Splain to me the difference in a Caliber 50+ and a Mark

[Nomad]

What be the differences in that amp and say a Mark II or III?

As I been looking for a Boogie to buy these dont seem that different when using as a two channel amp (aside from the power section differences). A Mark III I'd be using it clean and when switching to Lead would use the Graphic to allow for different EQ settings and would be doing the same (looks like) with a Caliber Plus.

I know these seem a lot cheaper than say a II, III, or even a DC-5.

Just thinking out loud.

 

[rgx612a]

I'm not quite sure? but i've got a Mark III coming so i'll know soon.

From the clips i've heard though (of the mk III), it seems the .50 cal + is a little darker, and maybe more loose, raw sounding? Nails that Corrosion Of Conformity tone for sure. It's a Great amp, especially for the price they go for. You can't go wrong IMO.

 

[user 7737]

well... it's a good question...

the mark series is more versatile (as i can see it on "paper", i didn't try those amps)... with a mark II, i think you can switch from 50W to 100W... with the mark IIC there's a graphic eq...

the mark III seem to be similar to the cal 50+ but there's 2 lead channel...

if someone can complete the description :wink:

i'm sure there's, of course, tonal differences between all those amps

the major problem with the cal 50+ is that both channels use the same EQ, it reduces a lot his versatility, i think... but i like it a lot

when i think about it, maybe you can resume it like that : you can adapt a mark to your taste.. but you have to adapt your taste to your caliber :mrgreen:

 

[phyrexia]

50Cal+ uses a lot smaller transformers than Mark amps. The 50 Cal + I played sounded great though.

 

[Nomad]

i'm sure there's, of course, tonal differences between all those amps

the major problem with the cal 50+ is that both channels use the same EQ, it reduces a lot his versatility, i think... but i like it a lot

How does a 50+ have less EQ than a II or III? Pull pots?

The 50 pluses I have seen have the 5 band eq.

I would really like a Mark III but have been thinking a DC5 might be more in my budget but the 50+ is even cheaper. My finances arent quite as good as I'd hoped. $800.00 is my budget including shipping regardless. For now anyway.

 

[user 7737]

there's one pull pots on the 50+ to change the channel.. that's it...

all the 50+ have the graphic EQ...

as everybody says in that case, the best is to try... of course it's not that easy to try amp out of production :?

as i said somewhere else on this forum, i didn't try the DC5, but, when i see the specs, there's separate EQ for both channels... it can helps...

it's not that easy to have a goo clean and a good lead only by stomping the footswitch... you have to make compromise between the channels... if you use only the lead channel you have to try both and choose the tone you prefer...

that's all i can say with my little experience... there's many people here that have a lot more experiences than me...

but i think that both sounds really good.. common' we're speaking about mesa here !! :wink:

 

[Nomad]

I understand the DC-5 has seperate EQ for both channels but a Mark II or III realy dosnt unless you count all the Pull Pots correct?

 

[Nomad]

I dont know if it would work out using both channels.

I would need it to though I use a Tele and getting a clean sound would be easy. Getting a Good Dirty sound would be the hard part. I would like a darker sear classic Boogie solo sound. The gain adjustment is sort of there and using the GEQ would allow me to affect both gain and eq of the lead sound.

The thing that concerns me is of the ones I have looked at they dont have a lead channel preamp gain volume control seperate. So getting that classic Boogie solo sound with the gain dimed would probably severly affect the clean sound IE (not being so clean). Though if I could get a great crunch out of the clean channel I could get my clean by turning my guitar volume down (which would be fine) and still get the solo sound I wanted.

 

[phyrexia]

Have you ever played an F50?

 

[user 7737]

if you wanna hear a F50 you can check this :

http://www.myspace.com/innerdeathexperience

 

[Nomad]

Have you ever played an F50?

Have not but I have played a DC-5 and an Express 5/50.

I suppose an F50 would be an option also.

I may have run up on a deal on a Mark III Combo Blue Stripe with EV, EQ, Reverb, and Simulclass. It semi local to me and not a bad price. My Wife is a little hot under the collar after I told her I needed some extra cash for a deal I might do. I love her though.

 

[edward]

Hi Nomad,

I like the .50cal ...sounds good, solid bottom, pleasing mids and defined highs; why not, it's the DC's predecessor. But if I really needed channel switching, the DC wins hands down. Nothing wrong with a caliber so long as you get one with a GEQ. And sure you can still channel switch, but it takes a bit more tweaking/fiddling to get the shared eq-ing and push/pulls just so for both channels. Solid amps with great tone, but just isn't as versatile as a DC3,5,10, IMHO. The fact that the DCs are just a bit more $$ than the cals is icing.

Marks, OTOH, just have a different voice. Even withing the Marks, each series differs from one another. I love my MKIII, but for very diff reasons than I love my DC ...which is why both are keepers! Also, Marks are another incremental increase in price.

Edward

 

[rvschulz]

from my perspective - the .50 cal + is an awesome "one trick at a time" pony ... high-gain to jazz it will do it all. just one at a time. I got tired of having 3 different boost/distortion pedals on my board to go from a nice clean to other places without the stacked gain channel taking my head off.

The Mark III I had could replicate the .50+ - with the R2 mod it was easily a 2+channel amp - R1->R2 R1->Lead ... I thought R2->Lead fizzled. Unfortunately for my Mark III, my Lonestar came through at the same time and when I started playing it ... well the Mark III is sold.

If I was more high gain, the Mark III could really rock that - so did the .50+. I will miss one of them.

 

[scottcrud]

MKIII= pretty good clean channel, awesome lead channel, so so r-2 channel.

.50 Cal+ : The channels are "shared" so you can have EITHER a great clean channel OR a great lead channel. I'm a metal player so i have a great sounding Lead channel. Subsequently my clean channel sound like Angus Youngs tone. Also, a .50 cal+ is in reality not really 50 watts, the transformers are tiny it puts out more like 35 watts. The problem is you get a killer tone with the master volume at 3 and the amp volume at 10, but if you want to turn up the master volume to say 5-7 the amp otally compresses and sounds like crap, where-as with the Master Vol under 5 it sounds great.
Put it next to a 60 watt MKIII or 50 watt Marshall or 50 watt Traynor and you'll get the picture of what I'm saying, the .50cal+ gets buried by any of those 50 watt amps.
I was so in love with my 50 cal tone that I took mine to Kendrick amps and had them put 100 watt output and power transformers in mine, it runs on 2 -6550's now and can keep up with any 50 or 100 watt amp out there.

 

[user 7737]

****... i put the gain at 3-4 and the master at 3 and it really screams... wow... i tried it last night in gig situation... amazing... in fact my problem now is that sometime this amp is too loud...

and i use both channel... i made a compromise between both... and it work really fine...

 

[scottcrud]

That was my setting, but I was buried since the other guitar player in my band was using a MKIII with the same volume settings...

 

[user 7737]

buried ? you mean the mark was so loud tat you didn't hear your cal50 or it mean that your cal50 didn't cut trough the mix anymore ?

i really don't want a more powerfull amp... sometimes i got the felling that my settings "choke" the amp... but it's impossible to play it louder or i make the ears of my bandmates bleed...

 

[scottcrud]

It got buried, because it didn't cut well with the MKIII. Also probably because of my settings. In a one guitar player band I had no problems, but in a two guitarist band it disappeared.

 

[rgx612a]

Hmmm...Pepper Keenan runs two of them in COC while the other guitarist runs two dual rectifiers. If two cal +'s can stand against two 100 watt rectos, i'd say it's loud enough.

Honestly, It's not the loudest 50 watts tube i've heard, it's not like a Marshall 2204 or something... but it's not the weakest either.

Personally, i prefer the master a notch or two higher than the lead volume... sounds the thickest that way. So if the leads at 3, i'll have the master at 4.5 or so. Sounds tight and punchy all the way up till about 7 or 8 on the master, with the lead volume at about 6, and at that point there's more than enough volume to cut.

 

[scottcrud]

You're right about COC, but they're a professional touring band with a soundman for the front of the venue and a monitor soundman for the stage sound, I'm pretty sure they don't have to run their amps as loud as a local band who doesn't have the benefit of having separate monitors for each guitar in front of them etc. I've been using mine since 1991 and I'm talking from experience. I've also owned a Marshall 2205 and a Traynor YSR-1 both 50 watt heads that just annihilated my .50 cal volume wise. I don't have to worry about volume issues anymore with mine because of the before mentioned modifications. If it's loud enough in the stock state for you guys then GREAT, but it wasn't loud enough for me.