Oh boy.... The controversy of this amp is crazy. I have played almost all of the mark series and rectifier amps before and the Mark V is one of the best that there is in my opinion. I got it about 2 weeks ago and by doing the research and actually reading the manual, dialing in a tone wasn't too hard so when I found my current sweet spot it was heaven! Also, As much as this amp was marketed to be all of the marks you love in one box, it is in fact its own thing with a very unique but classic sound. I will talk about the channels one by one just to give you a feel of what I was looking for out of them.
Channel 1- I wanted a very dry, plinky sounding clean channel. I use a boss chorus with it and it is very Metallica-esque. Graphic EQ helped a lot with this as well and I prefer the fat setting with normal toggle engaged as well as scooping the treble and mids. The tweed channel is very fun to mess with as well.
Channel 2- This is an interesting one for me. I find myself going to this channel when I am in the mood to play any kind of classic rock. The Crunch channel is a classic rock maching and the mark 1 makes me wanna buy a PRS and play santana all day. Holy Shnikies is this channel fat. The sound is so thick it's like swimming through syrup.
Channel 3 MkIIC+- Yes I am breaking up all gain settings on channel 3 into individual reviews, because they are all so significantly different. So, now for the MKIIC channel, it was based off of the insanely responsive IIC that Randall Smith built as a tester in the 80's and that is why it is so different than the IIC+ everyone thinks of. It is a lot tighter with a little less gain in my own opinion. Thats why you put it in triode with variac power to get that squish back in the sound. once you do that it's glorious. 80's Metal and singing lead tones are plentiful and make you wanna bend over cause it sounds so insane. It also cleans up better than the MKIV channel.
MKIV- This is my Metallica channel. The chug sounds are ridiculous and it sounds a lot bigger than the MKIIC channel for sure. A little more bass is on tap and its got that great spongy feel that a lot of people look for. At high volumes and 90 watt mode, it absolutely slays and stay great for everything heavy. I use this for my lamb of god playing as well with a simple change of the GEQ.
EXTREEEEMMEE- this channel is by my standards, ridiculous and over the top. Which Makes it great for some death metal. Really love the sound of some Gojira riffs through this channel. Nice and over saturated. Still a very tight channel as well.
So overall I dig it. Doesn't have the raw classic mesa sound but it gets close and sounds amazing in the mix without much tweaking which in my opinion makes it worth every penny.
Channel 1- I wanted a very dry, plinky sounding clean channel. I use a boss chorus with it and it is very Metallica-esque. Graphic EQ helped a lot with this as well and I prefer the fat setting with normal toggle engaged as well as scooping the treble and mids. The tweed channel is very fun to mess with as well.
Channel 2- This is an interesting one for me. I find myself going to this channel when I am in the mood to play any kind of classic rock. The Crunch channel is a classic rock maching and the mark 1 makes me wanna buy a PRS and play santana all day. Holy Shnikies is this channel fat. The sound is so thick it's like swimming through syrup.
Channel 3 MkIIC+- Yes I am breaking up all gain settings on channel 3 into individual reviews, because they are all so significantly different. So, now for the MKIIC channel, it was based off of the insanely responsive IIC that Randall Smith built as a tester in the 80's and that is why it is so different than the IIC+ everyone thinks of. It is a lot tighter with a little less gain in my own opinion. Thats why you put it in triode with variac power to get that squish back in the sound. once you do that it's glorious. 80's Metal and singing lead tones are plentiful and make you wanna bend over cause it sounds so insane. It also cleans up better than the MKIV channel.
MKIV- This is my Metallica channel. The chug sounds are ridiculous and it sounds a lot bigger than the MKIIC channel for sure. A little more bass is on tap and its got that great spongy feel that a lot of people look for. At high volumes and 90 watt mode, it absolutely slays and stay great for everything heavy. I use this for my lamb of god playing as well with a simple change of the GEQ.
EXTREEEEMMEE- this channel is by my standards, ridiculous and over the top. Which Makes it great for some death metal. Really love the sound of some Gojira riffs through this channel. Nice and over saturated. Still a very tight channel as well.
So overall I dig it. Doesn't have the raw classic mesa sound but it gets close and sounds amazing in the mix without much tweaking which in my opinion makes it worth every penny.
