I am a classic rock and blues guy. I tried EL34's in my Mark Five and *really* I like it - Then again I have no need for Fender cleans. Then I swapped in a Mesa Vintage 30 for the MC-90 and man oh man to me this is a fantastic amp. With my Les Paul I can get Dickey Betts pushed "cleans"...
I called Mesa this morning. Seems this is normal behavior. I mentioned that my experience with Mesa amps is the clean is very clean. His response was "not so much with this amp". Two factors:
* I have humbuckers. He said once the gain is past 1oclock there will be breakup.
* I like the mid...
I don't have access to another Express to compare. The clean channel - In 25watt mode - Is never "clean". And with the mid cranked, once the gain is past 2 -o'clock it's pretty dirty. With the gain all the way up, it's a useful crunchy rhythm tone. Lowering the mids helps but it's still not...
I wanted the cranked clean, power tubes pushed tone with lower volume so I bought a Weber MiniMASS 50-watt attenuator. The amp sounds horrible with this attenuator. As a matter of fact, the clean channel always sounds distorted even with the gain and master at noon, which is pretty darn clean...