Fillmore 25 1x12" 18/23-watt 2-channel Tube Combo Amp Review

Fillmore 25

I absolutely love this amp. I had two other amps. I sold one and thinking of selling the other. I just don't have use for them anymore. As soon as you plug in you can tell this amp is on another level! I'm beyond happy!! I finally found a forever amp!! Then the reverb just knocks it out of the park!! Great job mesa boogie!!!

---

Cancel Comment

What an amp!

First the bad news. Sweetwater sent me the wrong amp, I new something was wrong when I almost got a hernia getting it out of the box. I stared at it a minute and realized "not a Filmore 25 combo", was another MB though. A quick call to Sweetwater and me jumping through some hoops and the correct one was shipped. I was looking at a Fender DRRI and my sales engineer Nate Kaufman… read more suggested I look at this due the very eclectic sets we play. Well, he was spot on and it was worth the wait, I was literally blown away. The simple 2 channels setup is a game changer for me. I can't wait to get up and play it daily. For our small to medium gigs, plenty of volume and I set up a clean and drive channel and now have all the bases covered. My pedals sound great in either mode. Also, the harmonics in both the clean and drive modes are just stunning. As another reviewer said, not cheap but you get what you pay for and that is the absolute truth here. I love this amp. Also have a Fender HRD IV, Blues Cube Hot, Katana 100mk2, all great amps, but the difference compared to the MB, is like, wow. Finally, the MB F25 weighing in at 35 lbs, means no hernias.

---

Cancel Comment

A Multi-Facetted Diamond of an Amp!

I thought I would need two amps to get the gorgeous cleans and crispy overdrive I love. But the Fillmore 25 does both wonderfully. The cleans are naturally chimey, but can also be EQ'd to a creamy warmth for lush ambient tones. Switch to drive mode and this things growls like beast. The OD is tight and powerful for bold, commanding rock tones. All in a lightweight, portable package.… read more Incredibly versatile!

---

Cancel Comment

Tone search is over

Play this with a mccarty 594 and strat. Everything I was hoping for this will be a lifetime amp for me.

---

Cancel Comment

Perfection.

I've spent the past 12 years with a Fender Blues Jr. Tweed Edition, which up until this year has been perfectly reliable (input jack and power tubes went within a couple months of each other). I've since fixed it up, and it will remain my backup amp for as long as it runs. After my issues with the Blues Jr, I began a search for a slightly higher quality amp that would offer better… read more Fender-type clean tones. I was going back and forth between a Princeton Reverb Reissue and the Deluxe Reverb Tone Master. I loved everything about the Princeton except for its lack of a gain setting (as I would be playing at home and mostly without pedals), and loved everything about the Tone Master except the fact that I would be paying $900 for a Chinese made solid state amp. I was getting to the point where I was convinced that the Princeton Reissue was going to be the amp that I was going to buy, when I somehow came across the Fillmore 25. I literally discovered this amp the day before buying it, and I'm so very glad that I did. The best way that I can describe it is a combination of a Princeton and Deluxe Reverb, with the addition of a gain knob and various gain modes. It is lacking tremolo that most high end Fender amps have, but makes up for that with a tube buffered effects loop in the back. The gain knob combined with gain modes makes it easy to dial in any tone at any volume - even bedroom level rock tones sound great. The amp has 3 modes: Clean, Drive, and Hi (Gain). The amp also has 2 identical channels, which at first I didn't quite get the point of, but it's really a brilliant design. The use has nearly endless possibilities of configurations, the most common being clean on channel 1 and some level of drive / gain on channel 2. The channels are selected either via a front panel switch or the supplied foot switch. The best way to describe how the 3 modes of Clean / Drive / Hi function is to consider each mode as a continuation of the gain dial. If one can assume that the gain dial goes from 1-10, then Drive at 1 would roughly equal clean at 8, and Hi at 1 would roughly equal Drive at 8...if that makes sense. The spring reverb controls are at the back of the amp and have separate controls for each channel. The reverb can also be activated/deactivated by an aftermarket foot switch. The reverb, to my ears, sounds perfect in a traditional Fender sort of way. It even functions well when a higher gain signal is pushed through it. Overall, Mesa really hit it out of the park with this amp. It's more expensive than any Fender amp of this size / build type, but it's also a setup up in quality, and should hold value and last for many, many years.

---

Cancel Comment