Mark IV Cleans are sub-standard...

[srf399]

Good points....

I agree with you that the MKIV tones seems to change every time. IMHO it isn't all the knobs and switches that cause it to be a tweekers amp... it's that it's tone changes. I thought... hmmm tubes must be shitty but it does it with new tubes as well. The one thing this amp is great for is the studio... I just find it to inconsistent for live use. R2 as far as a crunch channel is too rubbery and muffled for me. Lead channel is beautiful and the clean is good. For my style though I'm moving on shortly to a Stiletto Deuce (IMO far more user friendly and consistent with similar cleans... far better crunch and similar lead).

 

[Monsta-Tone]

I tried the Duece at a Music Store, but only had 3 minutes till they closed. The guy was a real tool too.

One of these days, I will get to the local Boogie dealer. It's only a 200 mile journey in either direction.

 

[Platypus]

Different strokes I guess..

I found the Mark IV to be the most consistent out of all the boogies I've owned (C+ not included as I've not given it the full tour of duty yet). The biggest thing that pissed me off besides the boring tone of my Dual Rectifier was the fact that every single time I turned it on it sounded different. The Stiletto has this problem too but not nearly as much. It's also more directional because of the nature of combos so I think that has a lot to do with it.

I love the cleans on the Mark IV.. are they 100%? No.. but out of all the amps I've played, it had the best compromise between face melting high gain and cleans by far. As far as price and availability and tonal versatility I think it's the best thing Boogie has to offer right now personally. Also, R2 is a ******* to set up properly with R1 but once you find the sweet spot it's heaven. I absolutely love my tele through it. It has an AWESOME bark and snap to it, it's anything but rubbery :?

Anyway, this is the reason why there are so many amps out there today because everyone finds their voice with something different but that's my take on the amp.

 

[Monsta-Tone]

Absolutely agree.

I chose the DC-10 over the Mark IV only because I thought the tones were more stable and much easier to dial in.

I A/B ed them for a couple of hours, drove my wife crazy playing the same songs over and over again.


I think that the Mark IV had a better selection of tones available, but in the end, the simplicity of the DC won me over.

 

[mrd]

Another aspect of the MKIV that perhaps some people are overlooking, which is mentioned in the manual I believe, is that when you crank R1 with a nice overdrive out front, you get a fuckin' GREAT hard-rock rhythm sound.

Last night I ran my guitar through a TS-8, then to a compressor, ran the MKIV on R1 with channel volume and output set to 3, input gain all the way up, pushed. I was running a 1x12 16ohm cab on the 8ohm output, that may have helped the tone a bit.

Either way, my god...it sounded amazing. It had qualities of the lead channel but a different voicing that was so ballsy I couldn't believe it. The notes were as tight as ever. You know that quality that rectifiers have where the low-end almost seems "detached" from the rest of the sound, like there is some sort of barrier in frequencies that causes the low-end to react differently than everything else? I was feeling that with R1 cranked. It still felt tight, don't get me wrong, but it just felt "different" than a cranked lead channel. There was tones of gain to boot, way more than I expected from R1, but that was likely helped a lot by the boost out front. I didn't try it straight in, I might do that later today to compare/contrast.

If I get the chance, I'll post a clip of it later on. It's pretty **** loud so I might have to wait til people in my house go out for a bit or something.

But yeah, if you get a chance... let R1 rip. It sounds inspiring and fantastic.