Time for a new amp?: Mesa Mark V or SLO Astro

SLO Astro or Mesa Mrak V

  • Total voters
    32
Whizzinby said:
Homie coming in off the top rope…

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Do you ever miss your SLO 30??
 
There are so many great sounds in that amp. That you can go from a cool ass Tweed
in Class A at 10watts to a raging 90watt max headroom MKIV or IIC+ mode is kind of
hard to wrap my head around, and it does that and so much more. $1500 is bonkers!
 
Mongillo19 said:
I think the mark V sounds wonderful. As I mentioned, the guy was basically using it as a clean pedal platform, which makes 0 sense to me, but I worked!

It seems to be a monster of an amp. The SLO will still be on my list but perhaps down the road
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Mark V cleans and built in reverb is pretty stellar IMO.



I bought a 2012 Mark V off of Reverb for $1500 in 2017. Had it for about 8 months and foolishly traded it for a powered Kemper Rack.
About a year later I messaged the guy I traded it to and asked him if he wanted to sell it back to me, which he did for the same $1500.

Haven't thought about getting rid if it ever since.

Can they be a pain in the ass to dial in... yes.
Are there a shit ton of different options... yes.

If you want to spend a little time and get a stellar tone it's a great amp for that. If you just want to plug in and twist 4-5 knobs and be set... not so much.
 
texhex said:
If you want to spend a little time and get a stellar tone it's a great amp for that. If you just want to plug in and twist 4-5 knobs and be set... not so much.
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It can't be more difficult or more of a rabbit hole than fractal right? 😂

I have two very set and forget amps in the Badlander and 5153, I'm all for something a little more involved and versatile!
 
I know this isn’t the right way to look at it, but because of Soldano spending YEARS as pushing the SLO as a flagship and providing few other products (all basically derived from the SLO circuit), anything Soldano that isn’t an SLO to me just feels like “poor man’s SLO”.

I certainly don’t want to spend the money on an SLO, so maybe an Astro would tickle my pickle. But I feel like I’d have that feeling of “if I could afford it I’d have the SLO”.

I’d feel the same with a Hot Rod or Avenger. and likewise with a Jet City, or SLO Clone. They’re all options if you don’t want to chuck £4k at a caveman amp (shared EQ, 2 channels etc). Given how good Jet City’s can sound, I’d scoop the Mark V and a JCA100HDM. Failing that, good SLO clones can be picked up for £1000-1500 here. I’d sooner grab one of those over an Astro (or £4k on a real Soldano).

The Mark V IS a flagship amp. Even if you owned a IIC+ or any other desirable Mark variant, the V is valid side by side and has its own strengths.
 
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