Metal is not a term ordinarily associated with Fender amplifiers. On the contrary, the firm is best known for manufacturing some of the best blues/rock tube amps ever made with its assorted Twins, Deluxes, Reverbs, and the like. But metal—no sane metal head in his right mind would go near a Fender amp, not when there’s a host of modern high gain brutalities like Mesa, Peavey, Randall, and Marshall among others floating around in the marketplace.

Not until now, that is.

The Fender Meatalhead MH-500 head (with accompanying straight and slant 4x12 cabs equipped with 100-watt Celestions) is an awe inspiring solid-state monstrosity that delivers over 500 watts of mind-blowing power into two 4x12 cabs (or 400 watts into one 4x12). You want headroom? You got headroom.

Did I say “solid state” in the same sentence as Fender, home of the tube amp? Yes. Fender engineers went solid state in both the pre amp and power amp because they felt it produced better bottom end attack. (I’m sure cost and weight had something to do with it, too.) The whole shebang is really established on Fender’s bass amp designs and the idea was to provide an extraordinary amount of headroom as demanded by modern metal players.

What Fender promised, it delivers. There is a massive amount of headroom in this amplifier, and I did not come close to maxing it out. Now, this amp isn’t for everyone, but it provides a boat load of power and versatility at a reasonable price ($900 online for the amp, $700 for the cab). So let’s take a closer look.

The 50-lb. rugged-looking head is black with chrome knobs. It is equipped with three channels: Clean, Tight Drive and Loose Drive. Each channel has its own volume and Bass/Mid/Treble controls. In addition, the two Drive channels have individual Presence (ultra-highs) and Drive (distortion) controls. There is also boost knob that controls the amount of added boost that the footswitch can provide. Switches control the channel being selected. An FX control permits you to select one of sixteen on-board effects and the FX Level controls the amount of effect being used.

The rear panel has speaker out plugs, a power input, and XLR line out for recording, a footswitch input, and effects loop jack. The manual is not particularly useful and does little more than provide warnings and short explanations of the controls in a half dozen different languages. A Mesa manual this is not.

The effects, although advertised as sixteen, aren’t really sixteen. What you really get are different combinations of reverb, delay, chorus, flange, vibratone (rotating speaker), noise gate and phaser in various intensities. Frankly, I don’t think the amp really needs these—this isn’t a modeling amp--but they’re here so you might as well use them.

What’s really important is the tone that the Metalhead delivers, and there’s a lot to like here. The Clean channel can give brilliant clean tones perfect for crystal clear leads with unbelieveable headroom. The Tight Drive is designed to duplicate the sound of Marshall EL34’s and you get them in spades and better than most solid state competitors can provide.

But the amp’s real value is in the Loose Drive channel, which is utter metal mayhem. Grind, chunk, whine, moans, screams, the curses of the damned—it’s all here. Jeez, it sounds like the battle of Kursk here sometimes, and anyone who knows anything about World War II tank warfare knows what I’m talking about. On top of that, you can add more boost by clicking the footswitch (available on all three channels). We could have ended the Cold War twenty years earlier if we had stood somebody with a Les Paul and this amp in front of the Berlin Wall for twenty minutes

However….

However, this isn’t a tube amp. It’s not the same as a cranked Rectifier or modern high-gain Marshall. For me, what I heard is that it doesn’t deliver the sonic complexity of a Mesa Stiletto, Road King, or Lone Star, which are truly sophisticated sound machines that I absolutely love (see my reviews). I’ve also heard metal players complain that it just doesn’t have any guts, which I think is an overstatement and metal heads are a notoriously picky lot anyway.

So you have to sit back and think seriously about whether the Metalhead suits your needs. The thing is so damn loud it’s unlikely you’re ever going to need all that power, so the real question is: what am I going to use it for? So here are my thoughts: The Metalhead is a great, highly versatile and high quality amp with a nice effects package that is LOUD at a relatively budget price. For around $1600 (with one cab) you get a powerful package that provides a wide range of clean, distorted and insane gain tones that will blow the doors off any club you’re booked at. Any amateur or weekend player will have a riot with it, or maybe even cause a riot with it. For amp snobs, though, the Metalhead won’t provide the complex overtones that they demand and that, frankly, no one else notices. And in general, guitarists who don’t play metal, don’t need the volume, or who are tube heads should look elsewhere.

But if you’re a metal player and you’re in the market, give this amp a serious try. Compare its sounds and price to a Mesa Rectifier, a Peavey 5150, a Randall Warhead, and points between. There is a lot of value here and, even if the amp isn’t perfect, it’s a great buy.

Product specifications (i.e. propaganda direct from Fender):


Series Metalhead™
Type Solid State
Output 550 Watts into 2 Ohms (a pair of MH-412 enclosures), 400 Watts into 4 Ohms (a single MH-412 enclosure)
Ohms N/A
Speakers N/A
Channels
3-Channels
-CLEAN (Studio-pure, with tons of headroom)
-TIGHT DRIVE (covers the palette of vicious Rock guitar tones)
-LOOSE DRIVE (combines copious distortion with high-headroom, uncontrolled power-amp rumble for modern drop-tuned Metal, Punk, and…beyond)

Features
-All solid-state circuitry, reliable and maintenance-free; power amp is descended from one of our Professional Bass amplifier platforms-Forced-Air fan cooling
-BOOST knob allows footswitchable volume boost on any channel, effectively providing SIX channel performance
-16 useful effects, including new GATE feature, which can be used for noise reduction or stop-start" muting techniques-Professional speaker-emulated XLR Line Out with Level control & Ground Lift
-Four-button footswitch is included-Included display box contains 25 sets of foam earplugs

Covering
Black Textured Vinyl with Heavy-Duty Flight Case Hardware and Chromed Knobs and Switches
Weight 50 lbs. (22.7 kg)
Dimensions
Height: 8.5" (22 cm), Width: 29.25" (74.29 cm), Depth: 11" (27.9 cm)
Power Handling N/A
Tube Complement N/A
Cover
Accessories
4-Button Footswitch: Channel Select / Drive Select / Effects On/Off / Boost On/Off P/N 0064732000 (Included)
Footswitch
Uses 4-Button Footswitch: Channel Select / Drive Select / Effects On/Off / Boost On/Off

Here are my other amplifier reviews:

Marshall Super 100 JH
Peavey Classic 30 Combo
Crate Power Block
Roland Micro Cube
Mesa 5:25 Express
Mesa Stiletto Ace
Fender Cyber Twin
Line 6 Vetta II Combo
Mesa 5:50 Express
Line 6 Spider III 75
Mesa Lone Star Combo
Vox Valvetronix AD60VT
Mesa Stiletto Deuce
Mesa Triple Rectifier Head
Fender DSP 65
Peavey Triple XXX Head
Fender Super Sonic 1x12 Combo
Hughes and Kettner Switchblade 50 Combo
Fender MH 500 Metalhead
64 Fender Vibroverb Custom Blackface
Mesa Dual Rectifier Roadster
Peavey Penta Head
Peavey JSX Joe Satriani Signature Head
Line 6 Spider II Head
Crate Acoustic CA30
Line 6 Flextone III Plus

And you may also be interested in a few books such as:

Hugo Pinksterboer – Tipbook Amplifiers and Effects
Ritchie Fliegler – Amps: The Other Half of Rock and Roll
Michael Ross – Getting Great Guitar Sounds: A Non-Technical Approach to Shaping Your Personal Sound


Recommended: Yes