siggy14
Well-known member
Well i dont think this is so much a mine is better then yours. He just made a statement that after owning both he preferred the roadster over all others. That is his personal opinion.
nathan28 said:
Roadster wiped the floor with the Roadking!!
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MetalMatt
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The Road King and Roadster are much better amps. They are tighter and smoother with more articulation and dynamics than the straight duals and triples. No offence to any of those owners. Mesa is redeeming the old Recto line with these amps.
I agree there is a difference in tone... a slight one. I wouldn't go as far as "wipe the floor" difference between the two, but again it is you personal opinion, I'll respect that. To my ears the Roadster sounded a little more "open" than the Road King. A Road King with 2x6L6+2xEL34 is tighter than the 4x6L6 Roadster. Would this mean a 4xEL34 Roadster is tighter than the 2x6L4+2EL34 Road King? maybe. The Road King has just as much articulation and dynamics, I just have to turn it up more.
I use ALL the function on my RKII. So the Roadster is useless to me.
I agree there is a difference in tone... a slight one. I wouldn't go as far as "wipe the floor" difference between the two, but again it is you personal opinion, I'll respect that. To my ears the Roadster sounded a little more "open" than the Road King. A Road King with 2x6L6+2xEL34 is tighter than the 4x6L6 Roadster. Would this mean a 4xEL34 Roadster is tighter than the 2x6L4+2EL34 Road King? maybe. The Road King has just as much articulation and dynamics, I just have to turn it up more.
I use ALL the function on my RKII. So the Roadster is useless to me.
+1000000 :twisted:2britz said:
123thefirst
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siggy14 said:
An informed opinion. You can generally get 1% tolerance resistors if you pay the price. But capacitors are even more vulnerable to production variances and I've never heard of a 1% tolerance capacitor.
So it just comes down to the fact that no matter what the manufacturer does (with current analog technology) there will be minor differences in sound between every amp.
A difference in transformers is probably an important reason players generally prefer a dual recto over the triple and why there is nearly a cult growing around 50 watt non-master volume Marshall amplifiers. Then again, the non-master volume aspect seems a bit extreme and might not automatically justify the sonic "purity" of such a such a circuit when weighted against the ability to get amp breakup at a much lower volume, for example.
eshithead said:
No offense, but your findings have little credibility to a musician's audience unless your test was controlled, recorded and double blind tested.
There's alot of factors that could have explained the alleged tone advantage you perceived.
The Roadster and the RK II are the same amps at the core. Therefore, it is quite possible that using your same testing methods you would have reached the same results if the two amps were both Roadsters.....
Then you'd say Roadster 1 wiped the floor with Roadster 2, or vice-versa
123thefirst
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eshithead said:
Don't underestimate the power of suggestion! Those little minds of yours and mine, though they be too often pathetic excuses for things that can control a mighty domain, can at times tap into immense creative power without even being conscious of it
kingster911
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MetalMatt said:
Strange.. I think the RKII sounds pretty **** open. At least because I have a combo. I think people like the Roadster because they're too lazy to understand the bliss of cabinet switching in the Road King, and because it's a little more affordable for a closed-back "tighter" sound. It does have a soundhole though, right?
TheSon
Well-known member
Taking this a bit broader, if you will induge me...
My first mesa was the 'Stiletto Duece I' earlier this year. I bought it as an appetiser because I ordered the RKII head initially but that did not come till the end of august so at the time in march they had a great deal on the Stiletto in the shop so I took that as well as the placed order that week.
Having the few months to play and get used to the stiletto I now find the RKII channel 1+2 and all of the modes therein sounding superb as described in reviews and most other litriture etc. however the channels 3+4 and all of the modes on those channels i find to be a bit looser and undefined compared to the higher gain modes like fluid drive/tite gain in the stiletto ... this takes into consideration diode rect. / bold power / all tube settings etc...
Running the stiletto i tend to have to run bass around to 2:00-3:00 and treble around 10:00-12:00 for balance where as the RKII seems to need the opposite like treble at 3:00 and bass at 9:30 and this still has nothing like the shaprpness or string definition of the stiletto ...
Since I am relatively new to boogie amp heads and each product represents a completely different area of appeal, is this just me needing to get used to the 'recto tone' of the RKII vs the dagger-brit modeling of the stiletto or should there be a middle ground that I cant achieve because my RKII has an issue with pre-amp tubes in those final two channels????
My thoughts were to try and swap in some pre-tubes from the stilleto into the RKII to see if there is a massive difference, thus indicating a bad tube ... but before i do so, anyone got any cool things to say or advise???
My first mesa was the 'Stiletto Duece I' earlier this year. I bought it as an appetiser because I ordered the RKII head initially but that did not come till the end of august so at the time in march they had a great deal on the Stiletto in the shop so I took that as well as the placed order that week.
Having the few months to play and get used to the stiletto I now find the RKII channel 1+2 and all of the modes therein sounding superb as described in reviews and most other litriture etc. however the channels 3+4 and all of the modes on those channels i find to be a bit looser and undefined compared to the higher gain modes like fluid drive/tite gain in the stiletto ... this takes into consideration diode rect. / bold power / all tube settings etc...
Running the stiletto i tend to have to run bass around to 2:00-3:00 and treble around 10:00-12:00 for balance where as the RKII seems to need the opposite like treble at 3:00 and bass at 9:30 and this still has nothing like the shaprpness or string definition of the stiletto ...
Since I am relatively new to boogie amp heads and each product represents a completely different area of appeal, is this just me needing to get used to the 'recto tone' of the RKII vs the dagger-brit modeling of the stiletto or should there be a middle ground that I cant achieve because my RKII has an issue with pre-amp tubes in those final two channels????
My thoughts were to try and swap in some pre-tubes from the stilleto into the RKII to see if there is a massive difference, thus indicating a bad tube ... but before i do so, anyone got any cool things to say or advise???
123thefirst
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TheSon said:
Pickups... The Road King will amplify whatever the characteristics really are of the pickups. If they lack definition, punch and bite you'll get none of that in your sound no matter what you do.
123thefirst said:
That is sooo true. I love how clearly the characteristics of each guitar comes out with the King. I am very blessed to have some mighty fine guitars. The King, for me, is the first of many fine tube amps I have owned that actually "amplifies" the tonal qualities of each guitar to the point where my wife easily knows by sound which guitar I am playing and which pickup combination. Now that is saying something!
Separately, couldn't find my heavy tone without progressive linkage. I love the mixed power section on channels 3 (vintage) and 4 (modern) but that's a personal preference thing.
What I didn't like about the RK IMHO was that in order for it to sound good you have to almost always in every channel have it in 2xEL34/4x6l6 diode rectified on. So in that regard having the option of using different tubes and diode/tube rectified to me is a waste of the rest of the amp. More isn't always better I've learned.
metal190
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******** is making me laugh. Pretty condescending little guy!
FWIW, I bought the Roadster only hearing the hype, and not the amp. I was pretty disappointed. Some one at the local boogie dealer convinced me to give the RK II a shot, and I just about had a heart attack when I heard it. Night and day difference.
With the Roadster (that I had), I could have the gain dimed and the sustain wouldn't last more than a second, and the tone was crap. I took the amp to the local Mesa tech, and he noticed the same thing but couldn't fix it - there weren't any determinable defects.
All that being said, I totally agree with past posts that the same amp can sound very different even with the same settings from day to day. But as much as the sound varies, I always LOVE the RK. Hearing how much other people love their roadsters, and even hearing some clips of other people's roadsters, I have come to the conclusion that mine was just a lemon, and the RK I picked up was anything but. I'm guessing that either the ******** guy got a lemon road king with similar problems as to what my roadster had, or he's trying to convince himself that it's okay to just have the roadster :wink: (heaven knows that upgrading to the RK just about broke the bank). I have owned both amps and can vouch for the fact that what ******** claims is far from the truth. I won't argue that all Roadsters suck, just that mine did. ******** might be better off making a similar argument about the Road King he tried out.
FWIW, I bought the Roadster only hearing the hype, and not the amp. I was pretty disappointed. Some one at the local boogie dealer convinced me to give the RK II a shot, and I just about had a heart attack when I heard it. Night and day difference.
With the Roadster (that I had), I could have the gain dimed and the sustain wouldn't last more than a second, and the tone was crap. I took the amp to the local Mesa tech, and he noticed the same thing but couldn't fix it - there weren't any determinable defects.
All that being said, I totally agree with past posts that the same amp can sound very different even with the same settings from day to day. But as much as the sound varies, I always LOVE the RK. Hearing how much other people love their roadsters, and even hearing some clips of other people's roadsters, I have come to the conclusion that mine was just a lemon, and the RK I picked up was anything but. I'm guessing that either the ******** guy got a lemon road king with similar problems as to what my roadster had, or he's trying to convince himself that it's okay to just have the roadster :wink: (heaven knows that upgrading to the RK just about broke the bank). I have owned both amps and can vouch for the fact that what ******** claims is far from the truth. I won't argue that all Roadsters suck, just that mine did. ******** might be better off making a similar argument about the Road King he tried out.
metal190
Well-known member
BTW, I love how the forum censored where I referenced esh$thead. :lol:
The RoadKings/Roadsters are a marketing fad. The Mark series will be here to stay. The plain Dual/Triple Rec. heads will stay as well. I feel that sometimes Mesa OVER-engineers some of their amps trying to give you so much flexibility that something is lost a long the way. I think people need to realize that most of us use the phrase IMHO a lot and opinions are like a$$holes- everyone has one. Don't attack opinions.
