I have owned/played every mark amp for a while, and I did own a Recto for a short while-Mk IV is very versatile/perfect gigging amp-it has a tighter, more dynamic feel than the recto-you cant get the sag out of a IV that you get out of the modern, bass heavy recto-next to each other, it was no comparison for my tastes-you can get awesome cleans, mean blues, and tight crunch/sustaining rich leads from the IV-the IV combined with EV speaker is THE deal :D