Mesa Boogie Strategy 400

In general, the desirable characteristics of a guitar amp are different than those of an an amp for music listening at home or in the recording studio. The sought after features of a guitar amp have to do with what distortion it can produce. A clean channel is certainly desirable for certain genres, such as the blues, but while Mesa Boogies have a good clean channel it is their own brand of dirt that separates them from other amps. Generally one looks to Fender for a good clean sound; Marshall for that metal distortion, and Mesas for the rectifier effect -think Santana - who made Mesa well known. People generally want an amplifier with low levels of distortion over a the entire audio bandwidth for listening to music in the home, or for that matter, in the recording studio. And this is just a starting point for why it may not make a lot of sense to use a guitar amp to listen to CDs or LPs. Remember the whole point of tubes in guitar amps is the distortion - and generally a lot of, not just the "warm" sound of a tube amp designed for CD or LP listening.

I thought a power amp was a power amp. I have used several power amps, like AB International and Crown (not the Ref. Macro they were selling us back in the 1990s) in a home setup and thought they could be used for music PA too. They work, but do sound "PAish" - kind of high noise level and not allot of detail like we are used to. I think the biggest difference is the speakers that are used for guitar -vs- recorded music.

Carvin does make a power amp (rack mount type) that they claim can be used for guitar or high end audiophile use.

FWIW, many head units do include a "line in", so i guess that is intended to hook a cd or tape deck to the amp?

I agree with Musicnoise 100%,,,

The Mesa Boogie will work in home stereo applications. Here's a quote from the owner's manual:

The Strategy 400 Stereo is a modern, all-tube power amplifier-hand-built in the musical instrument tradition. Producing 200 watts of mid-band power-- the Strategy excels in playback systems-especially home stereo--and is unequaled for musical instrument performance including guitar, bass, keyboards and electronic drums. In all of these applications the Strategy will deliver state-of-the-art performance and almost certainly sound
much better than whatever is presently being used.

I have use many tube amps costing over $10,000. The Messa is the amp that keeps getting put back in my system. I have re-tubed the Messa with all factory tubes and really like the overall sound. The other amps I compare it to are the Esoteric Audio Research E.A.R. 509 mono blocks that I have. The EAR is similar in that it was a studio grade amp for ultra high-end studios and home systems. The messa is an extremely detailed amp with zero listener fatigue. Bass is tight with plenty of power to spare. Mids are holographic in their staging. Highs extend well beyond the range of most speakers, never loosing their precise detail and sense of air and space. I had the amp gone though by a local tube amp audiophile guru. He really liked it because the design was so robust and bulletproof. Other that hot summer days I run it with the fan unplugged and the top off naturally ventilated. The amp typically run in the 1 to 2 watt range at "normal" listening levels, seldom lighting the power indicator leds on the front. But is you want to play to the neighbors two blocks away... you have the power to reach that level. The mods my Guru did removed the mono bridge jack wiring. He also replaced a failed diode and installed home style speaker connections. This is a tremendous value for a world class, high power tube amp. Let's keep it a secret.
The speakers I use it with: Newform Research R45 (45" long ribbon type tweeters and dual cone 6" base drivers) Martin Logan ReQuest large panel electrotatic with 12" bass drivers. Cary Silveroak speakers. Various demos speakers. For my ear a good preamp is my Modwight. For reference the messa can be run with no preamp using the volume attenuators on the amp.