rpurdue wrote:
Hey guys. I scored a Mesa ED combo. The amp is crazy dark and muffled until treble and presence are past 2:00. I've seen many youtube clips with everything on 5 that sound great. Mine sounds like the tone on my guitar is rolled all the way back. I've replaced tubes and no change. One thing i have noticed is that with the reverb bypassed the amp is MUCH darker. Once the verb is switched on and turned up the amp becomes a lot brighter. Is that just the nature of this amp? I don't want to waste $$$ getting it looked at if this is just the character of the amp itself.
Yep, that's the ED. I find an open back C90 speaker like the combo to be very bass heavy and muddy. My humbucker guitars, SG and LP are virtually unusable on the neck pickup. A closed back cab does help tighten things up. I generally don't have the bass higher than 9:00 with those guitars unless playing at gig level. With the bass low winding up the mid a bit can really help to balance things. With my single coil Strats it's different and I like the bass around 11:00 to 12:00 and also bring the presence back a touch.
There is a note in the manual about the reverb sounding harsh at higher settings. I have found that it does Brighten up things at lower volume levels and use it like that. Running the higher will also reduce the darkness as it adds harmonics. The manual also mentions an eq boost in the mid bass which is probably where most of the dark character comes from.
As mentioned the Tungsol 12ax7 can help. I use them early in the preamp for both the clean and overdrive sections. The 45 watt mode is also less dark at moderate volume, but can get muddy when louder. My ED seems darkest at medium volume, it brightens up at low volume and gains more punch when very loud.