Aside from Silverwulf's thread, Ill end this quick.
"They say those recs sounded more "muddy" and "scooped" and possibly less aggressive."
the Less aggressive thing is splitting hairs. the 3 channel circuit has a two 100K resistors in the preamp that if jumpered, gives the amp a little more aggressive feel to the picking attack. Enough that it is the only mod I left in my amp when I was tinkering trying to tailor my tone. It is NOT night and day after time, but there.
MUDDY and SCOOPED and RECTUMFRIER and all other internet ******** describing a Rectifier are done by internet amp guru's who's claim to fame has been chasing the Van Halen debut album guitar tone through Marshall superleads using only an amp and not Templman's Neve nor the Reverb he used to act as a subtle distortion on the recorded guitar. Never mind if you listen to the October Nightmare demos Van Halen sounds exactly like VH2 did, thus negating the debut album chase. These same guys just plugged into a DR or TR or RV, or RM, or RK and used Marshall settings(these guys also hate and I mean HATE Marhsall 2203 models. and what happens when you put the master up all the way on one of our amps? At the same time turn your bass almost off, presence off, dime mids and highs? Please ANYONE who owns one? Yes sh!t. They do typical Marshall to Fender Twin crunch settings since Mr. Smith used to mod Fender amps. Still sounding like sh!t they turn the amp off and use their Plexi Palace or Queer Page good ol boy social standing to proclaim a Mesa Rectifier is sh!t and the only setting you can get out of it is to scoop it(which is true if you turn off presence, max out gain, and dime highs) and that is still horrendously ugly. Did any stop to read the manual? Not these guys, they ahve been trying to make it since 196x in a band. They used to be so f%&# clueless at both those places that after I got my Dual Rectifier and years before I started tweaking the insides and almost electrocuting myself four times (B+ will wake you up trust me Mesa bites are way way more intense than a Marshall's which uses 543V for B+) I recorded myself playing I'm the One using just the green channel on pushed and a tube scramer set to clean boost only and uploaded a link to Plexi Palace The thread was called How's my EVH tone? Guess the amp! I let it go for a month and when the thread stopped having traffic I posted a few photos and a short 10 second video. No other description. Another week and I started a thread called READ THE F**KIN MANUAL where I used some very visceral wording to attack the attacks on my new found beloved amp. Ive been banned from both PP and Gear Page since. Do I care? Not in the least have no need to join a community of closed minds like those places.
Do the two and three channels sound different? Yes they do. Night and day? Im on the fence. Do the multiwatt sound different than the older 3 channel? Yes, I found my usual settings sounded rather brittle, but was able to get a approximation to how I like to sound that didn't make me say the multiwatts were bad, I just found an amp I like and not going to buy a new one to get ability to go from 100 watts to half that. You only get what maybe a perceivable 3Db actual loudness difference and less clean headroom? On a Rectifier? Isn't clean headroom kind of the point so that the preamp is allowed to do its thing? A lunchbox version seems a better idea, but to each their own. Just not going to spend $2000 on a new amp any time soon when I can grab an older revision I am more accustomed to for <$1000 now and that wont happen since mine is still not totally blown up forcing me to have to get a new one. I also never had an issue with the FX loop either. setting the return all the way up and using the send to adjust for output volume is good enough since I only use an eq in the loop if used at all. I dont use time based effect enough to have a problem.
@Blenderhead You shouldn't find ANY Mesa's at GC ever. They used to carry them but tried doing some funky pricing thing that was against the agreement made with Mesa to be a retailer and Mesa products were pulled. Mesa sets the retailers ability to price an amp so it reflects the price guide across the board for all retailers from what I have been told by local retailers when I tried to get a better deal. Both were same price and both not budging.
SNOWFLAKE DISCLAIMER
If any one was offended by my language above, please know that I dont mean you personally, I am not politically correct, dont give a damn about anyone's lifestyle as long as not pushed on me and am not going to suddenly change my vernacular to accommodate your feelings. The world is harsh and I grew up dealing with that the best way I knew how. My era is the 80's and my beliefs and feelings reflect that as well as being raised by my grandparents of the 1930's-40's in the south. I try to give everyone a fair shake and judge by meritocracy. Hope you do the same.
