The DC series gain channel circuit is nothing at all like a Rectifier Red channel or anything else in a Dual Rec. I love the DC series and mod them, Mesa should still make them but instead they devolved into less versatile amps. I could draw that circuit from memory, trust me, it isn't anything from a Recto. The clean channel had two versions, both were modified classic Fender clean circuits. The latter version was much closer than the earlier version. If it bares resemblance to any other Mesa circuit it's only because Mesa's started evolution as modified Fenders.
The DC series were very well thought out amps. The clean and gain channels share no early gain stages at all, only coming together after all gain and tone shaping was done. The clean channel is very close to a Fender and can be made into a Fender copy easily if you want. The gain channel had the tone controls at the end of the gain staging where they should be, unlike a lot of earlier Mesas, but ALSO gave you the post gain, post tone-stack switchable 5 band. The Mark series relied upon the 5 band as a substitute for the post-gain tone stack since their tone controls were far too early in the gain staging to be of much use on the gain channel. The DCs had the tone stack where it should be to start with, unlike the Marks, plus the added versatility of the 5 band after that.
Brilliant.
They were the best of both worlds between Mark and Recto, having the best aspects of both and the shortcomings of neither. If people were aware of what those amps are capable of with a few simple mods, they'd sell for more than the used Recto's easily. The F series were a step down, abandoning the switchable 5 band, as are the 5:50s with thier switchable circuit that does exactly the oposite of what you'd want it to do in order to be useful in a live situation. Another case of a company saying, "hey, we've got a great product here, let's see how we can ruin it by F*ing with it!"
