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A bit late here, but I got the + mod done on my purple stripe, and I'm very happy with the result. It does remove a bit of the rawness and aggression associated with the III in favor of a more harmonically rich and balanced tone. It still has plenty of gain and will do classic thrash metal no...

I guess it would be a good idea to point out here that a III+ still sounds like a III, just nicer. It will probably still sound different than a JP2C. The clips I've heard of that do sound closer to my Studio Pre.

It probably won't sound completely the same, but might sound just fine. Plenty of people do that. I have a Studio Pre too and it's very cool. One of my favorite pieces actually; I've had it for 11 years now. You should be able to snag one for $350-$400. It's in a similar tonal universe as the...

I think the III+ mod is a Mike B. secret. I suppose you could reverse engineer it if you really wanted to. Last year I shipped my III to Petaluma to fix some mistakes I made trying to do some work on it and to get the III+ mod while it was there, and I think the total cost including shipping...

Ever tried sticking an overdrive pedal in front of R2? Kickass British hard rock tone.

Sounds like a hefty amount of salesmanship to me. The seller may indeed have a unit on which Mesa did a mod that they no longer do. What he or she definitely doesn't have is a unit with the same modification that James Hetfield had done to his IIC+, because a Studio Preamp is not the same thing...

Something of that era will be approaching the age where it would benefit from a recap job, if it's not there already, so there is some potential maintenance to consider. It's the case with anything that's getting around 30 years old. I never worried about that with my 395 though, and it was a...

Yes, the volume on your Splawn is probably at the beginning of the circuit, which means you're coming in after it when you patch into the effects loop. The power amp is basically running full tilt all the time, so controlling overall level with the SP is the right thing to do, and no, you can't...

It's been a while since I played with the main outs, but from memory I think you're right, most of the range is in the first half of the knob.

Sounds like simul-class is what you're after, so that narrows the options considerably. I used to have a Simul 395, which sounded like the voice of God when paired with my Studio Preamp, but eventually I decided a Mark III head would be more convenient for me, so I went that route instead. The...

I forgot this was meant to be a bass rig. OK, what I would probably do is use the main outputs, leave both of them on like 5 or so (if I recall correctly they are very hot), set power amp to taste, and control overall level with the Studio Pre's master volume. I'm pretty sure at some point I've...

The Studio Pre sounds like what it is: an excellent, no-frills rack preamp that provides great tones at exceptional value. There is no power amp you can pair with it that will turn it into a IIC+. If there were, everybody would know about it. You should be able to get tones out of the SP and any...

I don't think there is an easy way to do that. Back when I had a Simul 395, I always just used one half of it and left the other half on standby all the time. That's the main reason I decided to give up on the rack power amp thing. The stereo functionality is useful if you're using stereo...

I should point out that I have been using the effects send of my SP in place of the main out for years. Some people say it sounds better; I'm not sure I buy that, but for the whole time I've owned my SP (a dozen years or so) I've had intermittent problems with one or the other sides of the main...

I'll take a stab at answering this... 1. Good question. Probably the most convenient thing to do would be to set-and-forget your power amp's levels somewhere louder than what you ever expect to need, then adjust the SP's master volume from there. 2. The volume controls on the Mark III and the...

The Studio Preamp's recording out jacks (or whatever they call them) are useless in my opinion. Sounds absolutely nothing like a cab with a mic on it (nothing I've found so far does). Having said that, though, the Studio Preamp is one of the best pieces of guitar gear I've ever used. Used...

I think I heard that the US company that used to manufacture them has ceased doing so, which is probably one reason why. Another reason to get that job done sooner rather than later. I had bleed happening in my purple stripe and had that job done as well as a cap job (well...technically, I tried...

It should switch more or less instantaneously. What you're describing is probably a symptom of worn-out LDRs (light-dependent resistors), which control the switching in these amps. This is typical after 30 years of operation. Another symptom is bleeding of the lead channel into the clean...

Yeah, sounds very warm, smooth, fat, all that jazz.

Presence on 10? Whoa. That's unusual. Mark IIIs are notoriously bright.