Build Quality

[8907white]

I'm planning on buying my kid an amp, I'm looking at at 2 fairly new amps. the first is a Fender Twin-Amp 1994 version. The 2nd is a Mesa Boogie Rect-O-Verb 50 combo.
My question is:
Ignoring the sound, and control features of both amps, Which is the beter fom the standpoint of build quality? and is there a big difference? Are they comprarablly easy of dificult to troubleshoot and fix? Mabe they're both duds and there is somthing else I should look at?
My pockets are not deep, but I will spend a little more to get good quality.

Thanks

[Enzo]

Well, if yuo don't care which amp to buy otherwise, I'd pick the Fender. In general I find the Mesa's to be a pain to service, parts crammed together and even stacked. Support for Mesa not as available - there are Fender repair shops all over. Of course after warranty expires, most competent shops can work on anything. But authorized shops are more likely to have documentation, common parts, and familiarity.

At this age, any factory shortcomings would have been discovered in either amp. As a shop owner I'd have to say the Fenders rarely come to me as frail things. They are sturdy enough for the road. They fail like anything else of course - controls and jacks are broken by the owner, tubes wear out and fail, sometimes burning out a resistor. SOlder joints can fail. The Later Mesas have these little controls that pop the rear cover off when you bump the knob hard, then the amp doesn't perform well. The Mesas make it very hard to remove the circuit board, and sometimes there is no place to put the soldering iron to remove or replace a part.

In fairness, I am not calling the Mesa's bad, I like the amps, but with the above concerns.

But all that aside, I hope the kid is involved in the decision. otherwise, it is like your wife buying you a golf club without asking what kind you prefer. How old is the kid, and how experienced a player? Does he gig or does ne noodle in the basement? Alone or with others? And what does he play? Metallica and other metal music is played usually on different equipment than say blues.

Is the kid ready to appreciate the tonal nuance of tubes? Otherwise a nice solid state amp might be more maintenance free. 100 watts is a big amp. Don't overlook cool little amps like the Peavey CLassic 30 (Also comes as Delta Blues with different speakers) and a lot of others.

SOme people like them a lot, but I would maybe steer away from Crate amps for a while.

[Tom Phillips]

Wow. Lucky kid.
I'd vote for the Fender but, as Enzo pointed out, those two amps are so different (from a sound production point of view) that the kid should participate in the decision.
Tom

[Steve Conner]

Yeah, lucky kid! I got a 15 watt Laney SS practice amp with two knobs. Anyway, take a close look at your offspring, if he has two or more of the following: baggy shorts, tribal tattoos, skateboard, nose ring, guitar with prongs, Bullet For My Valentine tour T-shirt, you should probably get the Mesa, otherwise Fender is a better bet.

I know when I was starting out playing guitar, I wouldn't have appreciated a Fender Twin style amp. All I wanted was distortion and the more the better.