JKingV2
Member
Just picked this amp up and holy smokes it rocks. I used to be a Marshall guy and I still love the old 80's JCM 800 thrash sound a lot of the Bay area thrash bands got with that amp. I even owned the Kerry King signature JCM800 with a 1960A slant cab loaded with V30s... it was the sound, but in an apartment it would've got me evicted and came close a few times. Thing is, the best sounding Marshalls are one trick ponies and sometimes you can't get the holy grail tone unless you got 'em cranked and there's no suitable spot to that in unless you're in an arena or decent sized club venue. I got turned onto Mesas because to me they got it all. I've come to like and appreciate an amp that has multiple channels.. which all sound great and all the little bells and whistles they come with, like with the combos, they got these little fans that keep the tubes cool inside, the multi-watt switching, and let's face it, they got the leg up on the modern edge metal sound, but can still get you that Marshall thrash sound. I own two now, a Mesa Stiletto Ace 2x12 50 watt (cuz it was the closest sound thing to a mean Marshall), and now the Mark V:35 which is the best piece of guitar gear I've ever owned. It does all those things I mentioned earlier that makes Mesas awesome, it a reverb tank, two channels with three settings on each, the separate solo boosts on each channel and the separate, switchable EQ band which can really color the sound in a good way and is fun to mess around with. I was little skeptical at first because it came with EL84 tubes, which I wasn't convinced could be good for metal, but I was wrong, this amp makes use of these tubes in the best way possible. The Mark IIc+ channel with the gain pushed around 2pm and the rotary eq controls all at around noon gave me that sound I been looking for. This amp is truly amazing and I couldn't be happier, and now being a proud owner of two great Mesa amps, I don't think I'll ever go back to Marshalls. Some of y'all might completely disagree with me or have different thoughts on the amp and the one thing about Rig Talk that's great is we all get to to talk smack to each other here, so lemme know what ya think! ...of the amp of course!!!
