Egnater Tourmaster -vs- Mesa Lonestar

[fogman]

If the set up of production is done right, then it doesn't matter where anything is made! Basically the workers are acting like robots. Made in the USA just means it costs more for the most part. Sure there may be a quality difference, but not always. Some things made in the US or anywhere else are made like crap as well!
JMHO. (please don't take this post the wrong way - it's not intented to be offensive)

I personally cannot wait to try out this amp!

 

[coxswain]

From what I heard it was a small mishap of 1 wire being soldered wrong & all 40 were done the very same way.. so it doesnt sound like rampant crappy work but rather a miscommunication or mistake on the schematic they were following.

but thats just my guess

This is correct, I talked to Bruce over email about it. The first 40 simply had the voicing switch backwards. The problem was corrected immediatly before ANY tourmasters were shipped.

Chase

 

[Gasp100]

Sounds like coxswain knows of what he speaks, check his sig:

Egnater Tourmaster 4100
Mesa Boogie Mark IV
Bogner 4x12
Mesa Boogie 3/4 back 1x12

Althought I suppose the Lonestar is something different than the Mark IV.

 

[funkycam]

guitar center is carrying both.
your ears win over anyone elses in this decision...

 

[coxswain]

As far as the cleans.. could you compare the Egnater cleans to any other amps out there (since you say they arent as good as the Lonestar)..

Well, to me the Egnater cleans has more of a jtm thing going on. The clean sound is not as bouncy or sparkly as a Lonestar IMHO. Granted the 5881 tubes in the Egnater can def pull off some great cleans. If it means anything I play on the clean channal of the Egnater all the time and love it. I would be perfectly fine with useing the clean channal on this amp for a jazz, r and b, or funk gig. I don't play country so i can't give comment on that. I am not gigging at the moment so i can't givce direct comments about how it sits in the mix.

I feel the clean on the Lonestar is phenominal. I feel the clean on the Egnater is excellent. The Egnater's features and gain tones is what sold me.

Another thing, channel two on 10 watt mode with the volume and gain about 3/4 of the way up get some awesome deluxe sounds AND im running wiht a 4x12. I would love to hear it with an open back cab with some Jensons!

Oh, one more thing. For all you guys who have ordered the Eggie and want to find the best clean tones. You must turn the volume knob all the way up on channel 1. The gain knob then becomes the volume control for this channel. The setup yields the fattest clean tones with the most headroom.
Chase

 

[Lucky Dog Guitars]

Does it take pedals well in the front end? I typically run a compressor on my clean sounds & use an xotic BB for OD boost.. (not sure I will need it though with this amp)

 

[coxswain]

Does it take pedals well in the front end? I typically run a compressor on my clean sounds & use an xotic BB for OD boost.. (not sure I will need it though with this amp)

Yea, in fact I run an Xotic BB in front.

Actually some of my favorite gain sounds have simply been the BB in front of the clean channal. BB settings Gain noon, Bass 2-3oclock,, treble 10 oclock, volume 11 oclock. I'm diggin that sound just as much if not more than channels 3 and 4 bythemselves.

Further, I like to run channal 3 on classic vocing with the gain at about 1-2 oclock and then boost it with the BB. It sounds more clear to me. The BB fattens it up a bit yet keeps it organic.

Chase

 

[Orren]

This is correct, I talked to Bruce over email about it. The first 40 simply had the voicing switch backwards. The problem was corrected immediatly before ANY tourmasters were shipped.

To agree with/amplify this point, when you buy an Egnater, no matter where it's made, you're paying for Bruce's quality control. The fact that the factory is in China instead of Poland or Kenya or Wisconsin is mitigated by the fact that Bruce is on top of it, and won't let anything shoddy carry his name on it.

That said, I've only compared the Mesa and the Egnater at NAMM; interestingly, there booths this year were right next to each other. As a disclosure, I'm a MOD50 user and I adore Bruce's work. But that said, if I were buying a non-modular amp right now, I'd go for the Tourmaster. The Mesas all sound very "Mesa" to me, but the Egnater sounded more flexible to me. Again, I'm only judging trade show demos, so maybe if you lived with it its different.

Orren

 

[Lucky Dog Guitars]

Anyone remember what the reverb sounded like? I noticed it was tube driven reverb, Ive never had a tube driven reverb in an amp

 

[primerib]

If the set up of production is done right, then it doesn't matter where anything is made! Basically the workers are acting like robots. Made in the USA just means it costs more for the most part. Sure there may be a quality difference, but not always. Some things made in the US or anywhere else are made like crap as well!
JMHO. (please don't take this post the wrong way - it's not intented to be offensive)

I personally cannot wait to try out this amp!

That is cool, I respect your opinion. At least you weren't curt like the socially challenged "vinney57" that posted earlier. You actually had substance.

I think the Tourmaster sounds great. Good features too. But U.S. made products afford me an excellent income, and therefore I am extremely loyal to U.S. made goods. Its my choice and I'm not saying it is for everyone. Now enough of hijacking the post.

Again, the tourmaster is a nice sounding amp. But there are other Egnater amps for me (mod). I think the Mesa is better. My main amp is a Road King II.

 

[Lucky Dog Guitars]

I had actually thought about getting the Mesa Boogie Roadster.

I think the Egnater really pulled me in because of the power-grid design. I thought that was a really neat idea..

I think my amp is supposed to be here in about a week to week & half.. so I plan to give a full review & post some clips at that time

 

[LaXu]

The main problem I found with the Lonestar Classic was that it too little treble and too much bass. While even then it sounded good I felt it could be difficult to dial in. It doesn't help that Mesa designs pretty idiotic control panels. Come on, who puts reverb controls in the back? There's space on the front but nooo..let's have a huge Lonestar logo instead!

The Lone Star Special on the other hand didn't seem to suffer from the tonal problems, it sounds really great but obviously the channel format will pose some limitations. While it takes pedals well, I think it would be cool if you could switch the Drive mode on and off with a footswitch. This way you could have clean, distorted rhythm and singing lead easily.

The Egnater interests me a LOT. Excellent bag of features, though I'm not sold on the Contour knobs. Those always remind me of those terrible InstaShitTone switches on Marshalls that scoop the mids and leave you with a buzzsaw that won't cut through in a mix.

I don't see the country of origin as a problem. While I'd wager the Mesa uses a bit higher quality components here and there, the Egnater shouldn't be bottom rung stuff either. The Chinese are totally capable of building good stuff as long as the production is done right. They get a lot of **** for all the cheap stuff that is made over there in huge numbers but you only need to look at for example Yamaha's guitar factories to see what kind of quality can come out of Taiwan, China and Indonesia.

 

[macmax77]

All i have to say is that you should do a search and check the clips provided by our forumite from spain.

One of the best clips and best sounds here at TGP

He has a Lonestar.

 

[Lucky Dog Guitars]

Well when I ordered my tourmaster from Musicians Friend about 2 weeks ago it said they would be available in 2 weeks.

Now they have changed it to show availability on 3-17-08.. AAArrrggghh

 

[mesanatic]

Two Guitar Centers near me had the amps in on Monday and I played with one for about 1/2 hr.. The amp is extremely versatile for certain. With wattage settings from 10-100 for each channel.
Combo came in today at my local GC but I didn't have time to compare.

The Mesa Lonestar clean is one of the best of any amp so it's no contest there. Deep, full, big, clean. Easy to not sound to Bassy by keeping the Bass down. Seriously.

The Tourmaster has some super saturated gain available(ch. 4 with contour engaged) that the Lonestar is not even made for. A Roadster or Road King is a closer Mesa comparison for a do it all gigging amp.

Between the two;
For clean to mid gain tone the Lonestar shines.
For decent clean to great high gain tone and all in one versatility the Tourmaster is the pick.

 

[Jazzgear]

I played both the head & combo at my local GC -- and currently own the latest Lonestar Classic.....

And for pure clean to Texas Blues tones, the Mesa wins hands down....and it is USA built vs China for the Egnater.

However, the Egnater is a better value when comparing features...and more tones on tap.

Here's a thread on the Egnater: https://www.thegearpage.net/board/index.php?posts/3697103&posted=1#post3697103

 

[Lucidology]

I have both .. both are great amps ..
The Egnator has a truly good clean tone with British OD/Distortion ..

The Lonestar Classic has HUGE clean tones with American, even Dumble-ish OD ...
Lately, I'm infatuated with the Lonestar 2x12 Classic..

But beware, tweaking the Lonestar OD has it own eccentricities ...
very different then the common approach ..
This is one of the reason a lot of folk find it hard to dial in the extremely smooth,
yet cutting OD tones it is truly and outstandingly capable of ..

 

[egkor]

I have both .. both are great amps ..
The Egnator has a truly good clean tone with British OD/Distortion ..

The Lonestar Classic has HUGE clean tones with American, even Dumble-ish OD ...
Lately, I'm infatuated with the Lonestar 2x12 Classic..

But beware, tweaking the Lonestar OD has it own eccentricities ...
very different then the common approach ..
This is one of the reason a lot of folk find it hard to dial in the extremely smooth,
yet cutting OD tones it is truly and outstandingly capable of ..

Can you help with how to tweak the Lonestar OD channel (chan. 2)?

I have a 50/100 (first gen.) Lonestar Classic. I'm having trouble getting good tone with it. Yet, I watch Andy Timmons play through his LSC (via YouTube), and its magic.

Thanks,
-Gary K

 

[Lucidology]

Can you help with how to tweak the Lonestar OD channel (chan. 2)?

I have a 50/100 (first gen.) Lonestar Classic. I'm having trouble getting good tone with it. Yet, I watch Andy Timmons play through his LSC (via YouTube), and its magic.

Thanks,
-Gary K

Yo Gary ...

There truly is an art to tweaking it (the classic...)
Start with the treble and presence turned up quite a bit (almost all the way up in fact)
and then take it down gradually from there (counter-clockwise) ...
Obviously the opposite tweaking approach from usual...

Start with turning down the presence knob and then the Treble to find the tone you're looking for...
Bass no more then a quarter of the way up at first ...(even less)

Keep in mind that the OD channel's Treble is actually a gain stage ...
And SO is the loop knob when set higher then noon ...
start with the loop knob at about 1 o'clock,
and turn it up from there if you want even more gain (turning your effect levels down ,,,)

Let me know how this works for you ...
The problem with the Lonestar manual is that they really don't make this clear from the get go ...

Andy Timmon's says it's the only amp that you can turn the treble knob in the OD channel way up.
And that he loves that you can do that on a Lonestar Classic ...

Usually the Treble knob stays a little over a fourth of the way up or even less in many cases ...

(Oh, and if I was to add anything else to the equation... I would say "use a good compressor"...
It will make all the difference ...)

 

[fjs1962]

Can you help with how to tweak the Lonestar OD channel (chan. 2)?

I have a 50/100 (first gen.) Lonestar Classic. I'm having trouble getting good tone with it. Yet, I watch Andy Timmons play through his LSC (via YouTube), and its magic.

Thanks,
-Gary K

What speaker do you have in your Lonestar? If it's the Celestion 90 most of them come with that may be part of the problem. Andy plays his LS head through Mesa cabs with Vintage 30s. I ordered my Lonestar 212 with Vintage 30s and it's a brighter, clearer amp that way. I had one with the Celestion 90s at the house for a while before buying mine and to get the highs and clarity I wanted I had to run the treble and presence up almost all the way. With the Vintage 30s I can use more of the range of the controls. Just a thought...