Amp Advice Wanted

[Avi8r2005]

At that time I had the Mark V for six years and all three channels sounded great when I had the master up around noon. The clean and crunch were great, channel three really needed to be turned up to sound the way I liked it.

I always felt like I was adjusting the knobs. I had great tubes in there and played through a couple Bogner cabs. When I got the EVH 5150 III 50 watt, there was that instant satisfaction. It was easy to play and just sounds good. But it is not as versatile as the Mark V. I traded the Mark V for a EVH 5150 III 100 watt. It is a great amp, but it is large and really needs to be turned up.

The band I recently joined does not play loud and plays many genres of music.

I am thinking a Bogner Shiva might be perfect.

That's exactly my thoughts on the Mark V. I picked up a 5150 50 watt a few months ago and love the instant gratification you get with it. I still have my Mark V and kicking around the notion of selling it. I like the amp but the last time I played thru it I found I spent more time fiddle fucking with the eq and not really playing. It's a great amp when dialed in correctly and that Mark sound is very unique. Im finding I like a lot simpler amps with very less options.

 

[glip22]

That's what I'm talking about! Cool rig. Those Bogner pedals just look so...inviting. I just want to tinker with one.

What's your take on the differences between the two, if I may ask?

Prior to the Bogner pedals....I was searching. Loved the thick muscular clean tone of the HRDLX but never quite satisfied with any pedal tone for overdrive. Now, I'm still stunned with these pedals. Sold off a Single Rect, Classic 50, Marshall JMP. All were wonderful amps but seemed to do one thing great and lacked in another area. I love simplicity.

The Blue is great, light to medium gain with lots of knobs to mess with. The Red....oh the Red. Full out ROCK!

If I ever got another rig, it would probably be a Bogner Shiva. But this is so great at a fraction of the cost.

I have been considering the Bogner Shiva

That's what I was going to suggest. The 20th will cover you.

 

[Speeddemon]

Let me throw two curveballs (although possibly loud and big
Engl Invader 100
Fryette Sig:X

Both capable of very lush and chimey cleans, nice break up tones, good crunch and medium gain rock as well as sustaining leads.
The Invader is 4 channels, but with the Z9 footswitch you can program the Lo/Hi Gain boost under 1 footswitch, giving you access to 8 basic tones!

The Sig:X is 3 channels (each with 3 modes, like the Mark V), and each channel has a footswitchable boost too, giving you 6 tones (practically 5, as the boost function on the clean channel is too loud, as the clean channel is pretty much a HiWatt meets Fender no-master-voume). The cool thing about the Sig:X footswitch is that it remembers your boost setting per channel! Less tap-dancing.

and maybe a Mesa Boogie DC-5? 2 channels, but with a switchable crunch/rhythm mode on channel 1. 6L6 tubes.
Other than that, the EVH 50W will do it, but you'd need some MIDI gear to counter the volume drop when you have the green channel with the gain below 12 'o clock.