Mesa/Boogie Mark Five 25

Mesa/Boogie expands their Mark series amplifier line with the new compact Mark Five: 25 amp head.

Mesa/Boogie Mark Five 25

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This new amp combines the best features of the older Mark II-C with the current production line Mark Five and packs it all inside a small and portable form factor.

It looks like Mesa/Boogie is finally making the Mark V a little more friendly to weekend warriors, this new compact 25 Watt tube amp offers a more practical and portable alternative for those of us who don’t have roadies to carry big amps on weekend gigs.

The story goes that Mesa’s team revisited the Mark II-C+, and decided to incorporate some of its features with the modern Mark Five. They set out to design a small amp that can accommodate 6 modes that would have to outperform the original II-C+.

The company also got feedback that players preferred two preamp channels for a smaller Mark version. And so they set out to build the amp with two channels to better work with modern pedals that themselves apply the tone changes.

Mesa/Boogie Marketing Director Doug West said, “Our goal was to do something quite remarkable with the Mark Five: 25. We set out to pack the stylistic width, versatility, aggressiveness and tone of our full sized Mark amps in the most useable, compact format we could dream up, based on feedback from our community. In combining the power of the Mark Five preamp with our Dyna-Watt 2xEL84 power section in the Mark Five: 25, I think we’ve created a new Mark amp of unprecedented portability, clip-ability and high-speed, tactile expressiveness. I believe the Mark Five: 25 will firmly carry the Mark amp lineage far beyond the current “little amp” trends of today to define a new sonic territory and class of amplifier hard to ignore in any size or wattage category for years to come.”

Check out the official demo video below:

The amp is only 14″ wide and 8″ tall, and it weighs in at just 16.5 pounds. Mesa/Boogie boasts that despite its small size, they were able to fill the amp with features not normally available from other amps in this size. The company’s patented Multi-Watt channel assignable power amp and Dyna Watt technology is present in this amp, allowing for two power levels with different wiring configurations, accessible via the independent 10/25 Watt power switches for each channel.

Switching to 10-watt mode will engage two tubes operating in Class A/B Triode while the 25-Watt mode will utilize two tubes that run in the company’s proprietary Dyna-Watt Class A/B Pentode configuration. The press release says that the 10-Watt mode offers “lush harmonics and liquid feel at lower volumes”, while the 25-Watt provides “maximum power, punch and clarity”.

The two fully independent channels carries three “style modes” each, Channel 1 has the clean, fat and crunch modes, while Channel 2 has a Mark IIC+, Mark IV and Xtreme Modes. For fine tuning your tone, the amp comes equipped with Mesa’s 5-Band Graphic EQ, which is channel assignable, bypassable and footswitchable.

The pedal also comes with an all-tube spring reverb effect with independent channel controls on the rear panel. A fully buffered tube FX Loop is also available for better integration with your pedals.

Finally, this new amp comes with a built-in CabClone Cabinet Simulator for directly connecting to a recording interface or to a PA system – a first for the Mark Series amplifiers. This cabinet simulator features open-back and closed-back voicings, and comes with an internal amp load, speaker on/off control, headphones out and ground lift switches.

The Mark Five:25 is expected to start shipping mid-October, with a retail price of $1,299. For the complete specs and other details, head over to Mesa Boogie.

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