Mesa Engineering Fillmore 50 1x12 combo

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first play
MESA ENGINEERING FILLMORE 50 1X12 COMBO
24
Guitarist november 2018
that promises to properly redefine that
original Boogie sound as never before.
Named for the legendary East and West
Coast concert venues, let’s welcome the
all-new Mesa Fillmore 50.
Like all Mesa products, the Fillmore 50
is beautifully designed and put together
with a real eye for detail. The standard trim
looks suitably vintage, with perfectly fitted
black vinyl and a black control panel with
simple chickenhead knobs. In the top left
of the black-and-white jute speaker grille is
the original Boogie badge, a pointer to the
Fillmore 50’s inspiration.
Inside the tough aluminium chassis, the
electronics are arranged on high-quality
printed circuit boards – one for the power
valves, one for the rear panel sockets
and one large board for everything else,
including the five preamp valve sockets.
While earlier Mesa amps featured pad and
trace circuit layouts hand-drawn by Randall
Smith himself, the Fillmore’s boards are
CAD-drawn, although there are still a few
typically Mesa quirks in the layout that
point to old-school Boogie design. It’s good
to see that Mesa still hand-wires all the
front-panel controls for superior reliability.
Meanwhile, the circuit boards still have
that distinctive Boogie look, thanks to
custom resistors, ‘orange drop’ capacitors
and ultra-neat wiring.
The Fillmore 50 combo features two
independent footswitchable preamp
channels, with identical sounds and
controls – something Mesa calls Channel
Cloning. It means you can replicate one
great sound and use it for rhythm and lead,
adding a touch of extra gain and volume
if needed. Compared with most Boogie
amps, the control panel is simple. There’s
a single input jack socket followed by an
output power switch offering 50-watt or
25-watt options. Next come the channel
controls, with two sets of gain, bass, mid,
treble, presence, reverb and master volume.
There’s also a pair of mini-toggle switches
that pre-set the channel to one of three
voices: Clean, Drive and Hi. Sat in between
the middle of the panel is another mini-
toggle for changing channels when the
footswitch isn’t in use.
The Fillmore’s rear layout continues
in the same ‘less is more’ format, offering
a simple series effects loop and a trio of
loudspeaker jacks – clean, functional and
almost spartan by Mesa standards. There
are two footswitch jacks: one under the
input jack changes channels, with an
optional reverb footswitch jack on the rear
panel. Overall, the build quality is typical
of what we’ve come to expect from Mesa.
As well as being pleasing to the eye, the
Fillmore is as hard as nails and should
handle anything thrown at it.
Sounds
The first thing that impresses us at
switch-on is the Fillmore 50’s lack of
electrical noise. Hiss and hum levels are
exceptionally low, even with the reverb
level maxed out, making the Fillmore
equally rewarding for quiet home use,
studio or stage. This wasn’t always the case
on some earlier Boogie iterations. However,
all the recent models we’ve tried are
exceptionally quiet.
We tested the Fillmore with a variety of
different guitars covering all the popular
tonal bases, including a PAF-loaded Les
Paul, an MHS-powered Custom Shop ’63
ES-335 replica and a pair of Strats (one with
1. The Fillmore 50’s
channels each have
three voice options
controlled by this
mini toggle switch
2. Like all Mesa amps,
the Fillmore 50 uses
a custom-designed
Celestion C-90 ‘Black
Shadow’ loudspeaker.
It’s one of just a few
OEM loudspeakers
still made by
Celestion in the UK
2
The Fillmore’s Hi lead
tone is packed with
layers of smouldering
harmonic bite
GIT439.rev_mesa.indd 24 10/4/18 11:46 AM