roadster channel 4 mode fault?

Hey y'all ,
I recently brought a used roadster head and only noticed tonight that when toggling between modes on channel 4 - using modern as the start point and reference tone - there is an enormous loss of volume , treble and prescence when switching down to vintage or raw modes .
Its like someone put a blanket over the speakers .
Channel 3 does not do this when toggling through the modes , only a slight drop in volume and gain....
Ive swapped out the preamp tubes one by one and the fault doesnt lie there , and the power tubes are a new set of winged C 34's .
Anybody any idea of the cause ?
Thanks in advance .

This is a common problem among roadsters. We call the fault "design". :roll:

Unfortunately Mesa thought it would be awesome to have an unusually dark tone in vintage red and therefore made that mode accordingly. Some people like it. I, for one, find it irritating and definately would've preferred a clone of the orange channel modes.

Wow! I'd swear it was a fault somewhere in the channel - the difference between modes is that big . To me , that is unbelievably poor design given that the modes work so well on the other 3 channels .
Thanks for your reply !

I'll have to give it a try on mine. It has been a while since I've played my Roadster. That being said, maybe it might not be such a fault at all, given the fact that the modes weren't designed to be switched between one another without some tweaking...

It's unfortunate that this mode stands out so much because it doesn't sound consistent with the rest of the amp. The other channels are great otherwise.

If you use Raw or Vintage modes in channel 4 you have to have the presence turned up to at least 3:00 to get the same or similar tones that you get out of Channel 3 with all the same settings. In Modern mode the presence should be running fairly low to off for the best tones. I can match channels 3 & 4 pretty close by doing this. It's not really a design flaw as you can't footswitch modes anyway. Pick the mode you want to use on channel 4, adjust the presence for that mode and away you go.

I really think theres a fault with mine - switch to either vintage or raw and the volume drops by at least half and the treble and presence all but disappear . Its literally like switching between a recto and a fender champ ...

the volume drop is pretty normal and the lack of high end is as I already explained. Dial those modes in with your ears and not your eyes.

I appreciate your replies , i really do , but in modern on channel 4 the presence on my amp needs to be at least 1 o'clock or it sounds like its got a blanket over the speakers....

LithiumZero said:

Dial those modes in with your ears and not your eyes.

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+1

Thread resurrection!

I just got a Roadster and have exactly the same issue. So basically the manual is a little flawed because it does lead you to believe that channel 3 and 4 are almost identical except channel 4 has higher presence.

Nazgul666 said:

Thread resurrection!

I just got a Roadster and have exactly the same issue. So basically the manual is a little flawed because it does lead you to believe that channel 3 and 4 are almost identical except channel 4 has higher presence.

Click to expand...

What the manual is saying isn't wrong though. When the amp is working correctly, the taper on the presence pot on channel 4 allows you to get higher overall presence than channel 3...

After reading this thread I put my channel 4 on vintage (which usually remains on modern) and I actually really like the dark vintage mode on 4!

mikeweber74 said:

After reading this thread I put my channel 4 on vintage (which usually remains on modern) and I actually really like the dark vintage mode on 4!

Click to expand...

+1

I get round the "blanket over cab" issue which others find annoying by turning the global master output to 2 (of the clock), and keeping both gain and channel masters low

Opens up the amp no end