NAD: Mesa Boogie MKIII No Stripe/Black Dot DRGX

I was hunting something like this for a long time - started out fixated on a IIC+ (which may happen down the track) and had my old MKIII Blue Stripe to go on (which I sold and regretted almost immediately! haha).


After a couple phone calls to Mesa I decided to go for this. 

She came to me in great shape, minus a speaker, but I had a spare EVM12L and whipped up a speaker cable. 


Sounds great into the EV or into my 4x12 Greenback Marshall straightfront and my Soldano Creamback UK75 4x12 Straightfront. Running STR45 6L6's inside and Sovtek EL34's outside and I have all three pedals with her - R1/Lead, R1/R2 and EQ/Reverb.


Right - the comparison to the Blue Stripe.


The consensus seemed to be that the IIC+ is IT in terms of feel. 

I can definitely hear and feel a difference with this No Stripe/Black Dot to the Blue Stripe. 

This one is more old school/organic sounding on Clean and R2. Easily cranks out Brown Sound Van Halen on R2 with that awesome toothiness going on. 

Great texture to the drive and very responsive to the picking hand and volume knob, more than my old Blue Stripe and this No/Black is fatter sounding too.

The Lead channel still gets into that vicious grind that the Blue did - it's f*cking brutal for metal/modern alternative rock. I prefer the Lead sound on this No/Black to my Blue and my MKIV as well as the JP2C I tried out. 


I'm currently teeing up a custom headshell with one of the Grailtone/Boogie Board forum guys. Keen for that. In the meantime here's my little boat anchor of tone!

Nice!!! Congrats dude!!! Someday I'm planning on picking up a Blue stripe.

Congrats!

That export PT is supposedly the same that went into the C+ exports, as well as the SC output trans. The black/no stripe is rumored to be the closest to the C+ for that reason.

Awesome amp!! Congrats!! I've got a Blue Stripe, and have been keeping an eye out for a Black Stripe, maybe a Green and/or a Red Stripe, too. This doesn't help much...

Enjoy that beast!!

Congratulations! Love the Mark series and I'm glad to see folks being happy with them.

Racerxrated":3ecfj0sh said:

Congrats!

That export PT is supposedly the same that went into the C+ exports, as well as the SC output trans. The black/no stripe is rumored to be the closest to the C+ for that reason.

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Correct.
And there's about 5 components with different values in the preamp, so really it's the closest thing out there to a three channel IIC+.

ChurchHill":34frk5q5 said:

Awesome amp!! Congrats!! I've got a Blue Stripe, and have been keeping an eye out for a Black Stripe, maybe a Green and/or a Red Stripe, too. This doesn't help much...

Enjoy that beast!!

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Blue Stripe, Red, Green, Black no Stripe, WTF I can't afford all these Stripes

LOL! Well, there are Purple Stripes, too. The Blue Stripe is supposedly the most aggressive. Since that's the only one I have at the moment, I can't compare directly, but it's what I've heard. The Black Stripes are, as mentioned above, really close to the IIC+. Red Stripes are a variation on the theme (could be wrong, but I think the preamp is closer to the IIC+ while the power amp is farther away compared to the Black Stripe). Green Stripes are very close to Blue Stripes, but the pair of tubes that run in Class A are wired as pentodes instead of triodes. Purple Stripes are supposedly the least aggressive of the lot. Again, just my understanding and I've been known to be wrong.

Mostly, I just love the Mark Series. First amp I was ever happy with after going through 15 amps in 7.5 years and I've been playing them for almost 25 years now. Of course, I want them all! The bottom line is that the differences are pretty minor and they're all great amps!

Congrats!...

Don't sell it.

MetalHeadMike":2fcyy2da said:

ChurchHill":2fcyy2da said:

Awesome amp!! Congrats!! I've got a Blue Stripe, and have been keeping an eye out for a Black Stripe, maybe a Green and/or a Red Stripe, too. This doesn't help much...

Enjoy that beast!!

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Blue Stripe, Red, Green, Black no Stripe, WTF I can't afford all these Stripes

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They are like Pokemon... gotta catch them all.

LOL!

I picked up a Blue stripe MkIII a couple of years ago and have enjoyed it quite a bit. I just bought a Black stripe two days ago off ebay, waiting for it to come in. I'm curious how different they are. I'm guessing differences are more in the subtle range than anything really major.

Right now, I have a hair-brained scheme to rackmount the two amps and treat them as two preamps and use both power sections as a stereo power amp. It should work find if I don't run into too many noise issues. (I kept looking at Quad preamps and associated power amps, and thought I'd get something very similar with just adding another MkIII, for less than either a Quad or power amp typically go for......certainly won't hurt to try it!)

I've thought very seriously about doing the same thing. Then again, I have a Quad/295 and a Studio/395. Still thinking about it, though. It would be 6 channels instead of the Quad's 5 (including the mixed one on the Quad). OTOH, I rarely use the 2nd channel of the Mark III. It would be a pretty heavy rack in both weight and sound. Maybe someday... it is an interesting thought.

If I had a Quad and a 295 or 395 I wouldn't bother. I only went this route as I already had a MkIII, so it just takes another to put this thing together.

I really consider it four preamp channels. I've treated the MkIII primarily as a two channel amp with a crunch channel and a lead channel. I'll leave things that way and set up a clean channel on the second and probably a second lead of some sort. I don't really need more than four channels at a time.

Right now I'm trying to figure out if I can use a Y-cable of some sort to switch EQ sections on/off on the power sections as I'll always want them to be synced. The switching on this may take some effort to figure out.

I had a Black Dot 105 tranny and sent it to Mike for a ++ mod. I regret selling that amp. It absolutely stomped on a JP amp it sat next too. I sold the JP two days after getting it. The no stripe had a massive punch and footprint. Insane amp!

Congrats on the amp

rstites":2hr8c5bc said:

If I had a Quad and a 295 or 395 I wouldn't bother. I only went this route as I already had a MkIII, so it just takes another to put this thing together.

I really consider it four preamp channels. I've treated the MkIII primarily as a two channel amp with a crunch channel and a lead channel. I'll leave things that way and set up a clean channel on the second and probably a second lead of some sort. I don't really need more than four channels at a time.

Right now I'm trying to figure out if I can use a Y-cable of some sort to switch EQ sections on/off on the power sections as I'll always want them to be synced. The switching on this may take some effort to figure out.

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Hey, if you get this figured out, I'd love to hear it. I set mine up the same way, really just a two channel amp. I also thought about doing this with a Mark III and a Mark IV, just to have some slightly different voices.

I think that a Y cable would work, but I'm not sure... I'd need to look at the schematics and how their switching is set up. Another option would be to get one of those 4 channel switchers from Voodoo Lab. I've got one in the back of my Quad, then just run it via MIDI. If I did the two amp thing, I'd probably want to get a little fancier, like being able to run either or both at the same time. So, I'd need a switcher and a small mixer, anyway.

Anyway, FWIW, if you ever want to compare notes, or amps (I'd be curious to hear how the Black Stripe holds up against the Blue Stripe), just let me know. I'd be more than willing to bring a few amps along and meet up some evening or weekend. Since you're down in OP, I'm up in LVN, so less than an hour away.

ChurchHill":t2ekhk6q said:

Hey, if you get this figured out, I'd love to hear it. I set mine up the same way, really just a two channel amp. I also thought about doing this with a Mark III and a Mark IV, just to have some slightly different voices.

I think that a Y cable would work, but I'm not sure... I'd need to look at the schematics and how their switching is set up. Another option would be to get one of those 4 channel switchers from Voodoo Lab. I've got one in the back of my Quad, then just run it via MIDI. If I did the two amp thing, I'd probably want to get a little fancier, like being able to run either or both at the same time. So, I'd need a switcher and a small mixer, anyway.

Anyway, FWIW, if you ever want to compare notes, or amps (I'd be curious to hear how the Black Stripe holds up against the Blue Stripe), just let me know. I'd be more than willing to bring a few amps along and meet up some evening or weekend. Since you're down in OP, I'm up in LVN, so less than an hour away.

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I'll keep that in mind as I work away on it. I have Voodoo Labs GCX that I plan to use for all the switching, if I can. I'll probably only have 3-4 pedals on a rack tray with this setup, and then the rest of amp switching.

The Black stripe is a combo, but I managed to score a rackmount kit on Reverb for it. I have two of the old vertical 2x12 cabinets - the ones with the metal faces. I need to think about speakers for them. Anyone have recommendations/favorites for speakers matched with MkIII's? I like the Black Shadow C90's that came in the one. I also like them matched up with my old Marshall 4x12s with G12-65s. I'm open to other ideas though.

rstites":498sqxgq said:

ChurchHill":498sqxgq said:

Hey, if you get this figured out, I'd love to hear it. I set mine up the same way, really just a two channel amp. I also thought about doing this with a Mark III and a Mark IV, just to have some slightly different voices.

I think that a Y cable would work, but I'm not sure... I'd need to look at the schematics and how their switching is set up. Another option would be to get one of those 4 channel switchers from Voodoo Lab. I've got one in the back of my Quad, then just run it via MIDI. If I did the two amp thing, I'd probably want to get a little fancier, like being able to run either or both at the same time. So, I'd need a switcher and a small mixer, anyway.

Anyway, FWIW, if you ever want to compare notes, or amps (I'd be curious to hear how the Black Stripe holds up against the Blue Stripe), just let me know. I'd be more than willing to bring a few amps along and meet up some evening or weekend. Since you're down in OP, I'm up in LVN, so less than an hour away.

Click to expand...

I'll keep that in mind as I work away on it. I have Voodoo Labs GCX that I plan to use for all the switching, if I can. I'll probably only have 3-4 pedals on a rack tray with this setup, and then the rest of amp switching.

The Black stripe is a combo, but I managed to score a rackmount kit on Reverb for it. I have two of the old vertical 2x12 cabinets - the ones with the metal faces. I need to think about speakers for them. Anyone have recommendations/favorites for speakers matched with MkIII's? I like the Black Shadow C90's that came in the one. I also like them matched up with my old Marshall 4x12s with G12-65s. I'm open to other ideas though.

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I liked the version with the C90 on top open back and EV in the bottom. Just a huge sounding cab for the size...

I'll vote for the EVM12L, too. Classic combination with the C90. I've used mine with G12K100 and a stock Uberkab with V30s and T75s. Sounded great with both, but I'm not usually a fan of V30s. I really like the G12-65s, too. My favorite with the Mark series is the EV, though.