Hi Rnolan, Thanks very much to take the time and reply.
As I mentioned I'm used to ride my guitar's volume quite extensively. I've played many other amps several times (Mesa Recto, 5150, Marshall MF, JCM900, JCM2000, jmp1, soldano, krank etc you get the idea) and I've always been able to manage my gain this way as I'm not really a pedal guy. Although I have to say that I have the most experience with the Marshalls and the 5150.
My first decent amp was an MP1 classic so I naturally assumed the 3TM would allow me to ride the guitar volume the same way but now I'm realizing that it's not quite the case as the classic indeed has less gain.
What I've always liked is having a high gain amp that you can unleash with your guitar, no need for other channels or pedals unless is strictly necessary. Again I now reckon that when I did this with my Classic it never had the same amount of gain as I have now with the 3TM.
To be honest it's been such a long time since I played the original 5150 that I don't really remember how much gain it had. What I do remember is that I always used the gain as little as possible. Even now with the 5150mkIII my gain is only on 3 at max, and in the 3TM I don't go past OD1@4.0 and OD2@7.0 as I prefer clarity and that is plenty of gain and minimal noise (even less than the 5150
)
Perhaps I'll try to change the tubes and see what feel the unit gives me. Perhaps what I really want is a less gainy amp with a boost before it so I can get enough high gain for the crazy metal things.
I've always been curious about the MP2 though, how would you compare it to the 3TM in terms of feel and sound? NOt really fair to compare the unit as a whole since the MP2 has so much more features, but using "basic" clean/crunch/high gain tones serves as a good barometer to compare 2 different units.