Comparing the oldest Dual Rectifer to the newest one. Rev C vs. MultiWatt.

braintheory said:
No, they don’t have imo more gain or compression. If anything my BL has less of both. That’s just how vintage vs newer gear tends to compare most of the time. To my ears it’s the nuances and details in tone I hear as the difference, but maybe that’s what you and others mean by clarity. I’ve always disagreed with the imo idiotic ideas that no one else will notice the difference or once it’s a band you won’t notice. Even the drunk guys who don’t play an instrument hear it. The only difference between them and us is that we’re just more aware of what we’re hearing, so with them it’ll just be the difference of whether they liked it or not (which is huge and can’t be underappreciated), while guys like us can just explain better why it was working or not
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But is it new parts . What is actually happening. Or do they just think that’s better so they design them to sound that way . It just seems to happen to all the mesas thst get redone. I don’t count badlander . It sounds like a whole new amp to me . I love it
 
Techdeth said:
But is it new parts . What is actually happening. Or do they just think that’s better so they design them to sound that way . It just seems to happen to all the mesas thst get redone. I don’t count badlander . It sounds like a whole new amp to me . I love it
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I don’t know and not sure if even the more technical guys really know, but the ears don’t lie. It’s not just with Mesa, but IME with all these brands including Bogner, Diezel, Soldano and Marshall. They all used to have much better sounding amps. It’s a shame. I find these same differences to be even bigger with speakers, pickups, pedals and guitars
 
Re clarity- I have thought in the past that it was an issue with modern components, then I'd thought that it may have to do with the dramatic reduction in filtering. Then, I got a (simple single channel) California Tweed and they nailed it with clarity & touch sensitivity, so now I'm just not sure. All that leaves is perhaps it's because most new amps are overly-complicated circuits.
 
GJgo said:
Re clarity- I have thought in the past that it was an issue with modern components, then I'd thought that it may have to do with the dramatic reduction in filtering. Then, I got a (simple single channel) California Tweed and they nailed it with clarity & touch sensitivity, so now I'm just not sure. All that leaves is perhaps it's because most new amps are overly-complicated circuits.
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I think we just don’t really know. My guess would be maybe just aging or some components. I’ve heard for example that formvar wire in vintage pickups isn’t the same now and that nitro finish back in the day had different ingredients that you can’t get today. I’ve had plenty of very simple, expensive ptp boutique amps made today that still had that flatter, new amp sound to me, while my pcb and more complex iic+ and very complex ‘90’s Diezel’s for whatever reason sound and feel more alive to me. Fwiw, the California Tweed to me still has that newer amp sound. I’ve even had quite a few amps from the ‘50’s & ‘60’s where the tranny’s weren’t original, and while it may have sounded a little worse, still to me overall had that lively vintage sound
 
GJgo said:
I had a BL100 for a couple weeks. No interest in buying another, great amp for rock and surprisingly good liquid lead but WAY too thin for me.

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Definitely thin vs any of the Recto's, but vs most of my other amps I find it to be pretty solid in thickness. Not sure if those were your exact settings shown in that comparison vid, but I find the BL really fills up more once it's around 10 o clock or more (rather than 9 o clock). I also set the bass up pretty high since it seems to be able to handle it and stay tight. I definitely see it not being for everyone, but especially with my Fortin TS808 boosting it, I find it to have some of the most aggressive grind and growl of all my amps. I just still don't like that inherent flatter, new amp sound of it lol, but no amp seems to have it all. I'm happy though to at least have one or 2 keepers like the BL that are replaceable and not too pricy
 
GJgo said:
...The Rev Gs OTOH, while I get they are the sound of the 90s, are just a bit too bloated in the ass for the sound I'm going for- even boosted. Here's a good example vs a MW.

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In this vid I much preffered the tone of the Mark V and the Multiwatt recto. I guess I just like that modern sound better?? It's mostly the more smoothed out top end that I like. Sounds more musical to my ears.
 
braintheory said:
I don’t know and not sure if even the more technical guys really know, but the ears don’t lie. It’s not just with Mesa, but IME with all these brands including Bogner, Diezel, Soldano and Marshall. They all used to have much better sounding amps. It’s a shame. I find these same differences to be even bigger with speakers, pickups, pedals and guitars
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TOTALLY true.
 
anomaly said:
Try it with 6l6's
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I did, hated it.

To be clear, I think the Badlander with EL34s has fantastic tone both rhythm & lead- it was just too thin for me personally. I need my tone to punish you in the chest.

However, with 6L6 it lost what I liked about the tone.
 
Cool riff and cool playing. Thanks for sharing.

If I could make a suggestion to make it better? Do the 1 minute riff comparison first and then the 3 minutes of talking :D
 
311splawndude said:
Cool riff and cool playing. Thanks for sharing.

If I could make a suggestion to make it better? Do the 1 minute riff comparison first and then the 3 minutes of talking :D
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Thanks. That's why I put the time stamps at the top of the description, so guys can go straight there! I see your point though, many people don't read.
 
GJgo said:
Thanks. That's why I put the time stamps at the top of the description, so guys can go straight there! I see your point though, many people don't read.
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It's all good bro. I couldn't do it, so it was strictly constructive. You have a ton of awesome clips out there. I don't.

For me, I have a super short attention span. If I'm not drawn in in the first 10 or 20 seconds....I'm out. For me, I'm just running the YT players right off of R-T on my laptop. If it is awesome and something I'm looking to purchase or know more about I may read the info, listen to the descriptions, look at time stamps, etc etc. Again - all good.
 
That makes sense for the RT embedded players, hadn't thought of that. Good advice.

I can promise you one thing though on my channel- good tone or bad, you will NEVER have to look at a video thumbnail of me with an expression on my face that looks like a guy who just saw the dick he's about to take.
 
braintheory said:
I don’t know and not sure if even the more technical guys really know, but the ears don’t lie. It’s not just with Mesa, but IME with all these brands including Bogner, Diezel, Soldano and Marshall. They all used to have much better sounding amps. It’s a shame. I find these same differences to be even bigger with speakers, pickups, pedals and guitars
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Some people here would call it cork sniffing, but EVERY TIME I hear a better tone with the vintage amps. And, it's not just the unobtanium early Recto, 60-70s Marshalls etc that are super spendy. Take a 1K drip edge Bassman....put any 2 boost pedals in front(or a Dist pedal) and it will give you GREAT clarity and tone, that will be in many cases better than 90% of newer amps. You may need a tighter amp, one with a loop etc but I'd bet that boosted Bassman will just plain sound better than most modern amps. Some exceptions like a Naylor which seems to have a vintage/modern vibe but for the most part vintage always wins. It's either aging of the components or caps/resistors/transformers that just aren't available anymore.
Either way, it's a real thing from my experience.
 
Racerxrated said:
Some people here would call it cork sniffing, but EVERY TIME I hear a better tone with the vintage amps. And, it's not just the unobtanium early Recto, 60-70s Marshalls etc that are super spendy. Take a 1K drip edge Bassman....put any 2 boost pedals in front(or a Dist pedal) and it will give you GREAT clarity and tone, that will be in many cases better than 90% of newer amps. You may need a tighter amp, one with a loop etc but I'd bet that boosted Bassman will just plain sound better than most modern amps. Some exceptions like a Naylor which seems to have a vintage/modern vibe but for the most part vintage always wins. It's either aging of the components or caps/resistors/transformers that just aren't available anymore.
Either way, it's a real thing from my experience.
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Those are the kind of amps (the bassman I mean) I'd recommend to one that's open minded and on a budget. Most will maybe look at things like a Friedman Runt, Splawn, EVH, Fireball or whatever, but there's much more inspiring, expressive sounding older gear in that price range aka more fun to be had! I remember earlier in my gear journey (about 9 of 10 years ago now) I had so much Splawn gas since they had so much hype back then and the descriptions of it sounded perfect for me (boy was I dumb lol), so I found one locally on Craigslist (a Quick Rod), was very excited, tried it out at the guy's place and then I felt very awkward since I was so let down and wasn't sure how to exit smoothly lol, but luckily he was a super cool guy and was all fine. He then brought out his '60's Fender Bandmaster (which wasn't for sale). He let me try it cranked up and I was like yeah I totally get now why you're selling the Splawn and not this lol. So much more raw, live, full frequency, much more full, authentic roar on chords. Like a blanket was lifted (but not in terms of being brighter or darker, just the way the way the notes came out and all the details). He didn't even have a boost type pedal there, but I could already imagine it at the time in my head. At least I figured out this trend relatively early, but still took a good amount of time and money to realize
 
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GJgo said:
Re clarity- I have thought in the past that it was an issue with modern components, then I'd thought that it may have to do with the dramatic reduction in filtering. Then, I got a (simple single channel) California Tweed and they nailed it with clarity & touch sensitivity, so now I'm just not sure. All that leaves is perhaps it's because most new amps are overly-complicated circuits.
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It's a mystery, but a beautiful mystery
 
Racerxrated said:
Some people here would call it cork sniffing, but EVERY TIME I hear a better tone with the vintage amps. And, it's not just the unobtanium early Recto, 60-70s Marshalls etc that are super spendy. Take a 1K drip edge Bassman....put any 2 boost pedals in front(or a Dist pedal) and it will give you GREAT clarity and tone, that will be in many cases better than 90% of newer amps. You may need a tighter amp, one with a loop etc but I'd bet that boosted Bassman will just plain sound better than most modern amps. Some exceptions like a Naylor which seems to have a vintage/modern vibe but for the most part vintage always wins. It's either aging of the components or caps/resistors/transformers that just aren't available anymore.
Either way, it's a real thing from my experience.
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These are I think the toughest mysteries for more technical guys to figure out. I would still bet money though that if we hypothetically swapped all the caps/resistors/transformers in a '50's/'60's vintage amps (if all original) with those of a modern amp, that the modern amp will still overall sound like a modern amp and the vintage one still overall like a vintage amp, but each I think would just get more in the opposite direction of what they are. Just my guess based on having vintage amps with some of those replacements. I think the '50's Gibson GA-40 I had had both tranny's replaced with newer ones, newer Jensen speaker too, not sure about tubes/caps/resistors (I'm guessing some of those were likely replaced also), but the overall package still sounded like a '50's amp to me, just not as good as others I've played of those models, but I wouldn't mistake it for a recent made amp
 
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