Just bought a Revision E recto!---UPDATE

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Elpelotero

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Just got it right now on ebay...All interested parties should stick to this thread to see how the rare E compares to C and D. Amp will hopefully be here in a week! I can't wait!
 
Congratulations Migs! Didn't know you were in the market for another Recto.

I'm looking forward to a full report and pics please.
 
Funny thing is I wasn't in the market for it at all. I saw the auction a week ago, saved it, and this morning got an ebay email saying it was ending. No one had bid, so I figured what the heck. My curiosity got the best of me. I will undoubtedly let one go soon after I A/B them. I can't afford to have 2.
 
So, after sitting in my room for the past 2 months, I've officially played this amp only once to check that it worked. Afterwards I went on a crusade changing guitar pickups that has still not ended.

So, being strapped for cash, I have to get the ball rolling on which amp I want to sell. Therefore, this afternoon, I'm going to record clips through ProTools LE and an SM57 of both the Revision D and the Revision E through my 4x12 with a PRS SE and Dragon 1 pickups (buddy's guitar). I will report my findings possibly later on tonight and sometime in the future (going on a year already) the website will be updated with the sound clips.
 
Elpelotero,
how does Revision E sound compared to Revision D?
Thanks and regards
 
Ok...

So...For any of you Recto nerds out there, this is going to be some startling news.


I have recorded clips of both D and E, but they are not available until another week or so because my friend is touching up the tracks a tad bit. In due time, you'll hear them if I'm satisfied with the quality.

However, I can say this with certainty. There is virtually no difference in tone between Rev D and Rev E. If anything exists, it is minimal. The one big difference I noted every time I've A/B'ed the amps (about 3 times now) is that Rev E's clean channel has much more gain in order to compensate for the lack of output early Recto's clean channels are known for. However, it is not exactly a very desired gain because it does cause some distortion on the clean channel. Whereas the D does not breakup much until you crank the Master to around 2 or 3 oclock, E will breakup even around 9 or 10oclock if you use humbuckers. If your guitar has single coil capabilities or tapping, or splitting, or whatever, you'll have no problems with breakup.

This is interesting to me because it makes me recall the words of a Mesa Hollywood Store employee a couple of years ago: "It's not the first 500, it goes up into the 600's." Since Revision E is in the 600's, this makes sense.

Another interesting thing to note about the two amps is that a fellow knowledgeable forumite has mentioned that Revision E is not perfect in circuitry because it seems to be missing many connections on the bottom trace, which led to point-to-point connections to resistors and LDR's. I'm not sure wtf this means, but I'll investigate it further and take some time to look at both chassis to see if I can pick out any obvious differences. The amp seems to work fine and is obviously still alive after 17 years, so I don't think it's anything to worry about if it's true.

One of these 2 amps will be up for sale ridiculously soon...Probably after my friend gets me the clips, I play them a bit more, and I look at the guts further.

As time goes on, we are learning more and more about these amps. It seems there is now a small army of guys out there also studying the differences between these revisions and adding to the body of knowledge. At the end of the day, one rule still stands unbroken: 2ch tone > 3ch tone!!! :D :D :D :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
 
I'm trying to figure out what was going through the minds of the Mesa engineers when revising the recto line.

Rev C: Let's make an amp with the deadliest distortion ever!
Rev D: Maybe we need to tone it down a bit...
Rev E: Let's turn that clean channel up a little.
Rev F: I think we toned it down a little too much, let's bump it back up a bit, but not too much.
Rev G: I hit my head pretty hard yesterday... Let's work on the recto some more.
 
I also am trying to figure things out...How does it honestly take several hundred amps before you realize "maybe we need to tweak the clean a little bit." I mean are you serious? How does that happen? Isn't that something you notice right away? It took me less than 5 minutes.
 

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