What's the worst tube amp you've ever heard?

[Enzo]

That is why Fender bought SWR. I could be wrong, but I think a company like Mesa puts out a bass amp so they can say they have one. And one of their dealers will then have a bass amp to offer without bringing another brand into the store.

[bob p]

Maybe there's a reason that Ampegs outnumber Mesas and Fenders 100:1 or more on stages,all over the World

Agreed!

Those grid circuit resistances are way outside of the SOA for a 6L6. So this makes me wonder ... Is Mesa making misteaks like this because they're just not very good at designing amps, because their schematic draftsman just doesn't pay attention to what he's doing (and got the value wrong on the schematic), or because they are intentionally publishing disinformation so that people who try to clone their amps will end up with a PoS when they're done? I doubt that they're crafty enough to publish disinformation, as it would only confuse their service people.

If they made the same mistake on the 400+ that they made on the 400 schematic, then the grid Z would be off by a factor of 6! I can't imagine that the amp would sound good if they did that. It would be interesting if someone who has one of these amps could take a peek and let us know what the values really are.

[Muskratt]

Worst for me was a Crate V18 tube amp


Sucked outright. Boomy Bass that you could only crack it open and even then it was insane to dial anything in even with new tubes. This amp was Cheaply build using wafer board and tolex very thin and you could break it real easy.
Speaker was paper sounding too.
In all..
This amp is a great amp for someone who wants to do amp mods. I suggest mounting it to the bench and leaving it that way.

[Randall]

A Bugera retro looking head. Simply horrible.