Wrote a pretty big review of the Lonestar Classic 2x12 over on TDPRI forums.
Figure I may as well post it in here too in case anybody ever tracks down a good deal on one or gets to sit down and mess with it in a guitar shop.
- Appearance & Build Quality
The Lonestars are beautiful amplifiers inside and out, especially the hard wood / tan versions. These amps look expensive and feel like tanks. They're enormously heavy (mine weighed in at ~85 pounds on our home scale) and that seems to stir up a significant amount of complaints online but I think it's totally worth it for being able to scale down from 100W to 10W, you have to expect weight like that with three beefy transformers mounted inside. For the right tones I'll haul any weight, fortunately the optional wheels make it much easier to travel with. There are also spots inside the cabinet for backup tubes and a velcro satchel for the footswitch.
Typical of MESA amps on the front plate you've got GAIN, TREBLE, MID, BASS, PRESENCE, and MASTER for both channels. Typical of some MESAs you have OUTPUT and SOLO for setting the overall volume / footswitch boost. You've got 3-way power switching for both channels, convenient for having low power's early breakup on Channel 2 and high power's enormous headroom on Channel 1. On Channel 2 you've got two separate gain controls, DRIVE and GAIN, these two controls interact with each other and understanding them is absolutely crucial to locking in a great overdrive tone, I'll talk about that more specifically later. You've also got a CLEAN / DRIVE switch for enabling / disabling high gain and a 3-way THICK - NORMAL - THICKER switch for amp voicing, normal setting being the least colored and truest to your guitar's voice.
On the rear plate you've got individual all-tube spring REVERB dials for both channels paired with a BRIGHT / WARM switch, which I absolutely love, tons of reverb control with this amp and it works beautifully. There's an interesting rectifier selection switch allowing you to choose between SILICON DIODE / TUBE rectifiers, this is also very important for finding great overdrive tones which I'll talk about later. There's a FAN switch, I'm not sure why anybody would ever disable the fan, it's not loud. There's a TUBE BIAS switch if you'd prefer using EL34s rather than 6L6s. And of course you've got EFFECTS LOOP, SLAVE OUT, and two 4 OHM / one 8 OHM speaker jacks.
It's absolutely beautiful. It's shimmery, punchy, spanky, and remarkably well balanced and easy to control. The low end can be as rich and warm as you want it without sacrificing any clarity or shimmer. And the reverb, especially when set to WARM, is so smooth and natural. I've tried it with an American Standard Tele and Strat and a 90's Les Paul Custom and all three sound at home. I can now sleep easy without a 65 Reverb Deluxe, they're not identical in voice, but the differences are not negative, the Lonestar cleans are obviously inspired by the blackface sound, but it has found its own voice along the way, and I enjoy it equally as much.
Besides the weight, the Lonestar only ever seems to receive criticism in one other area, pushing Channel 2 into balanced high distortion without muddying up the low end, to the point where people have been modifying the amp's potentiometer configuration. I knew of these complaints before purchasing it but figured it was just more people having a hard time dialing in MESA amps, we all hear that time and time again, so being quite familiar with MESA tone controls, and playing a Tele with single coils, I went ahead. The evidence for the complaints was apparent from the get-go, if you dial this amp in like a typical amplifier you will end up with muddy distortion at higher volumes. But as it is said over and over again, you don't dial MESAs like you dial other amps, you must use your ears rather than your eyes, and you must read through the manual to truly understand what each dial does. It took a couple of hours of experimenting with different guitars in both low volume and high volume settings to really get the hang of Channel 2 on this amp.
With the Lonestar there a couple of things you MUST pay attention to for locking in a balanced and tight high distortion tone for classic rock / early metal. First, the amp is significantly tighter and punchier when you switch it to SILICON DIODE rectification on the rear panel. Second, you need to start thinking of the DRIVE dial as a TREBLE GAIN dial, and the GAIN dial as a BASS / MID GAIN dial. Third, if you're trying to dial in high distortion, leave the BASS dial at 9 oclock, maybe even a bit lower at gig volume levels, with high distortion most of your bass control comes from the GAIN dial and a lot of your treble control comes from the DRIVE dial. Fourth, after you've balanced your low end with the above settings you can fine tune the voice and shape of your tone with the TREBLE, MID, and PRESENCE controls as well as the THICK / NORMAL / THICKER voice switching. Keep in mind that with THICKER you may want to roll back your BASS knob a hair, keep in mind that switching to lower wattages means more saturation (I've found 50W is best for balanced clear distortion but it's up to your ears), and keep in mind that humbuckers will be more difficult to tame than single coils with this amp, Channel 2 really likes single coil Fenders but we've had a more difficult time with my buddy's Les Paul Custom.
Once you've grown comfortable with the Channel 2 controls this amp puts out many great classic overdrive tones, great for Joe Walsh tunes, great for Hendrix tunes, great for early Black Sabbath tunes.
This amp retails for just under $2000. I love it to death, it's probably my favorite amp of all time at this point, but I can't deny that damn near all MESA amps are overpriced. At this stage in my life I don't think I ever would have bought one retail. I'm extremely lucky to have found one in this condition for $800. If you were to find one for $1200 or less, I couldn't recommend it more.