IMO the Mav is a less known secret weapon amp with way more versatility than what first appears to the eyes. Can't think of a time I've played out with it that a tone compliment did not come from somebody. I like lower gain bluesy sounds. There is more than enough gain for my needs available on either channel.
There is plenty of clean headroom in my experience, using the bright switch on the clean channel is what Mesa intended for that.
Have found when using 12ax7 in v1 and v4, that a lower setting, like no more than 10:00 on the clean volume knob and a more aggressive setting on the clean master knob will give good head......room. :wink: I found that rolling vintage preamp tubes in that clean channel will help the bright sound to be fatter like the fat side of the switch. The fat side of the switch took care of itself after I voiced for the clean side.
Getting the lead channel to sound what I like was more of a challenge. Again, tube rolling saved the day, not only the preamp tubes, but choosing a fat sounding set of power tubes helped the lead channel, and use less bass settings on the clean as a result was great as far as helping the amp to not work as hard at higher volumes...
Am currently using a little known quad of Russion 6p14p-ev 5000 hour rated military tubes with a 5v4 rectifier to keep them running less hot than when using 5ar4. This tube type can be had for lots more money per set when they are called the Harma el84 at Watford Valves... :wink: They are found with Russian military labeling at screaming deal prices on eBay. They use a thicker, leaded glass bottle, and only the NOS RFT German el84's are as fat in the bottle as these Russians are. They also, like the 7189, are rated at 400 volts, so unlike some of the 300 volt rated NOS el84 (GE!) they are long lived at the 375 plate volts found in the Mav.
Found that voicing the power section for the lead channel was best, and the already voiced clean took care of itself as a result. By power section I am referring to power tubes, output tranny, and speakers. I did not care for the Celestion Vintage 30 in my 2/12 either. They seemed dark at low volumes and bright at high volumes, so out they came. Left the stock output tranny in it, but did lots of speaker rolling. I know Lyman was successful in rolling speakers for a 1/12 setup. I am happy with the pair of speakers I have found, but may take one out and try a mixed pair for a more broad bandwidth.
I think that it is hard to find an amp that sounds as good as the Maverick when it comes to settings that are on the fence between clean and dirty, clean at a gentle touch and dirty digging in. When I took it to an open stage blues jam recently where all the guitar players were very seasoned and skilled, the sound man (who has heard tons of players) came up and gave me a huge tone compliment of my SD Seth Lover equipped Heritage 555. I gave credit to the Maverick for expressing that guitar.
