DOG!
Oooh, a big box (that was lugged 1.5 hours on public transit, the guys at the store told me that's the sign of a real musician haha)
a cloth cover, a ltitle overkill for that big box, let us throw the rest away
Hmmm a large white bag
holy crap there was an amp in there!
My first day settings.
The amp is the Mark V I have been waiting for. The cabinet is a blue line X coated (not tolex) 8 ohm cabinet from avatar, with a metal grill. It is 4 G12t100's. I am really digging them.
First hour I sat down and fiddled channel by channel. The only things I have no explored fully are most of channel 2 (I quickly gravitated to the crunch setting) and the Mark IIC+ mode of channel 3. I picked up a 10 ft planet waves speaker cable to go from amp to cab, and recently build some good patched with neutrik ends and Redco home brand 18 Ga O2 free wire (seems to be a almost identical product to the mogami 2524, but 30c cheaper a foot). Tried a neutrik silent end on my guitar lead too, very cool, can hot swap guitars w/o speaker burst as the cable shorts/goes dead. I made 2x 14 and a 12' cable for 40$.
I have been playing through a freaking modeler and my bass amp for about the last 3 years. The modeler was a GNX3000 (digitech). Things are very different here. This is the first time I have really got to sit, undisturbed and fiddle with a tube amp.
Direct comparison says the modeler overemphasized a bunch of things. The fake gain could never get a good pinch harmonic, they would always promptly die. It would also create a lot of artificial feedback that was just impossible at the volume levels. Hand noise (for killing a chord right hand etc) was extremely emphasized. With all these things gone I feel more natural playing, this is more forgiving as its not emphasizing parts of the signal artificially that should not really be there.
Channel 1 :
The clean setting is a little thin for me at the moment, I am gravitating to fat for cleans. I really like the fat with bold engaged, very rich. The reverb can add a lot of character here and I find it quite usable. My favourite thing about this channel is that if you flip from fat to clean, you can instantly go from Pink Floyd style cleans, to ZZ top crunch like la grange. I was experimenting with this at the 45W setting, more than enough gain in the channel for the Top. Channel 1 is the only channel I have really fully explored so far, the rest were more glazed over so I could play some. In between sessions it will be time to RTFM (its like 50 pages!)
Channel 2:
As I said I quickly gravitated to the crunch, it seems to be the loudest of the 3 settings in this channel, and are we not supposed to generally prefer the louder of 2 options instinctively? I quickly got this channel set up to do some good chugging, with a lot more bite/highs than marshall metal (such as Iron Maiden) would typically be heard to have. It got there with the gain at about 2 o clock too... This amp has far too much gain for me, but that is a good thing imo. As I said previously, much cleaner, more precise, fuller than the modeler. Unfortunately I will still need to set up said modeler in the effects loop (with modeling disabled) until I can get delay, chorus, phaser, and wah pedals. This channel is currently in 10W setting
Channel 3:
I dialed this in quickly on Mark IV mode, I prefer the voicing to the extreme voicing, the other is a bit much to me. I got a nice smooth feeling, slightly treble biased sound out of it. I maxed the master here, gain once again at 2 and I get what I would consider convincing Satriani style tone/gain. Extremely smooth sounding. This channel is currently in 10W setting, with the bright switch engaged ( I am a bright junky, but fortunately note mars volta bright ((no offense to those talented folks, but they are so very trebbly it is hard to listen to sometimes)) )
Graphic EQ: I like it, but it is a flavour to me, not a staple. I find there is enough give in the channel EQ (bass, mid , treb) so I can use the graphic EQ as a second voice for each channel. I am using a bit of the preset V with channel 1, an augmented bass and treble boost with sliders (and very very slight mid drop) for channel 2 and 3, to give it a bit more chugga as needed.
The output is currently at about 8 o clock, I had to turn it down from 9 in my room to make it more comfortable for my ears.
This is Day 1. I am loving this thing already, I can get some great cleans, some sweet southern rock style crunch all and back off the gain in tweed and go to country. Channel 1 seems the most versatile of them in terms of different voices, but channel 2 was quite variant also, just haven't explored that one as much. The metal channel is probably the most similar voice wise for this 'metal amp' ((I realize it is ridiculous to shove it as a solely metal amp but lots of people do)).
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We are expecting detail feedback on all aspects of tone, and what G&L's yer runnin' through her. Now I will go back to my F-50 an dream of bigger things. 
. Btw, this amp is great at any volume, not much change between master levels, or overall output level adjustment aside what you actually feel bodily (and I like not stuffy feeling ears when I am done) so it is a treat. Even on 10W settings my output is down around 8, this amp is LOUD. Any higher prolonged playing may cause funny feeling ears. 
