MusicRadar

40 years of experience bears extremely toneful fruit

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• Review

Channel two Brits things up a bit to begin with, while adding a crunchier gain in the first two modes and tightening the bottom end a touch. It seems to suit humbuckers particularly well, with the myriad power options again enabling you to go from a squashy drive where notes roll into one another and chords bloom with extra harmonics, through to a bold, strident tone that cuts hard and demands you play with more precision.

Channel two's jewel, however, is MKI mode – a recreation of the fabled amp complete with its visceral power delivery at 90 watts and harmonically rich distortion. With the 'thick' switch engaged, this is that singing, mid-rich lead tone that sustains forever with mahogany, maple and humbuckers. Whether it sounds exactly like an early Mark I is academic; it certainly has all the right hallmarks and a wonderful feel under the fingers, especially when you crank it up.

Channel three begins with another Mesa legend, the Mark II-C+, which piles on more gain and moves closer to early eighties metal sounds. This is heavily modded Marshall territory, but with more body and bottom-end, courtesy of that powerful EQ and the 6L6 valves, making it good for fusion and technique rock too. It's fun to experiment with the power options to really get it compressing and saturated to melting point.

The next mode is MKIV, which adds a more polished feel, with even more gain and an all-round modern feel. Then there's extreme mode – here there's more aggression and grind in the mid-range, with immense gain, sustain and articulation for modern metal riffing or cutting leads.

All that, and there's still plenty more in the Mark Five. Its sheer range of clean to dirty sounds, with everything in between, is given full room to flourish with an extremely powerful EQ and versatile power options to get exactly the kind of drive, mid-range character, headroom and dynamics to suit your playing. Better still, those sounds are easier to dial in than on Marks of yore. Loud? Gloriously, and that's when it's at its best.

As the original 'boutique' amplifier company, Mesa/ Boogie has never been about following trends, but there's no doubt it's started plenty. The Mark Five lands in interesting times, amid a global economic squeeze and a market awash with retro-inspired single-channel new 'boutique' amps.

Is it out of step? Vehemently no: there are still many players who are looking for a fully-loaded amp that covers almost every conceivable tonal base. Moreover, while the Mark Five is absolutely stacked with features, not one feels like a marketing gimmick or sales tool – they all have a significant effect on tone and/or functionality – gig it, record it, hell, just look at it all day.

Some knowledge of recent Mesas will help you get to grips with it quickly, none at all will make the journey all the more enlightening. It's nothing short of a remarkable engineering and tonal achievement.