Volume weirdness in Mark V 25

If you notice the pics of my Mark V 25, I have the channel 2 master up much higher than channel 1. I am struggling to keep the two channels at comparable volume, and it seems like they don't sit well relative to each other.

I thought it might be the EQ affecting ch2 volume, but I don't find that to be the case.

With both masters up all the way, I find the volume to be reasonably comparable. Backing off ch1 master drops the volume slowly, and most of the volume drops off below about 10:00. For ch2, the volume seems to drop off earlier, with the volume pretty low below 12:00.

Anyone else notice this? I am swapping tubes to see if that affects it. So far V1 and V4 give no change.

Ran mine at rehearsal tonight and found a similar difference is master volume settings - channel 1 clean at about 8 or 9 oclock, channel 2 IIC+ at about 12 oclock for comparable volume.

I find that I can keep the levels balanced if I use a little less gain in channel 2 on 10 watts and more gain in channel 1 on 25 watts. Cleans may get a little edgy, but headroom is overrated

dbagchee said:

Ran mine at rehearsal tonight and found a similar difference is master volume settings - channel 1 clean at about 8 or 9 oclock, channel 2 IIC+ at about 12 oclock for comparable volume.

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I find it odd, especially since all the example tone settings show ch2 master at or below ch1.

I am running ch1 in Fat Clean with gain at about 12:30-1:00, so that may be part of it, but still, with ch2 gain all the way up, it is way behind ch1.

Yeah, turning the gain up on the clean channel definitely gets loud fast, I did actually bring the gain down on the channel to both bring the overall level down and to keep it as clean as possible. The gain on channel 2 doesn't affect volume much.

That's how my Mark IV was too. The clean channel had way more perceived volume than the lead channel. I read a good explanation for this but I don't remember the details.

The Master Level is relative to the amount of Gain, and also the amount of pre-gain EQ that is dialed up. They are not necessarily going to be at equal settings to achieve the same volume level. Thanks!

Authorized Boogie said:

The Master Level is relative to the amount of Gain, and also the amount of pre-gain EQ that is dialed up. They are not necessarily going to be at equal settings to achieve the same volume level. Thanks!

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Thank you.

I see why this seems weird, as on the Mini Rec even in Vintage mode my volume at 11:00 is WAY louder than the clean channel is on 1:00. Put it in Modern and the volume at 9:00/ gain at 11:00 is louder than Pushed mode volume on 1:00/ gain at noon. The front end gain pushes the back end to much higher volumes at similar settings. Similar results are the norm for two channel amps that I have played.

Perhaps different pot values or tapers in the V25 are making this be not the case, but it does seem unusual.

A wise man once told me that knobs shouldn't have an indicator on them, so that we could just adjust with our ears and not our eyes

Authorized Boogie said:

The Master Level is relative to the amount of Gain, and also the amount of pre-gain EQ that is dialed up. They are not necessarily going to be at equal settings to achieve the same volume level. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Maybe, but not enough that it would cause this. Also, I ran everything at noon with GEQ off.

Anyhoo, if this is normal, I will just get used to it. Not a problem so much as I wanted to make sure the amp is OK.

gitaryzt1985 said:

A wise man once told me that knobs shouldn't have an indicator on them, so that we could just adjust with our ears and not our eyes

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Sure, for setting. But looking at the indicator can help recognize when there is a problem before smoke or silence (or both) occur.

elvis said:

Authorized Boogie said:

The Master Level is relative to the amount of Gain, and also the amount of pre-gain EQ that is dialed up. They are not necessarily going to be at equal settings to achieve the same volume level. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Maybe, but not enough that it would cause this. Also, I ran everything at noon with GEQ off.

Anyhoo, if this is normal, I will just get used to it. Not a problem so much as I wanted to make sure the amp is OK.

Click to expand...

The rotary controls are pre-gain, the GEQ is post gain...Thanks!

Authorized Boogie said:

elvis said:

Authorized Boogie said:

The Master Level is relative to the amount of Gain, and also the amount of pre-gain EQ that is dialed up. They are not necessarily going to be at equal settings to achieve the same volume level. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Maybe, but not enough that it would cause this. Also, I ran everything at noon with GEQ off.

Anyhoo, if this is normal, I will just get used to it. Not a problem so much as I wanted to make sure the amp is OK.

Click to expand...

The rotary controls are pre-gain, the GEQ is post gain...Thanks!

Click to expand...

That is my understanding.

I found that to get a good level between the channels, running channel 1 on the 10 watt selector with the crunch mode and eq, made a smoother transition to channel 2 modes.

elvis said:

Authorized Boogie said:

The Master Level is relative to the amount of Gain, and also the amount of pre-gain EQ that is dialed up. They are not necessarily going to be at equal settings to achieve the same volume level. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Maybe, but not enough that it would cause this. Also, I ran everything at noon with GEQ off.

Anyhoo, if this is normal, I will just get used to it. Not a problem so much as I wanted to make sure the amp is OK.

Click to expand...

This has never, ever, ever, been a "normal" setting for any Mesa amp.

Ever.

See the manual. There are no suggested settings with all knobs at noon. I haven't even seen the manual and know this.

Ears, not eyes. You'll soon get the hang.

Smoke, eerie silences, and blowing fuses almost never depend on "too high" knob settings. The only things guaranteed to blow at excessive settings are speakers.

MrMarkIII said:

elvis said:

Authorized Boogie said:

The Master Level is relative to the amount of Gain, and also the amount of pre-gain EQ that is dialed up. They are not necessarily going to be at equal settings to achieve the same volume level. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Maybe, but not enough that it would cause this. Also, I ran everything at noon with GEQ off.

Anyhoo, if this is normal, I will just get used to it. Not a problem so much as I wanted to make sure the amp is OK.

Click to expand...

This has never, ever, ever, been a "normal" setting for any Mesa amp.

Ever.

See the manual. There are no suggested settings with all knobs at noon. I haven't even seen the manual and know this.

Ears, not eyes. You'll soon get the hang.

Smoke, eerie silences, and blowing fuses almost never depend on "too high" knob settings. The only things guaranteed to blow at excessive settings are speakers.

Click to expand...

You misunderstand. I did not suggest that 12:00 tone controls was a normal setting. I simply tried that setting to prove that the volume drop was not due to the tone stack settings.

"Normal" describes the condition where the ch2 volume knob is set much higher than the ch1 knob.

While I agree that we should use our ears, this is actually a problem in that I have to run the ch1 volume so low compared to ch2 volume that ch1 can cut in and out, as potentiometers have lousy tracking at their extremes.

I also did not suggest that the tone settings would damage the amp. Just the opposite, that extreme settings could be the result of an amp or tube problem.

If you have experience with this particular amp, I would love to know what your relative master settings were. The manual shows that ch2 master is usually less than ch1, which is very different from my experience, even with the exact same settings.

MrMarkIII said:

elvis said:

Authorized Boogie said:

The Master Level is relative to the amount of Gain, and also the amount of pre-gain EQ that is dialed up. They are not necessarily going to be at equal settings to achieve the same volume level. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Maybe, but not enough that it would cause this. Also, I ran everything at noon with GEQ off.

Anyhoo, if this is normal, I will just get used to it. Not a problem so much as I wanted to make sure the amp is OK.

Click to expand...

This has never, ever, ever, been a "normal" setting for any Mesa amp.

Ever.

Click to expand...

Partially agreed . . . my stiletto accept that setting REALLY well. 8)

Now that you mention it, they work on the Electradyne as well.

But not to lose sight of this, I am finding it pretty frustrating that I have to run the ch1 master at almost zero. This doesn't seem like a viable approach. Using ears or not, zero master is weird.

Last night I removed all outboard gear from the setup so it was just guitar into the amp. I reduced the gain for ch1. And it had essentially no effect. Nor did changing the stack EQ or GEQ.

Authorized Boogie, can you let on if there is a difference between the master tapers between channels 1 and 2?

I was just going to ask if you had run just the amp by itself - I'm glad you ruled that out, but it definitely doesn't seem normal. I looked at your settings on your gig shot and I agree that does seem like too big a difference to be normal. Is it that channel 1 is so crazily loud, or that channel 2 is not loud enough - maybe compare to the mini rec?

I'm going to watch Ola's playthru video again to see what those settings look like.