bartchamdoh
Well-known member
Hi it's bad boy of the forum bartchamdoh here for another discusion/argument .Over the years in my quest for the perfect strat tone i,ve played or owned most of the mesa holy grails pre 500 rectos,studio pre amps,mark 2c,mark 4,as well as trying other brands such as Engl,Bogner,Cornford.The mesa's are my fave, mark 2s/3s but though they can be tweaked to give world class tones either clean or overdriven they lack versatility(shared gain and eq controls,poor reverb,fx loops etc.)This is a case of bad design and is a real pity because the tone of these amps is phenomenal.I look for a good high gain amp with a good clean channel with lots of head room so that i can put some good quality pedal's up front with over engineerd transformers and speakers that will handle all the gain i'm throwing up front and these amps tick all the right boxes.My gripe is that if you say put a .50 caliber up against a mark 3/4/5 you will hear a difference.NOT SO IF YOU PUT PEDALS UP FRONT THROUGH THE CLEAN CHANNEL!!! then the differences will be subtle and hard to tell without a/b ing which is what everyone including most of the members on this board does.That's why after all these years my main gigging rig is my trusty mark 2b srgx short head or mark 3 super sixty short head into a 2x12 mesa cab with my pedal board loaded up front.So my advice...forget the mark 2c+'s mark 5's,pre 500 rec's...get a descent budget mesa with some good pedals up front and you'll get a better tone,more versatility for less money and hassle...why are all the mesa 2c+ mark 5 etc owners doing the same...awnser same reason but there out of pocket lol.