Mark V preamp tubes-Dark Scooped Tone.

[Hooper]

A month ago I bought a floor model Mark V Head (2013), and loved the 3rd Channel Mark IV setting. It was perfect for me. A day later I noticed a big ding in the transformer housing, so I traded the store for another floor model. Got it home, and the 3rd Channel sounded quite and thin in comparison to the first Head, and I found out it was over 3 years old. I brought that one back to the store, and they ordered me one straight from the factory, new in box. So now I have a REAL new one. But of course, the 3rd Channel still just does not sound a good a the first one. Not quite, and thin, but just not as deep, scooped and saturated. I cant seem to win. I'm keeping the Head, but wondered if anyone has had a similar situation. I did use the same settings, same guitar, same cables, same cabinet, same room all inside one week. I'm looking for that over saturated Black Album, scoop all the mids out, tight tone the first one displayed. Can anyone point me to a different high gain preamp tube complement, that may darken and also tighten the bottom end a little bit more? This is the first Mesa amp iv owned, and any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[BluesyBobbyD]

I went with Doug's recommendation (dougstubes.com) for his set of 7 preamp tube tone kit and 4 Ruby 6L6 GCMSTR in the power section. Sounds great, less bright and harsh, nice tight bass, thick, rich overdrive on all 3 channels. Thought it was super reasonable at around $200. I just emailed him and asked what he thought would be good for my style of music (blues, rock, hard rock, some metally type shredder stuff). The preamp tone kit has lots of different tubes if you're into tube rolling. I just went with his straight up V1-V7 recommendations. I haven't tried to dial in the Black album tone, but I have a monstrous high gain channel 3 mark iv tone going on. Best tone I ever had, period. Its badass. I may not be the worlds greatest player, but whoever that is would nod his head approvingly at my tone. So keep at it, you'll get there with the V.
PS-I play through a combo with the C90 stacked on a vertical rectifier 2x12.

 

[4406cuda]

I use Tungsol reissue 12AX7 and SED Winged C 6L6 tubes. I have the head and play through two 1 x12 Bogner cabs with Vintage 30's

It sounds great!

I picked up my tubes from TubeDepot

 

[thunder100]

You may know all of that

If not give it a read

On top of above postes, believe it or not ,a Mark V needs break in.

Run it and play it in all power settings(apart that Variac) for some hours.You will see tone chnages torwards your direction.And before you play next time open it (nightmare on V1) and move the preamp tubes(best is out and back in),but point is that after rattle transport not all pins may have a perfect contact (thats tubes 10% resistance up makes big tone difference) at least try to move them a bit

And beware its high voltage so dont fool arround

Also Mark V's ( as all Mark's) change tone in tubes lifetime

Roland

 

[Tuna141]

As some of the previous posters had suggested, try changing 1 or 2 of the preamp tubes that affect Ch 3. I recommend buying a couple different brands and trying them in various locations. The other thing you could do is simply try swapping locations of some of the tubes already in the amp. A preamp tube that sounds crappy in one location may sound fine in a different tube location.

Another thing you can try is lower your individual channel volumes and raise your master output volume control. Generally, this will help thicken the tone too.