I just got my new 2011 dual rec yesterday. I also own a Mark V and Road King for comparison. Initial thoughts: the new dual rec has less low end than the road king. I can turn the bass knob up all the way in vintage/modern modes on ch2/3 and not flub out the way the road king does when playing palm muted riffs. The road king has so much low end that I would tend to run the bass knob below noon for a lot of my really high gain sounds. For the dual rec, I feel like it translates into everything sounding more high gain and cutting than the traditional rectifier sound. A little closer to Mark V territory but still doing it's own thing. Unfortunately, I've never owned a dual rectifier so I can't really comment on how it compares to those. I know Haggerty's has some video's up A/Bing the two, but lets just say that I was shocked (pleasantly) at how different this dual rec sounds from my Road King.
The effects loop dramatically changes the tone when it is engaged vs not engaged. That's with nothing actually plugged into the loop; just turning the loop on and off with the footswitch. When I interfaced my TC electronic g system into the loop, everything worked just fine. I haven't tried using the relay remote switching yet but don't foresee any issues there as the tip to ground latching should be identical to the Mark V.
Clean mode in channel 1 is very clean. Hardly any breakup even with the gain maxed and hot humbuckers. As long as the mid control is kept down, it stays nice and clean. Pushed mode in ch1 and raw mode in channels 2/3 are much more useable for me. I tend to play mid to high gain stuff and don't have much need for super clean sounds so this is a nice change from the lower gain approach they took in channels 1 and 2 of the road king. Anyway, I definitely need more time to get a feel for the amp but just wanted to post my initial thoughts and get some conversation going with others that have also played the new recs.
The effects loop dramatically changes the tone when it is engaged vs not engaged. That's with nothing actually plugged into the loop; just turning the loop on and off with the footswitch. When I interfaced my TC electronic g system into the loop, everything worked just fine. I haven't tried using the relay remote switching yet but don't foresee any issues there as the tip to ground latching should be identical to the Mark V.
Clean mode in channel 1 is very clean. Hardly any breakup even with the gain maxed and hot humbuckers. As long as the mid control is kept down, it stays nice and clean. Pushed mode in ch1 and raw mode in channels 2/3 are much more useable for me. I tend to play mid to high gain stuff and don't have much need for super clean sounds so this is a nice change from the lower gain approach they took in channels 1 and 2 of the road king. Anyway, I definitely need more time to get a feel for the amp but just wanted to post my initial thoughts and get some conversation going with others that have also played the new recs.