Eh, there are plusses and minuses to the two. The V3 had all the bells and whistles, gain modes, fx loops, midi, blah blah. It was great when I first got it and probably the first year and a half of owning it becuase I used all of that stuff.
But as the months went on and our band's music started to find it's sound, the tone and feel of the V3 became less and less appealing compared to some of the other amps out there. My playing started needing more and more smoothness but still have a good lower midrange grind. The V3 had that grind in spades and though it COULD achieve a smooth singing lead, it didn't have quite the richness and open ness the studio pre has. The V3 has just a little too much compression that takes out a hair too much dynamics. I'm sure internal mods could fix it but the other thing I'm fascinated with is true stereo separation. I'm wanting to use my Gmajor and my buzz bomb and avatar to have a nice 3D delay/chorus going at our shows becuase I've written a lot of stuff that desparately needs that.
I haven't been to the carvinmuseum in a while. What happened between you and MGE that led to a letter from Mark?
