DC 10 vs Mark IV

[ketiov]

Hey, I currently have a Mark IV, but to be honest, when I hear recording of any Mark IV, I hear very smooth gain - not something that I like. When I hear my amp in person, I hear some grit. But it seems every recording of a Mark IV is just too smooth for my liking.

I remember reading somewhere that the DC series is darker, and has sounds dirtier. How true is this? If someone could do a side by side comparison clip, that would be awesome, although I know that's asking for a lot.

 

[Monsta-Tone]

I can't remember all of the details, but I did a Mark IVA vs. DC-10 shootout about a year ago.


Basically it went like this:

Mark IV:
Smooth lead tones with gobs of sustain
Decent crunch tones, but I really thought R2 was over rated.
Nice cleans, but a bit sterile.

DC-10:
Lead tones were not quite as smooth as the Mark IV. I think I really liked the lead tones better on the IV, but the distortion on the DC was more crunchy and had less of the speaker sizzle that high gain amps are famous for.
Crunch tones are incredible if you use the pull boost on the clean channel. Unfortunately, you will need to mod the amp to be able to footswitch this function.
Cleans are much warmer. Still not in the Twin Reverb realm, but very sweet with the right settings.
Reverb is a little better.


Basically, the DC was very much like a rougher sounding Mark IV without all the knobs.
It is much easier to dial in, but almost as versatile if you have the patience.

The thing that got me about the Mark IV is that it never sounded the same twice.
Same room, same placement, same band setup, everything. It just always sounded different to me. Maybe because the knobs are so sensitive. In the end, the DC won. I thought that the tones were incredibly similar. If the Mark IV were a bit easier to dial in, I would have kept it instead and modded R2 and the clean channel to sound like the DC.

 

[ketiov]

That pretty much answers my question then. The lead channel on my Mark IV is awesome because of the tight sound I can get out of it, but like I said, I'd like it to be a bit rougher, or maybe what I'm looking for is crunch.

To put it more into perspective: When I cranked the volume pretty loud one time, and dimed the gain on R2, I got almost what I wanted. There was a rough quality to the sound that I liked.

If I see a DC10 on my local CL, I'll try to grab it and compare the two side by side. A guy had the combo listed a few times for $800, but I haven't seen it in a while, so maybe it got sold.

Thanks for the help man!

 

[kmanick]

That pretty much answers my question then. The lead channel on my Mark IV is awesome because of the tight sound I can get out of it, but like I said, I'd like it to be a bit rougher, or maybe what I'm looking for is crunch.

To put it more into perspective: When I cranked the volume pretty loud one time, and dimed the gain on R2, I got almost what I wanted. There was a rough quality to the sound that I liked.

If I see a DC10 on my local CL, I'll try to grab it and compare the two side by side. A guy had the combo listed a few times for $800, but I haven't seen it in a while, so maybe it got sold.

Thanks for the help man!

If you want a 'rougher" sounding mark check out a mark III.
I A/B my red stripe against my buddys MArk IV(A) and that's exactly what he heard.
A more open "nastier sounding Mark.

 

[Monsta-Tone]

I just did some mods to a Red Stripe. That is a great amp!

Another one that may fit the bill, but doesn't have separate EQ (neither does the Mark III) is the .50 Caliber +. Great cleans and serious crunch!