Love the form factor, and the price is competitive. Has everything I'd need for a gig. Wonder if this'll be one of the units that'll eventually get a NAM update as they start pushing out NAM to their next gen units, or if this isn't going to be part of that "next-generation products" line up...
Honestly, the biggest pain out of all of this is getting the damn board out of the chassis. From what I remember, if they are the 3 axial caps on the main preamp board, it's huge and it's a pain because a lot needs to be disassembled to even get to underneath the pads to remove them cleanly...
Running it in parallel is cool for sure. I was kinda referring to situations like an SPX90 where you really *need* a mixer, or else it impacts the tone quite a bit - arguably in a negative way. I didn't find the G-Major II to be a major tone suck in the loop. But horses for courses, different...
It's a very fair trade on both sides. If you want to shift to a rack, go for it. Can't go wrong with a 2/90/2. Anything else is icing on the cake. I actually like the E530, but don't expect it to be like a Savage. Closer to a Blackmore or Artist Edition. Little more polite, not quite as punchy...
They are different enough to keep both. Biggest thing with the Quad is knowing its outputs. Main out vs Recording out vs Effects send. A lot of people think the Effects send sounds better than the Main out. All 3 sound different, so experiment.
For what it's worth, their email portal thing has been garbage ever since Gibson took over. I can't seem to get ahold of them via email anymore. Phone does work, though.
https://store.mesaboogie.com/pages/contact-us.html
Random side tangent: Gibson took down all of Mesa's support articles and...
I have one if you're interested. Looking at the manual, it looks like it could have anything from 1.13 to 2.04 on it. But my personal unit is 2.04, and I just did the PCMCIA flashing procedure. Still reporting 2.04 when powering on.
Pure update cards are very hard to come by. I almost never see them. Those artist cards, called the G Card, should have the latest firmware update on them from what I recall, though. I don't think you can get the .wiz file from TC anymore since Behringer bought them out and gutted them. Even if...
It is more scooped than a JB with a bottom end that's not as tight as the Distortion. I think it might be going in the opposite direction of what you want. I actually think you might like a Black Winter. It has a bit more of a higher mid voicing than the Distortion but still tight.
You might know this, but just for clarification:
Triaxis V1 with the 1.0 MIDI board and the Marshall-esque LD1 (0001-1630)
Triaxis V2 with the 2.0 MIDI board and the Recto-esque LD1 TX4 board without the phat mod (1631-5199)
Triaxis V2 with the 2.0 MIDI board and the Recto-esque LD1 TX4 board...
Love it. Mine's in a looper with my RJM PBC6x. Sometimes it goes into the loop, sometimes up front. Sounds great in both positions. Adds some very nice width and stacks well with other choruses. Sounds best in stereo, but mono works well, too.
One of the best preamps ever made and this version is the most desirable one out of all of them! This has the super high quality potentiometers, and you simply can't get them anymore. John Suhr is still modifying these and even has a MIDI add-on board his son created for this to make it fully...