Boogie, I Shrunk the Amp: The Mini Mesa Mark V 25

The latest in Mesa’s Shrinky Dinks series of amps, and feeding into the current frenzy of lunchbox amps, the Mesa Mark V 25 was announced yesterday, with a demo video featuring, among other things, some extended range guitar action and metal chuggery.

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Some of the key features include a built-in CabClone cab simulator for direct recording or live use (which you won’t find in the full size Mark V), 2 EL-84 power tubes (rather than the usual 6L6s or EL-34s) separate Reverb levels for each channel, and Xtreme mode (they dropped the E from the original Mark V, WHAT DOES IT MEAN!??!?!?!).

Apparently it will be selling for around $1300, a bit cheaper than the full size which will set you back about $2250 brand new. I’m a bit surprised that they didn’t have your god John Petrucci do a demo while he was there shooting his latest Mesa video showing the similarities of the Mark V to the original Mark 2 C+.

If you want to hear what it sounds like with some drumless Meshuggah clowning, skip to around 8:36. For the record, I think it sounds awesome and that’s likely how I would use it.

Check out the official demo video below.

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As Editor-in-Chief of Gear Gods, I've been feeding your sick instrument fetishism and trying unsuccessfully to hide my own since 2013. I studied music on both coasts (Berklee and SSU) and now I'm just trying to put my degree to some use. That's a music degree, not an English one. I'm sure you noticed.

Latest comments
  • The cabclone addition is pretty cool. Also pretty nice to get hold of one for around that price.

  • I would totally buy this head if it wouldn’t cost almost TWICE as much in germany.

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