Mesa Boogie Mark VII Head

Plus:
1. The 3 channels with their various modes.
Clean and Fat are full, the Crunch is great for Marshall/Friedman sounds.
The new VII mode…it does resemble a Mesa Badlander. Do not dial it in like a regular Mark amp and preferably leave the graphic EQ off. Great for looser distortion stuff.
The IIB mode was a surprise, very raunchy.
The IIC and VI modes have an enormous amount of gain. You can dial them in to be vintage and modern sounding. Graphic EQ on in classic V-mode and you have the typical tight Mesa Mark metal sound. With one or two 3-band parametric EQs in the loop: instant Metallica AJFA tone.
2. No fiddling with push-pull knobs, Mesa has set the right voicing for each mode to a default in the circuit directly works quite well. This makes it easy to dial in a good sound fast.
3. The Mark VII has a good tone at low and high volumes, the Mesa liquid tone is there. Unsure whether that is due to the Simul-Class output stage or something else.
4. The FX loop being switchable by the supplied footswitch is a pre for me.
5. The Two Notes-based CabClone IR loader was not a reason to buy the amp for but I am now actually using it for silent practising: guitar->cable->amp->headphones. I can not be any more simple than that. Added bonus is that the amp becomes dummy proof because of the internal load being activated when no speaker cable is connected to a speaker output jack.

Minus (all known upfront):
1. The retail price
Marshall’s flagship JVM410H retails for less 30% of the price of a Mark VII, a Diezel’s flagship at 66% of the Mark VII. On the other hand here in Europe the top tier USA amps like Bogner Uberschall Ultra, Soldano SL0100, and high tier Friedmans are in the same price range as the Mesa/Boogie Mark VII, JP-2C or Mark IIC+ Reissue.
2. No 16 Ohm output
This is a feature/short coming of the Simul-Class output transformer Mesa/Boogie has been using since the conception of the Simul-Class concept. Same reason the Mark IIC+ Reissue does not have a 16 Ohm output jack.
3. I would have kept the reverb controls on the back panel like previous Mark amps; that space on the frint panel could have been used for other purposes like the 3 IR selector knobs or headphone jack/volume control.

In general:
- This amp is loud! With the Master Volumes at 10 o’clock this amp is already loud.
- Each mode needs different dialing in of gain, treble, middle, bass, presence and volume. Once you know the sweet spots per mode, you can switch relatively fast between the modes.
- With the design change from IIC to IIC+ the FX loop was placed after the reverb and Lead tube stages for all subsequent 60W and higher powered Mark amps (IIC+, III, VI, V, JP-2C, VII and IIC+ Reissue) and is part of the Mark circuit design.
So when using the onboard reverb together with a tight clamping noise gate in the loop: it will cut of the reverb tail of the notes.
- The Mark VII is reusing the ‘platform’ Mesa designed for the JP-2C: same preamp topology, same number of tubes in the same location in the chassis. This also means the Mark VII does have 3 separate Master Volumes and does not have an overall Master Volume, the same with the JP-2C and Mark IV amps.
- This amp ‘exposes’ the differences in pickup types in your guitars more then other amps I have played

Note:
Before purchasing this amp I spent quite some months browsing forums, social media pages, reviews & YouTube videos of the amps on my short list of amps of multiple brands.
It boiled down to a Mesa/Boogie Mark amp.
The features and reviews/sound clips led me to an informed choice of the Mark VII over of the JP-2C, Mark IIC+ Reissue or even the Mark V90
One month in with the Mark VII and I still am finding new settings.

Full 5 stars as the Mark VII does not disappoint despite it costing an arm & a leg.