MusicRadar

The compact-yet-potent Mini Rectifier is ideal for real-world playing situations.

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• Review

All together now – aww, isn't it adorable! Well yes it is; measuring just over a foot across Mesa's all-new Mini Rectifier looks at first like it might be one of those scale models you see in big boy's toyshops.

Far from some mantelpiece memento, however, it is in fact a living, breathing, all-valve head. The baby of the bunch it may be (it has 50-, 100- and 150-watt brothers), but the Mini Rectifier has a pair of EL84-driven lungs that will happily shout down the house, small bar or club.

So, should you be someone with a penchant for the brand itself, or indeed for the heavier end of guitar music in general, you will doubtless now be asking this question: is this a gimmicky toy, or could it finally solve my big amp/small amp woes?

The Mini Rec is housed in a black powder-coated metal lunchbox-style case, lightly textured for an industrial feel. The top handle recesses should you want it to, or pokes up and out through the included padded gigbag for easy transport.

And boy is it easy - this amp would happily fit in some players' leads/pedals bag! Airline hand luggage? Size and weight wise at least (5.5kg), there's no problem at all.

The Rectifier's now-legendary truck-ramp metal plate texture adorns most of the front panel, through which you can see a menacing red glow when powered up: rock.

Despite the tiny size, the Mini Rec features two independent channels, each with two modes, offering everything from Fender-derived cleans, through more British crunches, heavily saturated classic rock distortion and modern metal crunching high-gain. Channels one and two are footswitchable, but the modes need to be set via mini switches on the front panel.

In addition, each channel has a choice of either 10- or 25-watt operation. The lower power mode, according to Mesa, runs the Mini Rectifier's pair of EL84 output valves in class A/B triode mode, while 25 watts uses Mesa's patented Dyna-Watt circuit, class A/B pentode, for maximum power and more pronounced attack with notes. Completed with two rows of identical, self-explanatory control knobs, there's nothing here to confuse you.