Carr Mercury V 1×12 Combo

Carr Mercury V 1×12 Combo Amp in Black tolex

This is my third Carr amp. My take on Carr amps is that they are extremely well built and will compete or beat any vintage or other boutique amp I have tried. I don’t think you can go wrong owning any Carr Amp. All the Carr amps I have owned have been able to go from clean, to crunch, to distort with the turn of a knob and all settings sounded fantastic.

Carr Mercury V – British tone similar to Marshall, but not Marshall clone as it is very much its own thing. Very versatile and inspiring to play.
Carr Skylark – More American voiced that can deliver Fender Princeton, Brownface and Tweed tones. Sounds better than my fully maintained vintage 1966 Fender Princeton Reverb.
Carr Lincoln – British voiced tones similar to classic Vox – Beatles to Brian May! Sounds better than the actual Vox I used to own.

The Mercury is an astonishingly versatile amplifier—especially when it comes to home and studio use. The unique built-in attenuator allows full output tube overdrive to be used at real world home volumes, freeing you to enjoy the visceral sound and feel of a cranked, overdriven power section. Along with this ability, the Mercury offers beautiful 60s American clean tones—a combination rarely found.

Back in June 2003, Carr’s original eight-watt Mercury combo earned high praise for its top-of-the-line components, attention to detail, and wide-ranging “Tone of the Gods” voicing. This is the newer version of the Carr Mercury which is essentially a higher wattage, British flavored rendition of the Carr Skylark amp. This new version of the much loved Mercury has a much improved feature set over the previous version.

Carr uses top-end components and impeccable construction in all their amps. The components include audiophile quailty cable, Solen and Jupiter caps, carbon-comp resistors, Carr’s custom-spec transformers and medical grade power cords. The rectifier is solid-state and the Mercury V uses two 6V6 power tubes and four 12AX7 preamp tubes producing about 16 watts.

The cabinet is North Carolina yellow pine built in-house at Carr and is available in many different coverings. True point-to-point hand-wired chassis (no turret board), result in an incredibly quiet amp and that SOUND! The Mercury V combo, for all its bed-room-level capabilities, can be amazingly loud when cranking all 16 watts. Amp is totally great at home, studio or at a gig.

This NEW design that Steve Carr has come up with makes the Mercury V and much different and improved amp from the original Mercury amp. While the original Mercury was powered by an EL34, it was a single ended amp, meaning it had a lot of the single ended qualities of an old Fender Champ type amp. The original Mercury came with a 10-inch speaker. This version is now powered by dual 6V6 Class A power section giving it a more British feel than before, and at 16 watts, a lot more power as well. When the attenuator is engaged, you drop to 4 watts, where you can vary the output from 4 down to 0 watts. This can make any neighbor, wife or sandman happy!

The Mercury V does offer Marshall tones and feel, but it is in no way a clone or meant to be one… It offers its own thing and is quite inspirational in the tones it produces and the versatility it offers.

There are also several vintage Marshall things in the new Mercury. It has two volumes controls, one high (treble) frequency volume, and one lower (darker) frequency volume. There’s also a toggle switch that changes the structure of the input signal through the volumes. When it’s up, they are running in parallel, so they’re working in conjunction with each other going into the amp. When set to parallel, the amp reproduces the bridging of a classic four-input dual-channel amplifier where both volumes can operate in- dependently or be blended as an extra layer of EQ shaping. A lot like when you use a short jumper between the normal and brighter channel of a Marshall (or old Fender tweed).

Marshall amp jumped channels

Fender Tweed Jumped Channels

If you have a darker guitar you can add more highs here, and vice versa if you have a bright guitar. When the toggle switch is in the down position, the two volumes are running in series where one drives the other to increase the gain.

The Mercury V features lush sounding tube/spring reverb, treble, mid, bass, a line out for recording or direct-to-PA and an attenuator switch that toggles between a full-throttle 16-watts of power or an adjustable range of zero to four watts with its last control knob. A single 12–inch Celestion Creamback G12M-65 speaker. The cabinet design angles the speaker slightly upward.

The Mercury V excels at delivering a range of classic ’60s British tones. Its built-in spring reverb and three-position Boost switch provide an incredible versatility and touch-sensitivity. With my Filter’Tron-equipped Gretsch guitars, the Mercury V delivered remarkable top-boost AC30 Liverpool chime that would make the fab four happy. Plugging in my Les Paul, and Marshall sounds galore. Single-coil Fender Stratocaster sounded great, but I just love my Telecasters plugged into this amp.

Trick is that the power tubes are not the big bottles (like EL-34) used in large Marshalls, or even the smaller EL-84s that power 18-watt Marshall combos and Vox AC15s, but just a pair of 6V6s, that are usually seen in medium to small Fender amps such as the Fender Princeton. Marshall’s generally do not feature great lush sounding MOD spring reverb.

The tone stack has an extended range. There’s a bit more treble and bass on tap, and the midrange control is powerful enough to overdrive some otherwise clean settings when maxed out.

Class A
Push Pull 6V6 – enriched fixed bias
Single channel: Treble, Mid, Bass, Reverb
3-position boost switch
Parallel or series input gain stages
Built in attenuator 4 to 0 watts or 16 watts full power

The Controls

High Volume – Voiced for bright, thin sound. In Parallel mode you can blend the High Volume with the Low Volume to create the desired sonic body to suit your guitar and the drive level. In Series mode this volume drives the gain stage that serves the Low Volume in a cascaded fashion. You will notice that the higher this volume is set – the more sustain and rounder the tone.

Low Volume – Voiced for full, dark sound. In Parallel mode you can blend the Low Volume with the High Volume to create the desired body to suit your guitar and the drive level. In Series mode this volume drives the rest of the pre amp while the High Volume drives it. It is fun to try different setting of the High Volume and Low Volume in Series to achieve endless overdrive textures.

Parallel/Series Gain toggle – In the 60s and 70s many classic British stack amps had 4 inputs and two volume controls each voice differently for guitar and bass. Players found they could bridge these inputs and use both volumes at once to get a tailored combination of bright and bass. With the toggle up in Parallel mode this is what is happening inside the Mercury V. Each of the Volume controls has its own tube gain stage.

When you set the toggle to Series you are now running your guitar first into the High Volume gain stage then into the Low Volume gain stage – and finally out to the rest of the amp.

This adds 1 gain stage and a lot more overdrive potential. Back in the 70s many techs would mod-stack British amps for just this configuration! Now with a flick of the switch you can go from classic to modded tones.

Boost Switch – Select one of three pre amp gain structures post Volume control.
Setting 1 is low gain and very sweet sounding with clear ringing tones.
Setting 2 has a gain structure similar to a metal panel British amp from the 70s – aggressive! Setting 3 adds even more drive to push the power tubes while tightening the overall sound.

Reverb – Controls the amount of reverb sound from none to deep and lush.

Treble – Varies the top end from dark to bright.

Mid – Varies the midrange frequencies and is very interactive with the Treble control. For a sweet smooth tone, set the Mid to 9 o’clock. 12 o’clock is a great all around setting for both clean and overdrive. The tone becomes more aggressive as you advance the Mid past 2 o’clock. When the Mid is set near full, the Treble control’s effect is more subtle and the amp is easily overdriven with lots of bite.

Bass – Varies the low end from lean to full. To retain clarity, turn the Bass down at higher volumes.

Attenuator toggle and Attenuator – When the toggle points up to the left the Attenuator is out of the signal path and the amp delivers its full 16 watts to the speaker. When the toggle is down the Attenuator is active and you can continuously vary from 4 down to ~ 0 watts.

Line Out – 1⁄4 inch mono guitar cable output which is always active. We have tailored the sound to simulate a speaker roll-off and response. You can run this into an A/D converter then into your computer to record or run it into a mixer/PA for live sound in addition to the amps speaker. If you want to record silently – turn on the attenuator and set it to minimum.

Standby – Off – Play – The toggle switch baton in the middle position is Power Off. To play set the amp to Standby (switch baton down). After 1 minute of warm up, switch the Power baton up to Play. The amp is ready to be played. Using the Standby setting every time the amp is turned on will prolong tube life.

Speaker output jack – The speaker output jack is located between the third and fourth pre amp tubes on the chassis (see Chassis Diagram). The Mercury V is designed to drive an 8 ohm load.

The Mercury V is a partial cathode bias (self bias) amplifier and as such does not require a bias adjustment when changing tubes. Please use matched pairs of output tubes for maximum performance. The Mercury V can only use matched pairs of 6V6 power tubes.

The Carr Mercury V has a huge range of possible tones. Below is some recommended settings.