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I finally went against everything I used to swear by the last couple of years, that was:
All for one amp: a Mesa RA-100 Royal Atlantic 2x12'' combo.
I wanted to simplify things again, "a plug and play" kinda setup where I just get almost everything from the amp itself. Except that, as good as my other amps sound clean or on the edge of dirt, they didn't do moderate gain or high gain stuff. That wasn't a big deal until I decided to work on getting myself out there to start gigging with a rock band again.
For a lot of years, I wasn't a Mesa fan. The cleans weren't that inspiring, the older designs didn't really have a lot of tonal flexibility and those suckers used to have to be turned up pretty substantially to enjoy. It's no surprise the last several years Mesa has made huge advances. They're progressively getting more compact, more power switching flexibility and a lot of different modes of operation to get a multitude of sounds. They've also managed to make channel switching amps that work really well without having big compromises. The Lonestar Special, for instance, has one of the best clean sounds i've heard out of any amplifier and still has a really good overdrive channel.
I missed that sound you get when you have really big iron. Yes, it's expensive to retube. Yes, it adds weight, it adds bulk, it makes transporting the darn thing a pain. I just miss really turning up, digging in hard and getting the sound in my face without it compressing to hell. I'm a much tighter player than I used to be so a stiffer and more revealing amp doesn't bother me.
Over the years I've learned that for cleans, I gravitate towards blackface Fenders (Vox just isn't me) and I like more mid heavy drive sounds (aka Marshall). For years, manufacturers have been trying to do the best of both worlds under one hood, but there are always compromises. I've owned Bogner Shivas and they were really good amps, but they were just too low middy, too warm, smooth and compressed and too fat sounding. I thought about something like a Carr Slant 6V, but the power just didn't seem to be there to offer lots of headroom.
I think I'm going to be enjoying this for a lot of years to come.
Here are some pros:
Here are some cons:
If I were to design my own amp with Mesa, it'd incorporate most of the bones of this with a separate EQ/gain for the high side, a 1x12'' combo with (2) EL34s and a foot switch with switchable FX loop and separate LEDs for the different modes.
This is a hell of an amp and I'm becoming a Mesa convert. They've discontinued this one I believe so who knows? With them moving towards smaller gear, maybe we'll see a successor surface in the next year or two. I have no regrets with this one though (especially for the price I got it for which is a steal for an amp of this caliber).
- Big iron
- Channel switching
- More than one speaker combos
- Mesas
- Anything physically large or heavy
All for one amp: a Mesa RA-100 Royal Atlantic 2x12'' combo.
I wanted to simplify things again, "a plug and play" kinda setup where I just get almost everything from the amp itself. Except that, as good as my other amps sound clean or on the edge of dirt, they didn't do moderate gain or high gain stuff. That wasn't a big deal until I decided to work on getting myself out there to start gigging with a rock band again.
For a lot of years, I wasn't a Mesa fan. The cleans weren't that inspiring, the older designs didn't really have a lot of tonal flexibility and those suckers used to have to be turned up pretty substantially to enjoy. It's no surprise the last several years Mesa has made huge advances. They're progressively getting more compact, more power switching flexibility and a lot of different modes of operation to get a multitude of sounds. They've also managed to make channel switching amps that work really well without having big compromises. The Lonestar Special, for instance, has one of the best clean sounds i've heard out of any amplifier and still has a really good overdrive channel.
I missed that sound you get when you have really big iron. Yes, it's expensive to retube. Yes, it adds weight, it adds bulk, it makes transporting the darn thing a pain. I just miss really turning up, digging in hard and getting the sound in my face without it compressing to hell. I'm a much tighter player than I used to be so a stiffer and more revealing amp doesn't bother me.
Over the years I've learned that for cleans, I gravitate towards blackface Fenders (Vox just isn't me) and I like more mid heavy drive sounds (aka Marshall). For years, manufacturers have been trying to do the best of both worlds under one hood, but there are always compromises. I've owned Bogner Shivas and they were really good amps, but they were just too low middy, too warm, smooth and compressed and too fat sounding. I thought about something like a Carr Slant 6V, but the power just didn't seem to be there to offer lots of headroom.
I think I'm going to be enjoying this for a lot of years to come.
Here are some pros:
- The power flexibility. This is one of the biggest things that sold me on the amp. I can run the clean channel on 100w, power scale the low and high gain modes to not be as overbearing. Finally, 100w headroom on the cleans again... no flubby lowend or compression unless I want to scale down the power and choose to lightly drive it. The scaling works very, very effectively so Mesa knocked it out of the park with this design.
- Assignable reverb. I really like reverb, but reverb can take away the punch from distortion. I love that I can assign it to the clean channel only. I've played around with it on the gain modes and I really think being able to assign it to just the cleans puts this amp in a different league than most. A little reverb adds some nice depth to the cleans and while it isn't mesmerizing like on my Swart AST Pro, it's still a quality tube driven reverb.
- Simplicity. I like the simplicity of the controls on this amp. It's a straightforward treble, mid, bass, gain, master configuration and it's intuitive. Unlike some amps I've owned in the past like the Bad Cat Hot Cat 30, adjusting one control doesn't radically change everything else. For folks that feel you need an engineering degree to work the controls on a Mesa, try this one out. You might be pleasantly surprised.
- 3 Channels. Having (3) good channels covers the ground for me from clean to crunch to searing high gain. This amp really doesn't leave you wanting for much.
- Power tube switching. I like that it has the provisions to easily switch between 6L6 AND EL-34 tubes. From the clips I've heard online, it sounds the best with EL-34s and that's what mine came with, but it's nice to know I can change the voicing if I so desire.
- The cleans. It stuns me that when people reference this amp, they don't talk more about the cleans. Mesa got a damn near 6L6 Fender sound out of an EL-34 design. You buy this amp for Marshall tones with some of that Mesa feel, but being very picky about my clean sounds it blows me away that I'm equally inspired by the cleans. It all comes back to the "compromises" thing with channel switching and this Mesa doesn't compromise much.
- The tuning of the cabinet and electronics EQ. A huge pro for me is that even though it's a 2x12'' combo, the bass isn't obnoxious. People usually compare this with the Electra Dyne and people rave about the thump on that amp, but the lack of tons of bass is why I like this so much. I like how it cuts in the midrange and the bass is present without rattling the heck out of tubes and electronics in the combo. I have no doubt this will cut in the mix just fine and there's more than enough room to turn up on this amp.
Here are some cons:
- The low and high gain modes share the same EQ. While I can adjust the volume of the high gain channel, the gain itself is fixed. I have it dialed in where I love it on the low side, but the high side is a bit too gainy for my tastes. For rhythm, I can get some nice hotrodded Marshall, but with that level of preamp gain, you'll have to resort to putting a pedal in the FX Loop to boost for solos because it's too saturated to be useful kicking the frontend.
- I wish this amp had a switchable FX Loop. It would have been nice to put my delay pedal and a boost pedal in the loop and switch both at once with one footswitch press to make leads pop.
- The amp is heavy. With the TA-15 and TA-30 (the other Transatlantic amps in the lineup), they're compact. Having a (2) EL-34 equipped 1x12'' combo would have made a lot of sense and dropped the weight considerably.
- The footswitch only has a low and high mode LED. When you're on the clean channel, you don't know what mode you're going to switch over to (because the other LEDs go out) unless you remember what it was set for before switching to the clean channel.
If I were to design my own amp with Mesa, it'd incorporate most of the bones of this with a separate EQ/gain for the high side, a 1x12'' combo with (2) EL34s and a foot switch with switchable FX loop and separate LEDs for the different modes.
This is a hell of an amp and I'm becoming a Mesa convert. They've discontinued this one I believe so who knows? With them moving towards smaller gear, maybe we'll see a successor surface in the next year or two. I have no regrets with this one though (especially for the price I got it for which is a steal for an amp of this caliber).
. If I fail, right now it's a light grey cross so it's less obvious than before and still useful to have as a mic reference point.
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