Mercury Magnetics Modified Amplifier Shootout: Valve JR Shootout Two

Epiphone Valve JR Shootout Video

Starting with both amps set to roughly 10 o’clock and using the LSL’s neck pickup you can hear that the lower output single coil pickups are not over-driving the amp as much as when we were testing the amps with the Collings 360. But you can hear how there is certainly more breakup when Mike switches to the Mercury Modified amp. The overdrive has a very round and open character to it and again, the top end comes through right away.

We then set the amps to 1 o’clock to get some more distorted tones out of the amplifier with the LSL. Starting with the stock amp you can hear the tone is muted or dull sounding. To my ears the tone is dark, not warm and I find the overdriven sound to be a little weak and thin. The Mercury modified amp adds detail and presence to the tone. I find the attack to be more pleasant to my ears; when Mike digs into a note, the growl from the amp is more open and rich. The sustain of the individual notes sound bigger with the modification, while the stock amp sounds like it is letting go of the note almost immediately. The modified amp lets each note ring on longer without such a quick decay.

One of the more interesting aspects of this shootout for me is to see how Mike’s playing and expression changes when he switches between the amps. With both amps set to full you can see Mike start with the stock amp and work his way through some lead work and chords. But when he switches to the Mercury modified amp you can see that he is almost immediately more involved in what he is playing. He actually starts grinning around the 4:53 mark in the video. You can see that the response, attack, and tone of the amp make it more exciting to play. In the previous Epiphone shootout there seemed to be less difference between the two amps when they were set to the maximum volume using humbuckers. But with the LSL you could really hear the difference that the modification makes to the dynamic range of the amp. With the modified amp you can hear all of the notes ringing out, and chords sound full and detailed.

I thought it was important for people to hear some more lead work through the amplifiers, as it would be a good illustration of what the modification adds to the tone. When you hear Mike run up and down the neck through the stock amp the notes sound downright fuzzy, there is not much clarity. This would be fine if you were using a fuzz pedal, but I doubt you would want that fuzzy sound on everything you were playing. It’s always better to start with something that is clear and detailed thus allowing you to dirty up or fuzz up the signal as you see fit. When Mike switches to the Mercury the notes clean right up and there is a new level of detail to them.

So once again we see that the Mercury modification takes this budget amplifier and transforms it from something that was once a disposable import into something that you will keep and play for a lifetime. Mercury Magnetics has really done something special with this upgrade kit and I think it is something that you should check out.

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