Sound Pure's Take

Condition: Used, Excellent

The Carr Mercury V is a handwired tube combo that delivers rich harmonics, smooth overdrive, and exceptional touch sensitivity. Its dual blendable volume controls allow for a wide range of tones, from warm cleans to thick, singing drive, while the built-in attenuator makes it easy to achieve natural tube saturation at manageable volumes. The Celestion Creamback speaker adds warmth and punch, complementing the amp’s responsive, vintage-inspired character. Features like tube-driven spring reverb and the selectable boost provide extra depth and flexibility without overcomplicating the layout. Dynamic, expressive, and full of personality, the Mercury V offers a refined boutique voice with plenty of versatility.

From Carr Amplifiers

The Mercury V reinvents a long-standing Carr platform to deliver snarling Marshall-esque British tones with a highly evolved feature set and surprising versatility. From thick cleans, to punchy midrangey crunch, to wailing roar, it’s all here with attitude to spare. Rendered in a supremely portable package and able to nail all reduced-volume requirements, the Mercury V brings stack-like sonic thunder to the rehearsal room, studio, and club stage.

 

In 2003 Vintage Guitar magazine’s cover story declared the original Mercury the ‘Tone of the Gods.’ Its bigger brother the Mercury V now configures that directivity and touch sensitivity into an even more fully-featured, breathtakingly versatile design enabling a broad range of gain structures, voicing capabilities and output levels to tackle just about any genre or playing style.

 

Based on a pair of 6V6GT power tubes for a full-throated 16 watts, the Mercury V harnesses an ingeniously original preamp circuit featuring dual Volume controls (for High and Low voicings), a three-position Boost switch, and a three-knob EQ stage to kick out a dynamic range of distinctly English tones. The results included everything from pushed ’60s cleans, to chunky ’70s rock, right into’80s and ’90s crunch and singing leads, and even scorching high-gain sizzle. The internally paired High and Low channels can be run in parallel like a jumpered four-hole classic, or switched to cascade in series, taking the gain levels off the charts and into the 21st century.

 

An onboard attenuator—Carr’s forte—can be switched in to take the firepower anywhere from 4 watts down to a mere whisper, and there’s a post-power amp Line Out to send it to the PA or into your recording interface for tracking. Add lush tube-returned spring reverb, and there’s a wealth of multi-dimensional tone packed into this remarkably compact combo.

 

It’s all put together with the top-quality parts and construction that Carr is famous for, including in-house crafted dovetailed solid North Carolina yellow pine cabinets, military and NASA-grade power supply components, and trenchant mid-Century signal elements rendered in true point-to-point wiring.

 

Mercury V — from a whisper to a roar, and scary good all the way.

Construction: Hand wired point-to-point in the USA

Components: Custom USA made transformers, Solen Fast Cap Film Power Supply, US-made Jupiter signal capacitors, carbon comp resistors, and more

Power: 16 watts

Channels: One (with two blendable Volume controls)

Tubes: four 12AX7, two 6V6GT

Controls: High and Low Volume, three-way Boost, Reverb, Treble, Mid, Bass, Attenuator, Line Out

Switches: Parallel/Series switch, three-position Boost, Attenuator in/out, on/off/standby

Features: All-tube spring reverb, Boost switch, built-in attenuator, 8-Ohm speaker out, line out

Cabinet: Hand-crafted from solid pine, dovetail-jointed and uniquely styled

Speakers: Celestion Creamback M65 12"

Weight & Dimensions: 1x12" combo 21" (W) x 17" (H) x 9" (D at top, 10" at bottom), 40 lbs

Warranty

This item is sold without the Sound Pure 3-year warranty (used / B-stock / dealer-exempt). Coverage terms for items in this category live in Terms & Conditions, Section 27.

Returns

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Sound Pure Studios Control Room A — Durham, NC

Sound Pure Studios · Durham, NC

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