Mesa/Boogie Stiletto vs. Rectifier:Which one should I keep?

[timb orocksloud]

Sooo. Just bought both of these heads. I had a Marshall JVM 410C (100W combo). I was afraid I would miss the 4 channels, but not so much yet. I absolutely fell in love with the Stiletto. I play a lot of metal and I was worried about it being able to cut it. the Fluid Drive setting on Channel 2 had what I needed in spades! I just got both of these yesterday and spent the night going through the recommended settings from both manuals. The manuals are excellent by the way. I thought for sure the rectifier would win me out but I was fairly disappointed with it especially on channel 3. The following are my pros and cons. I would love your guys feedback on this. (All testing done with my 59 les paul reissue)

Stiletto:
Pros:
1) Great sounds. Everything was usable. I felt I could go from Cleans to blues (the blues breaker recommended settings from the manual were some of my favorite) to high gain metal.
2) The knobs are easy to see from across the room
3) the footswitch attaches to the head with just an ordinary guitar cable.
4) Love the crock skin and the stiletto logo. It's just bad *** imho.

Cons:
1) only 2 channels. I would like to set up cleans, some crunchy breakage, and some skull rending chunk and go from one to the other to the other with just a tap of the foot
2) the footswitch is kinda unexciting

Dual Rectifier:
Pros:
1) 3 channels
2) diamond plate looks bad ***
3) footswitch is much nicer than the stiletto
4) feels like you could run over it with a truck and it would still work
5)the Modern setting on Channel 3 may be one of the most awesome and brutal sounds ever ("the end of the..." setting from manual on modern instead of vintage). One of the best tones I had from either amp.

Cons:
1)the knobs..I had a hard time seeing where the knobs were set in my well lit basement how the F*** do you set up your amp on a dark stage?
2) the raw setting on the 3rd channel just sounded terrrible at their recommended aggro rhythm setting. Just sounded flabby and fart like. Really really bad. Unusable...did I mention it was bad?
3) the footswitch is not a standard guitar cable. If this gets damaged mid show..good luck finding that.
4) none of the clean settings really were very exciting

Well that's a wrap of my first day of testing...any suggestions on settings or other things I should try?
Thanks, Tim

 

[58boogie]

You summed it up nicely. I also have both and plan to keep both because if you play live, you should always have a spare amp. So I say, keep both for awhile. You may find that you tend to lean on one more than the other over a period of time.

IF you have to sell one, I would say keep the Rectifier because you can put EL34's in a rectifier, but you can't put 6L6's in a Deuce. If the Marshall EL34 is your permanent pick for tone, go with the Deuce, particularly if you play live a lot a high volume you may find the tighter bass better than the open boominess of the rectifier.

As far as looks, the Deuce is the most badass looking head on the planet. :twisted:

 

[Guitarmiester]

I was in that same situation not long ago. I've been a Recto user for years. Most Recto users tend to be metalhead, which I'm not. My main tones revolved around channel 2's Raw mode. Once in a while I'd dabble with channel 3's Modern for fun. Seeing as I was using Raw mode on my Triple, I felt I was gravitating back to the Marshall sound. So, I ended up buying a JCM900 SL-X to mess around with. That was a beast of an amp. My only complaints were that it's a single channel amp and it didn't quite have the balls of a Mesa when cranked.

While I still had the Recto and JCM, I came across a Stiletto Deuce that I believed would be along the lines of what I'm after. I was a little unsure since the last time I had the opportunity to play a Stiletto was a good 6 or 7 years ago. It was a great deal, so I pulled the trigger and bought it. To keep a long story short, the Stiletto turned out to be perfect for me. I sold the JCM right away, hung onto the Recto for a few months because it was not easy to part with, but ended up selling that as well. The Stiletto covers a lot of ground and does it all extremely well. Wish I bought one sooner.

The only thing about your post that confused me a bit was all the talk about footswitches. A footswitch is a footswitch, I'm not sure how one can be exciting and another isn't? The Recto footswitch is bigger because there are more footswitchable options. Depending on which version you have, you'll have 2-3 switches for each channel, one for a boost, and another for the effects loop. The Stiletto has a 2-button footswitch. One for clean/dirty and another for the boost. There's a switch on the back of the amp for the hardwired effects loop. You can either shut it off or engage it where it's part of the chain at all times. Both footswitches are solid. I broke all of the little light covers on my Recto footswitch very quickly. With dimly lit stages, I sometimes found myself stepping on the lights instead of the actual switches.

I'd recommend doing what I did. Hang on to both amps, give each more than enough play time, mess around with the modes and EQ's, and then keep whichever sounds best and you find yourself coming back to more than the other. It may take some time, but it'll happen. I had no intent of selling my Recto, regardless of rarely using it after buying the Stiletto, but ended up parting with it. Give it time.

 

[timb orocksloud]

Guitarmeister, you are right about the footswitches. When I pulled the recto footswitch out of the box it was like ooohhhh..when I pulled the stiletto out, it was like Meh. so I mentioned it but you are right, it carries little weight considering the other things.

 

[ryjan]

Why are you asking us which amp you like better?

 

[angus1959]

I had both, sold the Rec, kept 2 stilettos, and a Single Rec., No regrets.

 

[timb orocksloud]

Ryjan,
I guess I was asking if anyone else had some recommended settings to try out on the rectifier.

 

[ifailedshapes]

Ryjan,
I guess I was asking if anyone else had some recommended settings to try out on the rectifier.

You should ask this question in the Recto forum. The best place to start is the suggested settings in the manual.

 

[timb orocksloud]

Hi Mark,
I looked there and intend to run through some of them before I make my final decision. I started this weekend.

If I could get that Ch. 3 modern sound from the stiletto, it would be a slam dunk. Could I use a boost pedal to get close to that? Anyone?

 

[Guitarmiester]

The Stiletto isn't going to sound nearly as brutal and in your face as a Dual/Triple set to Modern on the Red Channel. You're best bet would be to throw an OD in front and mess around with Fluid Drive. I've been able to dial in some really heavy tones that way for fun. Hope that helps.

 

[Laskyman]

The Stiletto isn't going to sound nearly as brutal and in your face as a Dual/Triple set to Modern on the Red Channel. You're best bet would be to throw an OD in front and mess around with Fluid Drive. I've been able to dial in some really heavy tones that way for fun

FWIW, I have owned both a Roadster and a Deuce II, and I always thought the Stiletto has more gain than a recto- it is different, but more saturation, so much that in Tite and Fluid, anything above 2pm on gain was unusable for me. I also liked the Stiletto more, but I play 90% lead guitar. I got rid of both for an Electra Dyne.....

 

[screamingdaisy]

2) the raw setting on the 3rd channel just sounded terrrible at their recommended aggro rhythm setting. Just sounded flabby and fart like. Really really bad. Unusable...did I mention it was bad?

On a 3 channel Recto channel 2 is optimized for Raw/Vintage and channel 3 is optimized for Modern. You can use them the other way around if you want, but the results aren't as great as they could be.

 

[Guitarmiester]

FWIW, I have owned both a Roadster and a Deuce II, and I always thought the Stiletto has more gain than a recto- it is different, but more saturation, so much that in Tite and Fluid, anything above 2pm on gain was unusable for me. I also liked the Stiletto more, but I play 90% lead guitar. I got rid of both for an Electra Dyne.....

I do agree with you, but it's more about the Recto voicing than the gain. Fluid does have more unusable gain than a Recto, but it's tameable.

I've heard a lot of good things about the Electra Dyne. Many people even say if you like the Stiletto, you'll like the Electra Dyne even more. They're hard to come by though, at least around here.