They both do their own thing well, I was surprised how many times I preferred the MKV.
That MKVII mode sounds great, very authoritive, how does it feel with expressive single note lines?
Dom
The Mark VII in general works well with single note playing. I am sure lead playing will be very similar. The Mark V sort of had a blanket sound. I did not spend much time dialing in the two amps, I basically chose to run the controls at noon as a starring point. Mark V, all controls at noon and I adjusted the output volume to match the loudness of the Mark VII. The difference was with the Mark VII, I could not run the channel volumes at noon as that would be very loud.
The Mark VII feels very much like the JP2C. You feel connected to the amp. You get that urge you want to play more and express that feel you get. The only way to get that feel with the JP2C is with the STR415 power tubes. Expensive but obtainable. The next best thing is the STR448 with a softer control on the bass tightness. They sound great too. I also ran the STR445 power tubes in the JP2C and got similar results as I did with the STR415 power tubes. As for the preamp characteristics, they are very similar, just less modes or options to select for the three channels. JP2C is extremely articulate, the Mark VII is just a bit off but close enough.
The Mark V90 sort of loses its composure as there is that balance you play around with. The dominant tone or tuned upper midrange content cannot be filtered out with the GEQ on the Lead channel as it is a fixed character that is hard wired to the lead drive circuit. I had addressed that in the saturation mod thread, C39 capacitor that couples the grid to the cathode on V4B. I did restore it with a 47pF cap since I basically destroyed the 120pF cap that was there. I may try removing C39 but will be the last time I can do it. I doubt I will try to restore that component again as I do not want to cause any damage to the copper foil traces as the land size around the hole is very small. The Mark IVa does not have this capacitor, the Mark IVb does, but a much larger value, 250pF. Note that C39 is for the Mark V only. The Mark IVb schematic does not have a reference designator.
These are the basic settings I used in the video. I did make some changes while recording but for the most part all the settings were set to noon. Inverting the image helps to reveal the settings on the knobs due to the glare from the overhead lighting and the overall darkness of the image.
Note CH2 on the Mark V was left this way after running the Mark I mode. I started with all settings at noon.
By the time I got through the video in part 2, this was near the end after all of the adjustments.
If I had the stock Mesa 12AX7 tubes in the Mark V90, it would have been brittle and a bit on the muddy side.
I may try removing C39 and see what happens. It will get brighter without that capacitor filtering out most of the frequencies from the V5A gain stage. Not sure what the actual purpose for this change to the lead drive circuit is really meant for. Was it to tune the preamp to work with the MC90 speaker? It is not necessary and does help to cut some of the boxy tones but, like I said, it will become much brighter with it removed. Now I am curious to find out. I really did not want to bring up hard mods on this thread. I personally would not want to recommend that. The V90 I have was one that I never bonded with for the past 11 years. Mostly due to the boxy and honky tones it delivered and the ice pick issues on tweed, edge and most of CH3. To my surprise, the STR441 power tubes bought out the best of the Mark V90 that I did not expect. Change in the preamp tubes was also an improvement. Unfortunate that the Beijing Square Foil Getter tubes are harder to get in the USA than I previously thought. Those were the tubes Mesa used in the 1980-1990 time frame. Here are the old Mesa tubes next to the Ruby Beijing tubes. Same tube, slight difference in tone as the Mesa tubes are sorted for specific characteristics, Ruby are sorted for performance only and not based on tone or quality. The good thing about the Beijing tubes, no noise floor, they are silent as long as you are not picking up electrical noise with the guitar like I was in the room where I did the video. That room is noisy. The room where all of the gear is setup for jam sessions has no issues with electrical noise. Also, was using the Furman power supply and that did not help with noise pickup from the cable and guitar.
TMI? probably. I did finally get a full set of the JJ E83CC tubes. The first order they messed up and shipped me E88CC tubes, not compatible with a 12AX7 circuit. They looked identical to the Mesa (JJECC83s) tube but once I saw the different part number, looked it up and found that they were not compatible so I did not risk using them. Sent them back and got replacements.
If I find the C39 removal makes that much of a dramatic difference, perhaps I will follow up with another video as I have the character sound from the V90 with it installed in video. That would be a project to splice in before and after effects of a component removal. Not all Mark V90 are created equal, mine is a lemon of sorts and probably should not have been sold.