Roadster vs. Mk IV thoughts?

[cookiemonster2]

Compare and contrast:
- cleans
- crunch
- high-gain lead

[cookiemonster2]

I tried a Mesa Boogie Roadster out today. I'll skip the joke about taking it out for a test drive. Anyways, here is what I observed:

Cleans - clean, fat, & tweed. All sounded awesome except the fat didn't really sound that much fatter than clean to me. Not a Fender thick & warm kind of fat or like the Mark I that I tried a few weeks ago. The "clean" sub channel was very tight and snappy. Conclusion - awesome if you need twangy kinda cleans. These are the cleans from the Lonestar. The cleans would be worth having on their own but the Lonestar is almost the same price as the Roadster.

Brit - I thought this was supposed to give a Marshall like crunch but I must be mistaken because even with the gain all the way up it just didn't growl like I thought it should. Conclusion - boring.

High gain - raw, vintage, & modern. This is the first time I've actually tried a recto out. These are supposed to be the same channels out of the dual rec but I've never tried one so I can't compare. I played around with these channels for quite a while adjusting the EQ, gain level, and rectifier setting and never found a sound that was really what I wanted. There were lots of good heavy sounds but nothing that blew me away. Conclusion - kind of disappointing after all of the fanfare around the dual recto, but good.

I also tried a Peavey JSX out today after all of the good things I've read about it. In contrast to the Roadster the JSX crunch channel was way way better than the Roadster Brit Channel and the Ultra was much tighter than the Roadster's mushier high gain channels. The cleans were definitely much better on the Roadster but my understanding is that the clean channel on the JSX was designed to be somewhat colourless to take pedals well. If clean wasn't important to me I would definitely pick the JSX's crunch and ultra over the the Recto high-gain channels.

In my search for the right amp for me I've also tried:
Marshall TSL100 - all I can say is disappointing
Mesa/Boogie F30 - Clean and Crunch were pretty good but the high gain feature was thin and noisy
Mesa/Boogie Mark I reissue - loved the fat slightly overdriven clean sound but a pretty bare bones amp
Peavey XXX - tried this quite a while ago and can't remember if I didn't like it or just wanted to keep trying other amps first.
Line 6 Spider and Flextone - sucks, don't want to hear about Vetta, enough said
Soldano Astroverb (I think) - can't remember, think it was another bare bones kind of amp
Orange rocker something or rather - can't remember but I guess I wasn't impressed

Next up - Boogie Mark IV. Neither Edmonton dealer had one in stock but one is bringing one in for me to try. I'm hoping it will have the clean of the Mark I and a nice, tight, singing sustain high gain channel that the Roadster & F30 didn't have. If not, I'm thinking of getting a Mark I and JSX which would be about the same price as a Mark IV done up.

[akoch]

Mark IV has decent clean channel, and a more singing, fluid lead channel than the recto. Also a lot cleaner, and has some sparkle to it. Personally I consider the Mark IV to be a better amp to the Recto series. Though I've yet to find a use for the crunch channel on the Mark, still after a few years of playing it regularly.