70sstrat
Member
Hello all,
I didn't see an introduction section so I'll take some time to do that here. If you could care less please skip ahead to read about my questionable mark iii . I've been through a bit of a journey with my gear. Growing up my dad played guitar and I always said "I don't want to sound anything like that". Well his main set up was a 73 SG and a Mark IIC+. It wouldn't be till years later that I would understand what a epic set up that was. Now that era SG may be hit or miss depending who you talk to but starting playing with the benchmark Mark as your point of reference is crazy. So being a teenager and wanting to be different I went after the blackface sound (which I thought was more divergent from a Boogie then it actually was) and played with very mild gain usually from a pedal with a strat. Over the years I gravitated to heaver music and increased my gain. Fast forward ten years and what am I playing?... a mid 90s Les Paul Studio and a Mark III blue stripe. It's funny how things work out.
The story:
So after looking for a mark iii for a while I finally found a mark iii long head locally and jumped on it. Now the tolex was a little beat up and one of the knobs had been replaced, so it had seen some fair use. What really worried me was that it was running 4 el34's and it is non-simulclass. It had been sitting in storage at a local music college. Supposably the studio coordinator at the time was a former mesa tech and pressured the college into using mesa amps for the studio. How good a 60/100 watt long head mark iii was for recording I'm not sure but that's how the amp came to be. Now I would think a mesa tech would not just let the school throw in el34's on a fixed bias amp and just let them run super cold. Maybe someone else confused mesa's use of el34's? Perhaps, but this amp actually was serviced by authorized mesa tech recently because of a bad power tube. Now I don't know how may of you know about Savage amps but savage audio is a big deal out here (twin-cities) and they're the ones that worked on the amp. I can't imagine a company with this kind of reputation would overlook the correct power tubes.
The Issue
From what I've read here only simul-class amps can run the 34's in the outside positions and non-simulclass amps used 6l6's only. I'm wondering if you guys could help me spot any anomalies in my amp and if it's been modified for el34's. The only mod I know it has it the R2 vol mod. Here are some photos:
20130411_000947 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
Transformer pics (definitely not Simul-class right?):
20130410_232637 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
20130410_232627 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
Inside chassis:
20130410_232246 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
20130410_232241 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
20130410_232226 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
20130410_232220 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
Bonus date stamp
20130410_232407 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
Any help is greatly appreciated and thanks stoping by!
I didn't see an introduction section so I'll take some time to do that here. If you could care less please skip ahead to read about my questionable mark iii . I've been through a bit of a journey with my gear. Growing up my dad played guitar and I always said "I don't want to sound anything like that". Well his main set up was a 73 SG and a Mark IIC+. It wouldn't be till years later that I would understand what a epic set up that was. Now that era SG may be hit or miss depending who you talk to but starting playing with the benchmark Mark as your point of reference is crazy. So being a teenager and wanting to be different I went after the blackface sound (which I thought was more divergent from a Boogie then it actually was) and played with very mild gain usually from a pedal with a strat. Over the years I gravitated to heaver music and increased my gain. Fast forward ten years and what am I playing?... a mid 90s Les Paul Studio and a Mark III blue stripe. It's funny how things work out.
The story:
So after looking for a mark iii for a while I finally found a mark iii long head locally and jumped on it. Now the tolex was a little beat up and one of the knobs had been replaced, so it had seen some fair use. What really worried me was that it was running 4 el34's and it is non-simulclass. It had been sitting in storage at a local music college. Supposably the studio coordinator at the time was a former mesa tech and pressured the college into using mesa amps for the studio. How good a 60/100 watt long head mark iii was for recording I'm not sure but that's how the amp came to be. Now I would think a mesa tech would not just let the school throw in el34's on a fixed bias amp and just let them run super cold. Maybe someone else confused mesa's use of el34's? Perhaps, but this amp actually was serviced by authorized mesa tech recently because of a bad power tube. Now I don't know how may of you know about Savage amps but savage audio is a big deal out here (twin-cities) and they're the ones that worked on the amp. I can't imagine a company with this kind of reputation would overlook the correct power tubes.
The Issue
From what I've read here only simul-class amps can run the 34's in the outside positions and non-simulclass amps used 6l6's only. I'm wondering if you guys could help me spot any anomalies in my amp and if it's been modified for el34's. The only mod I know it has it the R2 vol mod. Here are some photos:
20130411_000947 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
Transformer pics (definitely not Simul-class right?):
20130410_232637 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
20130410_232627 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
Inside chassis:
20130410_232246 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
20130410_232241 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
20130410_232226 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
20130410_232220 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
Bonus date stamp
20130410_232407 by 70sstrat08, on Flickr
Any help is greatly appreciated and thanks stoping by!