Blackout rectifier vs IIC+

[Metal1977]

Like Forman65 said, the most agressive, tightest of all rectos is the Rev C, no contest. It's the closest to the Mark series in tightness. Mesa tweaked the rectos over the time to be smoother and bigger, revisions after revisions.

exo-metal, you had the most brutal recto years ago, too bad you didn't knew about the boost trick.

I was late to the party too, i think i learned it in one of Ola Englund first youtube clips. Man, it was a revelation, i can't do without it!

 

[fretout]

Like Forman65 said, the most agressive, tightest of all rectos is the Rev C, no contest. It's the closest to the Mark series in tightness. Mesa tweaked the rectos over the time to be smoother and bigger, revisions after revisions.

exo-metal, you had the most brutal recto years ago, too bad you didn't knew about the boost trick.

I was late to the party too, i think i learned it in one of Ola Englund first youtube clips. Man, it was a revelation, i can't do without it!

I agree. The Rectos were really tight all the way up to Rev. E, where they became a little darker sounding. Among other things, the Rev. Cs and Rev. Ds used the same OTs that were being loaded into the Mark IIIs...until Mesa ran out of them.

 

[fretout]

so what is the point of the blackout anyway.

On the reborns, it is purely cosmetic.

As to the older revisions, I'm not sure if it there is a difference on the black-face models. I've only played one, a triple, and it was one of the best rectos I've played.

To be direct, no, there wasn't a tonal change between a Revision C with a Black face, and a Revision C with a Chrome face. They were both made using the same components, but the Black face Rectos are much more prevalent the earlier revisions, and they typically shipped with an aqua-colored pilot light.

I even saw a chrome face with a chrome chassis a few times on Revision Cs, but I owned factory-spec black-faced Rectos all the way up to Revision G (the last 2 channel Revision).

 

[Big Rich]

mesa used the Schumacher OT's on the revision C through F recto's. The rev G was the recto without the Schumacher tranny. The board revisions were the difference on C through F .

I own the C, E and F dual. They are all very similar. All are tight. the presence knob on the C goes to extreme and actually makes the amp seem brighter. Id say out of all of them the C is the most different because of that. You have that little bit of extra control.

The C+ is a beast of an amplifier. Probably my favorite I own. Its a feel thing aside from the sound you need to experience to understand. The JP is scary close.

 

[Metal1977]

By the way, just to clear something up about the Schumacher output transformers change in some of the later Rev F and G. Mesa made a request to Schumacher for an improved transformer, because the old ones were unstable and blowing up some boards.

I tried both OT with the same amps, it didn't change a damn thing!

Mesa didn't ran out of the old magic ones and switch to the new "shitty" ones, like some people were leading others to believe

 

[Snave]

mesa used the Schumacher OT's on the revision C through F recto's. The rev G was the recto without the Schumacher tranny. The board revisions were the difference on C through F .

False. Literally all 2 channel Dual Rectos have Schumacher transformers. Even the first 3 channel Rectifier had them. They transitioned to using 561140 PT and 562105 OT when the Mark IVB was introduced in 1993, incidentally during the production of Revision F Rectifiers. There's nothing special about the older 562100 OT transformers (as used in some Mark IIIs and the IVA) other than having a higher failure rate, like Metal1977 said above.