Randall MTS Series?

[sixstrings]

What are your thoughts on these?

I finally went to play a couple of these today. I played a head and a combo. The head had 3 modules and the combo had two. All of the modules were different. The modules I played were: blackface, tweed, plexi, xtc & ultra. The amp was pretty easy to dial in and I played it through a nice Randall cab. I also switched some modules out on the combo to see how different it would sound.

This wasn't one of those 15 minute deals. No, I spent about 1:15 playing these amps with a custom shop stratocaster and Les Paul Deluxe. I think I had enough time and tweaking with it to get a basic feel for what it can do.

My impression of the amp was that it was a cool idea but the sound was very disappointing. None of the modules sounded like the amps they were supposed to sound like. In fact, they all sounded similar in some way. The sound was compressed and the feel of each module didn't change. The feel was consistent between modules. Not only were they not accurate representations of the amps they are supposed to emulate, nor did it feel like a good tube amp should, the sound was kind of flat and dull.

I really don't like to talk bad about amps these days because I realize that what doesn't work for me may work wonders for someone else. In this case, however, I'm pretty confident in saying that this amp is a disappointment. I didn't expect it to sound exactly like any amp, nor did I expect perfection. What I expected was a more or less accurate representation of sound and feel with dynamics, clarity and tube warmth. The MTS did not deliver.

While I don't think it's a bad amp, I wouldn't classify it as a "good" amp either. I played the Egnater amps before and although I wasn't as impressed with Egnater amps as some people are, I think it beats Randall.

Like I said though. I don't really like to talk bad about amps so take it with a grain of salt. I didn't have great expectations, but the amp still failed to meet my basic expectations.

 

[danhops]

I think the Randall stuff stock is not bad at all. That said, I will say that I do think the modded stuff that I have tried for the most part sounds much better. There are a few exceptions of course.

 

[fek]

I have two RM50 combos (hoping to trade one for a RM100 head) and I really like them. The ability to swap and bias the power tubes on my own is a huge plus for me. I have a Deluxe, Blackface, KH3, modded Brahma and Mr Scary. I have sold/traded a Grail, SL+, and Brown Eye modded Plexi.

I agree that some of the high gain modules can sound similar but the more time you spend with them, it becomes very easy to tweak them to sit in a mix perfectly and to dial in the tones you want. I put 6550 power tubes in one and swap between 6L6's and EL34's in the other. I also put a 5751 in the PI which really helped with the clarity on all the modules.

In the end, I love the tweakability and flexibility and have become addicted to module swapping and collecting. YMMV.

 

[stratotone]

Modded is the way to go.

 

[droptrd]

They are deffinately not carbon copies. They are close-ish. Still pretty fun amps though. Modding really helps. Moving the bias around can really help with the compression and the lifelessness. They are extremely reactive to tubes changes, bias, boosts, gutars, pups and the signal in general. Lots of good sounds can be found. Killer metal tones. MTS module GAS is brutal.

 

[tehuk]

Modded is the way to go.

+1... Lynch modules some of the best stock

 

[jkdsteve]

I'm surprised you felt it was sub par...even with stock modules there are some nice tones in there but then I've never owned hardly any of the amps they are trying to emulate.

The sig modules are fantastic...the only one I felt was average was the KH-2..it needed a boost to get a useable tone every time for me...

I do agree that the tones, especially as you go up in gain, tend to sound similar....posted this before..I figured it was more a factor of the volume I play at and my hands turning the knobs..LOL

I've had many MTS amps over 5 or so years now so maybe I'm not considering all the tweaks I've made to my rig over time...am still surprised you ended up disappointed tho'

 

[moltenmetalburn]

Those MTS amp may sound decent but they are the most unreliable POS I have ever had the displeasure to tour with.

an act I work for is sponsored and we went through 6 RM100's in a summer. Midi boards blowing, tube socket faults and some mystery transformer issues. oh and I think every knob fell off as well as the feet. these traveled in road cases mind you.

In Europe the distributor had to open 4 boxes to get me a replacement head for a broken one. yes that's right three of them were broken NIB!

At one point we refused more head and got the rackmount setup, we need a rackmount replacement before the summer was over also, Midi board death.

we even had two randall bass amps blow up. the first one on day two out of the box.

It'd be a killer amp were it not built in china.

 

[stratotone]

I've had four RM100s, an RM50, two RM20s, the RT2/50 rack poweramp and RM4 preamp.

No problems at all. Regarding made in China, most of the PCs that we're typing on have PCB's and other components made in China, and they work fine. Other than a number of spade/terminal connectors, the inside of an RM series Randall don't look any worse than any other mass produced amp.

I've had more issues with USA made mesa boogies than I have Randalls.

Pete

Those MTS amp may sound decent but they are the most unreliable POS I have ever had the displeasure to tour with.

an act I work for is sponsored and we went through 6 RM100's in a summer. Midi boards blowing, tube socket faults and some mystery transformer issues. oh and I think every knob fell off as well as the feet. these traveled in road cases mind you.

In Europe the distributor had to open 4 boxes to get me a replacement head for a broken one. yes that's right three of them were broken NIB!

At one point we refused more head and got the rackmount setup, we need a rackmount replacement before the summer was over also, Midi board death.

we even had two randall bass amps blow up. the first one on day two out of the box.

It'd be a killer amp were it not built in china.

 

[moltenmetalburn]

I've had four RM100s, an RM50, two RM20s, the RT2/50 rack poweramp and RM4 preamp.

No problems at all. Regarding made in China, most of the PCs that we're typing on have PCB's and other components made in China, and they work fine. Other than a number of spade/terminal connectors, the inside of an RM series Randall don't look any worse than any other mass produced amp.

I've had more issues with USA made mesa boogies than I have Randalls.

Pete

Those MTS amp may sound decent but they are the most unreliable POS I have ever had the displeasure to tour with.

an act I work for is sponsored and we went through 6 RM100's in a summer. Midi boards blowing, tube socket faults and some mystery transformer issues. oh and I think every knob fell off as well as the feet. these traveled in road cases mind you.

In Europe the distributor had to open 4 boxes to get me a replacement head for a broken one. yes that's right three of them were broken NIB!

At one point we refused more head and got the rackmount setup, we needed a rackmount replacement before the summer was over also, Midi board death.

we even had two randall bass amps blow up. the first one on day two out of the box.

It'd be a killer amp were it not built in china.

I don't know about you but my PC's blow up every two to three years.

you had me at spade connectors.

do you tour with them?

In my opinion they are sold as PRO amps not bedroom amps and need to live up to certain amount of road use. if you plan to only use the MTS at home lightly it will probably hold up.

the kranks we were using before randall, never had an issue in the 5 years we toured with them.

And I am very familiar with the inside of the amp, repairing them all summer long. it looks just as bad as any other chinese amps; b 52, madison etc...

I prefer people not robots to solder my electronics. I have nothing against china except their shitty QC.

oh and lead in baby toys, that's just f'd up.

 

[stratotone]

I've had four RM100s, an RM50, two RM20s, the RT2/50 rack poweramp and RM4 preamp.

No problems at all. Regarding made in China, most of the PCs that we're typing on have PCB's and other components made in China, and they work fine. Other than a number of spade/terminal connectors, the inside of an RM series Randall don't look any worse than any other mass produced amp.

I've had more issues with USA made mesa boogies than I have Randalls.

Pete

Those MTS amp may sound decent but they are the most unreliable POS I have ever had the displeasure to tour with.

an act I work for is sponsored and we went through 6 RM100's in a summer. Midi boards blowing, tube socket faults and some mystery transformer issues. oh and I think every knob fell off as well as the feet. these traveled in road cases mind you.

In Europe the distributor had to open 4 boxes to get me a replacement head for a broken one. yes that's right three of them were broken NIB!

At one point we refused more head and got the rackmount setup, we needed a rackmount replacement before the summer was over also, Midi board death.

we even had two randall bass amps blow up. the first one on day two out of the box.

It'd be a killer amp were it not built in china.

I don't know about you but my PC's blow up every two to three years.

you had me at spade connectors.

do you tour with them?

In my opinion they are sold as PRO amps not bedroom amps and need to live up to certain amount of road use. if you plan to only use the MTS at home lightly it will probably hold up.

the kranks we were using before randall, never had an issue in the 5 years we toured with them.

And I am very familiar with the inside of the amp, repairing them all summer long. it looks just as bad as any other chinese amps; b 52, madison etc...

I prefer people not robots to solder my electronics. I have nothing against china except their shitty QC.

oh and lead in baby toys, that's just f'd up.

I never had any knobs come off my randalls either, but I don't throw em around, in cases or not. *shrugs* They don't have set screws, so if they are treated roughly the knobs will come off for sure. I gigged with mine, no road cases, didn't do a pro tour in road cases but put the amp in the back of a truck or car and did about 20 or so gigs with no problems - played smoky bars and outdoor gigs.

I have PCs that I retire because they are too slow for common use - never had one 'blow up'. Again, I've had worse luck with USA made Mesa Boogies than I have Chinese Randalls.

So tell me what you did to repair them - sounds like from your first post you guys replaced, not repaired. What issues did you have that you repaired? Or by repair do you mean you spent 5 minutes replacing boards that had quick connectors? I'm curious about the tube socket faults too - you do realize that a lot of tube socket arcing can be caused by bad tubes or tubes that got damaged - you know, knocked around hard enough to knock the knobs off an amp? Sounds like you guys had ex UPS dudes for transport if you really had knobs falling off the amps.

Pete

 

[moltenmetalburn]

I've had four RM100s, an RM50, two RM20s, the RT2/50 rack poweramp and RM4 preamp.

No problems at all. Regarding made in China, most of the PCs that we're typing on have PCB's and other components made in China, and they work fine. Other than a number of spade/terminal connectors, the inside of an RM series Randall don't look any worse than any other mass produced amp.

I've had more issues with USA made mesa boogies than I have Randalls.

Pete

Those MTS amp may sound decent but they are the most unreliable POS I have ever had the displeasure to tour with.

an act I work for is sponsored and we went through 6 RM100's in a summer. Midi boards blowing, tube socket faults and some mystery transformer issues. oh and I think every knob fell off as well as the feet. these traveled in road cases mind you.

In Europe the distributor had to open 4 boxes to get me a replacement head for a broken one. yes that's right three of them were broken NIB!

At one point we refused more head and got the rackmount setup, we needed a rackmount replacement before the summer was over also, Midi board death.

we even had two randall bass amps blow up. the first one on day two out of the box.

It'd be a killer amp were it not built in china.

I don't know about you but my PC's blow up every two to three years.

you had me at spade connectors.

do you tour with them?

In my opinion they are sold as PRO amps not bedroom amps and need to live up to certain amount of road use. if you plan to only use the MTS at home lightly it will probably hold up.

the kranks we were using before randall, never had an issue in the 5 years we toured with them.

And I am very familiar with the inside of the amp, repairing them all summer long. it looks just as bad as any other chinese amps; b 52, madison etc...

I prefer people not robots to solder my electronics. I have nothing against china except their shitty QC.

oh and lead in baby toys, that's just f'd up.

I never had any knobs come off my randalls either, but I don't throw em around, in cases or not. *shrugs* They don't have set screws, so if they are treated roughly the knobs will come off for sure. I gigged with mine, no road cases, didn't do a pro tour in road cases but put the amp in the back of a truck or car and did about 20 or so gigs with no problems - played smoky bars and outdoor gigs.

I have PCs that I retire because they are too slow for common use - never had one 'blow up'. Again, I've had worse luck with USA made Mesa Boogies than I have Chinese Randalls.

So tell me what you did to repair them - sounds like from your first post you guys replaced, not repaired. What issues did you have that you repaired? Or by repair do you mean you spent 5 minutes replacing boards that had quick connectors? I'm curious about the tube socket faults too - you do realize that a lot of tube socket arcing can be caused by bad tubes or tubes that got damaged - you know, knocked around hard enough to knock the knobs off an amp? Sounds like you guys had ex UPS dudes for transport if you really had knobs falling off the amps.

Pete

I had to replace all of the midi boards myself, a few soldered wires and swapped op amps. nothing too extreme, it was only after I called the rep to voice my complaints that we started replacing amps entirely. It would have been nice to swap entire boards, except randall didn't have any, they were in china and need to be ordered ahead of time.

I actually have built my own tube amps , pedals, and tube pedals so Ive been inside many tube amps. at home I service all of my own amps. no time for that on the road. the point is I am at home inside a tube amp.

The tube sockets had cold solder joints in that particular amp.

a mystery transformer death they didn't know what happened either, they claimed a lemon transformer.


As for the knobs they are even missing from the amps at their rehearsal studio, the ones that don't travel anywhere. they just wont stay on the amp, slip right off with little pressure. the modules knobs are better. I had to resort to gluing them onto the pot shafts.

the gear was handled by only myself, aside from stagehands, carefully. Its hard to keep a job/get new work if you break other peoples gear. Like I said we did 5 years with the kranks and changed nothing but tubes, ever.

the shocks of moving cases and bouncing around in a trailer are the same for all gear on the road, some gear just survives. this summer consisted of about 90 pro gigs across the planet. the most abuse gear can have. true touring IS hard on gear. trailers, planes, and loaders/stagehands who could care less about what in the box they are carrying. there is no such thing as babied gear on tour.

you can defend the MTS collection all you want but that doesn't change the fact that in real Professional use they DO NOT live up to the industry standard of reliability, my only claim. This is all in my actual experience.


how do you explain the amps broken in the new undamaged boxes? three in a row??? the distributor was so embarrassed he said he was going to consider dropping randall!

I have had this conversation with multiple techs about the Randall gear, they all said the same thing: "they sound pretty damn good until they blow up" it became a running joke on this years Mayhem tour with a few of us as I wasn't the only one the randall tech was visiting each time he had to fly out.

as for the computers you're lucky, mine die often. usually a power supply that then zaps the motherboard and cpu. I am looking at 3 dead ones in the corner as we speak, all from the last five years. I do however never turn them off, 24/7 use for mine so maybe its over use.

anyway if yours work great for you in your application awesome! we however will not use them again on the road.

 

[stratotone]

Well, you and I had totally different experiences. I doubt the original poster is going to play 90 gigs all over the planet... in my obviously amature use at home and gigs, I've had no problems with over 1/2 dozen of the amps. Are they built as well as my Bogners or SLO? Nope. But I'd trust one over a new Marshall every time.

What band did you tech for? Maybe I saw you guys play!

Pete

 

[Audioholic]

Stock Randall modules aren't super impressive. The signature series are nice stock however. For someone with a good ear and picky, Having the Stock modules modded, either by pete, Dave or Salvation takes an ordinary sounding module into the impressive category.

I played with an RM4 and RT 2/50 for a good year and some change. Overall it was super reliable, had all of my modules modded, except the signature series ones. There are some similiar tones that cross over from module to module, but the same can be said using the same power amp and cab, get less of a difference having these 2 variables stay the same you know. I was happy with my sound, but tough times made me sell it.

the weight of a rack, and the been there thing probally won't bring me back to the MTS line, or egnater modular line for quite some time, but it was worth checking out for me.

 

[marvcus]

Never played the Randall MTS stuff. That's the great thing about being able to try before you buy. You can not like it and not have to sell it!

FWIW, I own both the Egnater M4 and the Mod 50 and I'll put it up against anything I've ever owned.

Zinky
Marshall
Mesa Marks
Splawn
the list goes on...

 

[droptrd]

My RM100 and all of my modules worked perfectly the entire time I had it. I did have one module that was from the orginal run and the knobs would fall off from time to time. Otherwise, great amp. Ive been a mesa guy most of my guitar play life. Ive had 6 diferent rectos, 2 Marks, 2 DC's, 1 F50 and a Stiletto. Ive had problems with every single one. Not enough to push me away from mesa. I am a working musician. I play 2-3 nights a week electric and a couple nights acoustic. My MTS out there for me for a while. Granted my gigs are all in a 3 hour radius, not bouncing around in a truck all night long.

 

[jkdsteve]

Figured I'd just add some more thoughts:


I have never liked the XTC module in any incarnation..including $100s modded versions

Stock Plexi module lacked clarity to me...the Brahma owns it substantially

The Ultra needs less low end (a $1 component mod)

The knobs do fall off eventually....no set screws and the sleeve inside eventually breaks loose.....quick repair with some adhesive though

I'm still bugged that you couldn't find anything to like about it..perhaps the bias was also off..having said that, the 50 watters are noticeably warmer than the 100 watters.

 

[Dallas Marlow]

I just want to add in I gigged my randall head probably 20 gigs as well, maybe a few more maybe a few less but I NEVER once had an issue with the tubes, tranny boards or anything.

You do realize inside the Lynch Box, or randall RM100 the board actually is the SAME board for Egnater amps, if you open it up it says Egnater Mod100 on the damn board lol. I don't have one so I can't prove this, but it's the same inner workings as the Egnater Mod100, minus the trannys are NOT true heyboyers and I know there are slight voicing changes etc.

As far as the knobs falling off yea they do, but it only happened to me on the modules and it was easily fixed by getting an alan wrench and screwing them down, had I had a constant issue with it I just would have used lock tight and called it a day, I just never had it happen THAT often, and I transported it 2-3x a week in and out of cars/trucks to practices and gigs, and then back to my place so it wasn't like this thing sat in my room and gathered dust I mean it's not 24/7 touring and 7 days a week gigs, but it's going around town, in and out of places and doing some gigs...

The midi problem you speak of supposedly is caused by plugging in the midi controller AFTER you turn the amp on, your supposed to do this before it's powered on and the board it self shouldn't blow up there are just a couple fuses on the board it self I don't know why the entire board would go bad.

The tube sockets issue, er I can't comment on that but I think bad tubes are a bigger cause of problems than amps these days in general. I've had far more issues with tubes than anything else... no kidding.

Some of the mods are better than the others, but the Lynch sig mods IMO are the best stock ones. Also I think the amps come stock with 6L6, the amps sound far and away better with EL34's and when biased properly with good tubes, and replacing the pre amp inside the amp and the modules also makes a HUGE difference.

LOTS of big names are using the MTS stuff, which in and of it self doesn't make it great, but you know when Ty from KingsX is using it, I think it kind of says something...

Just my 2c everyones allowed to have their own opinions and all that matters is you don't have to buy it again!

OH and FYI the actual amps are made in the USA not in China... I don't know where that came from.

Is the MTS a diezel no but it's still great stuff!

Dallas

 

[shred-o-holic]

Those MTS amp may sound decent but they are the most unreliable POS I have ever had the displeasure to tour with.

an act I work for is sponsored and we went through 6 RM100's in a summer. Midi boards blowing, tube socket faults and some mystery transformer issues. oh and I think every knob fell off as well as the feet. these traveled in road cases mind you.

In Europe the distributor had to open 4 boxes to get me a replacement head for a broken one. yes that's right three of them were broken NIB!

At one point we refused more head and got the rackmount setup, we need a rackmount replacement before the summer was over also, Midi board death.

we even had two randall bass amps blow up. the first one on day two out of the box.

It'd be a killer amp were it not built in china.

I had similar problems my first go around with MTS amps. Fuses blew like mad, knobs fell off, standby switch broke, one module started sparking during a gig, one of my RM 100's would squeal for no detectable reason. Bruce Egnater (what an awesome person) let me send him one head for repair. But honestly by then I was so unsure that I could trust them at a gig that I sold both my RM 100's. That was very early on in the MTS game.

Since then I have come back and now own an RM 50. No problems whatsoever. I think perhaps in my case Randall was sorting out the bugs in the MTS series when I tried them....

 

[Mailman1971]

I have been a long time MTS user.
Owned 5 of them amps thru the years.
Egnater Mod 100, Mod 50, 2 Lynch boxes, and a Randall RM100.
I really enjoyed them.
I had alot of fuses blow but most of it was caused with the bad batch of EL34's.
Once I switched to the 6L6's that problem pretty much went away.
Had the internal fuses blow often.
I am not bad mouthing these amps. Had a lot of great jam sessions.
To me the modules need to be modded out to get the full potential of them.
Would I ever go back? Who knows. I go thru amps like water.
I am digging the setup I have at the moment.
I think the Egnater modules sound GREAT out the box.
The Randall stock ones need to be tweaked.
But all this is my opinion.
I have owned damn near every variation of the modules and they all have a pretty similar tone in the high gain modules.
Just was looking for something New so I sold off my rig and bought 2 other amps.
We played them every weekend and had some problems but nothing really major. I learned alot from working on the MTS series to bring it back to life. Great concept in an amp.