Road King II vs Dual Rectifier Reborn (audio)

Hey folks,

I spent a ton of time over the holiday weekend A/Bing my RK and DR using some settings from both manuals and making a lot of careful recordings to rigorously compare my Road King to my Dual Rectifier. I decided to use the Dual Rectifier as "Normal" for modern and vintage modes and worked through a ton of permutations. There are reasons for this that I'll get into in a bit.

For the record, the settings I tested the amps with were:

- The End of... (from the multi watt Dual Rectifier manual http://www.mesaboogie.com/manuals/3chRecto_multiWatt.pdf)
- Recto Modern (from the Road King II manual http://www.mesaboogie.com/manuals/RoadKing2_v2.pdf)
- Serious Grind (also from the multi watt Dual Rectifier)

The bottom line: Modern modes on the red channel are virtually identical, as are Vintage modes on the orange channels. I A/B'd the clips for myself and a bunch of friends and most people would fail to guess which was the Road King. They also frequently could not tell when I changed clips on them.

Very trained ears could tell slight variations from the DR to the RK, but it's hard to tell if those were due to minor differences in recording volume, slight variances in control knob positions, etc. The general consensus was that they could be tweaked to be virtually indistinguishable.

Also interesting to note: I was running the Dual Rectifier at 100 Watts, and running both the red and orange channels on the Road King II using 4 6L6s and 2 EL34s. There was no huge discernible difference to the listeners whether using all 6L6s on the Dual Rectifier or mixed 6L6s and EL34s on the Road King (I will do more direct comparisons of these later as well).

So, as far as I can tell, the Road King II is a fully fledged Dual Rectifier that can totally hold it's own against the newer 2010 Multiwatt Dual Rectifier. There may be very slight differences (the RK sounds a little smoother to me...but not enough that you'd be know that I switched amps from one song to another).

Hear are a few clips if anyone is interested.

Here are a couple of clips. These were recorded using two mics at a time, an SM57 and an e609, and the settings are based on The End Of... from the Dual Rectifier manual. They are individual listed below or you can listen to them all in this playlist.

Vintage mode:
Dual Rectifier Reborn, orange channel
Road King II, orange channel

Modern mode:
Dual Rectifier Reborn, red channel
Road King II, red channel

Like I mentioned, I'm also interested in recording and posting A/B tests of different power tube configurations on the Road King along with some lead tone comparisons.

-Daniel

Thanks! Interesting comparison.

I find Reborn to be somewhat beefier/punchier and present while Roadking II samples seem a bit more hollow. To me this difference is more apparent on the vintage orange comparison. The grunt of the Reborn is simply meaner there. Modern modes are more similar although I find the same difference between the two.

In the end, the differences might be minor enough that they'd be lost in a band play.

I actually had to replay the same part on each clip to make certain that I wasn't hearing *grunty riff on one track* and then switching only to hear "less grunty part on the other track*.

I really lost track of which amp was which while I was A/Bing them. No one else I was testing it with could tell either - I have about a hundred clips recorded in Logic Pro X and was punching them in and out at random by pressing option and hitting the solo button for the track while they were listening with their eyes closed.

I've added another playlist where I roll through the progressive linkage settings on the road king's red channel in modern mode here if anyone is interested.

I would imagine if every sample you posted was a blind comparison, 99% couldn't tell the difference. I own a DR multi and couldn't tell. Some guys think they can but that's only because they own one or the other and have to justify that.

They sound great! What cab were you using? V30's?

dlpasco said:

I've added another playlist where I roll through the progressive linkage settings on the road king's red channel in modern mode here if anyone is interested.

Click to expand...

The 50W settings are close, but the 4 and 6 tube comparisons seem fuller. I really like all six going.

firmani99 said:

They sound great! What cab were you using? V30's?

Click to expand...

I recorded this with a Rectifier 4x12 loaded with V30s.

I need to revisit this thread because I have new learnings since my original post!

dlpasco said:

I've added another playlist where I roll through the progressive linkage settings on the road king's red channel in modern mode here if anyone is interested.

Click to expand...

A year late to the party. Thanks for the audio though. Very nice indeed.