huge reputation and my local shop had this one up for sale so I bought it!

What I Like About This Mesa Boogie DC-5: THE TONE! There is no end to this amp. Firstly you have two channels each with there own set of controls. As well as the gain, bass, middle and treble, they also have their own presence, reverb and master volume. The clean channel is up there with the cleanest of clean amps. You got crystal clean to warm jazz to edgy blues. There is also the pull boost on the gain just to crank things up a little. It has it all. The gain channel is pure heaven. Anything from rock to metal. Set the gain low and turn up the master to push the valves and I swear, pure tube tone. Set the gain high and its a wonderful liquid overdrive. It's so sweet. To top things off, you've got a footswitchable five band equaliser. If you want to add more colour to your tone then use the eq for a more tonal spectrum. You couldn't be happier really!

What I Do NOT Like About The Mesa Boogie DC-5: My only little niggle about this amp is that the pull boost on the clean channel is not footswitchable. It's ashame really because it offers a completely different sound and would be useful to have when needed. I dont want to have to turn around durin a gig and pull and push the switch when needed. Other than that, nothing at all.

Mesa Boogie DC-5 Quality Rating: The amp is well built, like a tank. The reverb unit is wrapped up and tied down in the back of the amp. Kept safe unlike some amps. I haven't had a problem since I bought it. That was well over a year ago.

Review Summary: You want tone, here it is! These amps were built around 1992/3 - 15 years ago. I played through a mesa boogie combo (i think it was the F series) a few months ago in a shop on Denmark Street in London and I was disappointed. I mean really disappointed. My DC-5 blew it away!!! If you ever get the chance to buy one, do it, you wont regret it. They don't cost the earth and it's ironic really, because mine is priceless to me!

Rating of this Mesa Boogie product: 5

This Mesa Boogie DC-5 Guitar Amplifiers Review Submitted By: Ed

Review Date: 2008-01-12