I passed on this particular tone, but it was offered to me. I instead bought the Hybrid and MTL from the guy in this channel. My MCI came from the Blake Mansfield youtube channel. The MCII KT75 was a new order. The Hybrid, which is the MTL MkII preamp paired with the MCII power amp, is becoming my personal favorite, but I have had it for less than 2 weeks and have been traveling a bunch. I need to dig up a comparison between the Hybrid and MTL that I wrote for a friend and post that here for anyone interested.
Copying in the comparison that I just mentioned I would in my previous post.
I can give you some initial impressions on the differences between the MTL MKII 100w e34l and MTL/MCII Hybrid 50w e34l. I do want to make the disclaimer that this is just based on a few hours of A/B’ing over a couple of days, so it is not from months or years of really getting to know every single nuance. BTW I kind of started just writing while half way zoning out on a conference call, so hopefully this makes sense and helps.
There are naturally a lot of similarities in what each amp can do given they have the same preamp, which has some of the most versatile and also easiest to easily dial in a wide range of tones and the amps seem to always stay in a great sweep spot.
The power amp changes the frequency focus of the mids from being naturally in the low mids with the MTL and the mid-mids to higher-mids with the Hybrid. That said, the Sweep/Front Bright control does change the frequency focus of the mids, and both amps have this. However, the MTL does not sound as great with the Sweep above 5 or 6, and between 6-8 might be where the MC mid focus might sit. The thing that I struggled with here with the MTL is I typically go for a mid-forward tone with a fairly present bite and crisp bottom end on palm mutes. The Hybrid balances all of this out perfectly for me, but the MTL requires me to push the Mids to ~7, Bass @ 5 or less, Depth at 5 or less, and then I struggle to get the Treble and Bright control on the back of the amp up high enough to get the bite and cut that I am going for without struggling with an annoyance with the mids that kind of borders on a very subtle cocked wah kind of thing. The problem here is I am trying to push the MTL to do something it is not naturally meant to do. It is not mid scooped, but it kind of has an imbalance in some missing high mids at times that the Hybrid and MCII fill in nicely. On the other hand, the Hybrid seems to be able to drop the Sweep control low and hang with the MTL’s low-mid focus quite well.
The Depth control, which is a power amp control, in the MTL allows the amp to go places that the Hybrid or MCII can’t. It really opens up the tailoring of the low end. It lets the amp get a fuller and slightly looser bottom end, which would normally require a higher Bass control setting coupled with a TS style boost up front to keep things from getting flubby and/or too bass heavy. But the MTL allows for very great balance and control without needing a boost or other EQ tricks to keep the bottom end in control when going for a heavier and looser tone.
The Hybrid’s Contour control that comes from the MCII power amp seems to kind of be like a second Presence control that affects more of the frequency spectrum. Presence really just affects the super high end frequencies, the Bright control on the back of the amp kind of covers all of the frequencies, and the Contour seems to be more focused in the mids and low-highs. Messing with the Contour and Bright controls can take you from blanket over the speakers to too present and bright territories very easily.
Finally, there seems to be a unique difference in the feel and attack in these two amps, and I need to stress that my attempt to explain this is relative between these two amps only. The Hybrid has a comparatively more aggressive, immediate, abrupt, and cutting punch and feel. The MCII KT75 that you tried is pretty much the exact same in this department. The MTL on the other hand tones it down on these fronts a little. It might be that the punch is either comparatively lacking in the mids or more accentuated in the bass frequencies compared to the Hybrid. In one way I kind of think of it like the Hybrid is a coarser sandpaper whereas the MTL is smoother with smaller gain. The MTL has been described by others as being comparatively smoother relative to the MC amps, and that is there but it is subtle. Gotta throw out a good skiing analogy given you are living the dream in Colorado. The Hybrid is like doing GS style turns on perfect corduroy conditions while the MTL is closer to that perfect chalk that is soft enough to still be able to dig your edge into and not skid out (or have to go back and forth between smooth and lumpy spots). Damnit I am having bad withdrawals from not being able to get out to the slopes at all last year due to COVID while have the best season of my life in 2019. It is almost like there is a slight bit of compression in the MTL compared to the Hybrid/MCII which is weird to say given that the MTL is certainly not a compressed amp. If the Hybrid was 100% on the scale, the MTL would be like 96%. It is not a VH4 kind of compressed at all.
I have been through 10 different drive pedals and countless variations of EQ in front of the amp, in the loop, and post impulse response over the past year. What I found was that all of these options neutered the natural feel, clarity, and natural presence of the amps. I could get it to work well in some cases, but it was such a hassle to try to fight against things that were bothering me and try to unnaturally correct them through these means. It is a breath of fresh air going from EQ overload with a Mark IIC+ (boost, pre-EQ, preamp settings, 5 band EQ, and then more EQ after the IR) to being able to just do a few simple turn of the dials on the Hybrid and MTL and seemingly always be in the sweet spot while covering all of the ground that I could possibly want (and having two tools that are similar to control but do their own thing well).