Mesa Royal Atlantic 100 arrives today!

[fdesalvo]

Stoked!  Will haul it to rehearsal and report back.  It will be replacing my Splawn Quickrod. 

The QR has the nicest high gain tone I've ever heard, but it can't crunch or do the medium gain thing.  Nor can it do the clean thing well enough.  I wanted to AB it with my scratchbuild clean head, but with the amount of delay I use, it's not possible. 

Anyway, I'm stoked!  It sounds amazing and can do Fendery cleans, TX blues grit, solid crunch, and the heavies really well! 

 

[thebutcher85]

:headbang: HELLZ TO THE YEYAH!! I played through one at my buddie's guitar shop for about 3.5 hours last week, I was very impressed! Very responsive amp, excellent tones and simple controls

 

[Cagey]

Stoked!  Will haul it to rehearsal and report back.  It will be replacing my Splawn Quickrod. 

Good for you! I've heard nothing but good things about that amp.

 

[fdesalvo]

Haha thanks, y'all.

I had quite a few amps in my time so far - Peavey JSX, Mesa DC-3, DC-10, & MKIV heads, Marshall TSL, Mesa Stiletto Deuce II, Splawn Quickrod (AMAZING!!), Fargen, and various self-built amps, but of the Fendery type.  Each of these had their compromises - they all do, right? 

The Peavey lasted a week lol.  The Mesa/Boogie DCs were amazing Rythm/Clean amps, but not so good for soloing. 

The TSL was so thin and bright with no clean tone wirth talking about. 

The Stiletto was amazing, but so bright - amazing clean tones and lead tones - but again, piercing and thin even in a live mix. 

The Fargen was a single channel 50w plexi, so not good for our application.

The MKIV had amazing tones - amazing - just lacked consistency from room to room - you would literally tweak it for 10 minutes to recapture your tone and most of our gigs didn't allow us that luxury if we weren't headlining. 

The Splawn was a beast - just an amazing amp with the ideal high gain lead tone - IDEAL.  But it couldn't cover middle ground or cleans well enough for me to keep it.  And using it as amp #2 in a two amp setup wasn't feasible bc you can't use in-loop delays with head switchers/single cab rigs.  There wasn't a stage I played where that Splawn didn't just turn heads. 

The three amps I owned that received the most compliments  from audience/sound guys were the MKIV, Stiletto, and Splawn. 

But, this RA-100 right here seems to really hit the Fender cleans and overdriven tones, plexi and medium gain Marshallesque tones, and then a fat lead tone all in one simple amp.  Sweet mercy, I hope this is the one haha.  I was really impressed by the various videos on mesa's website, youtube, and the one I demoed (2x12).  Can't wait to hear it through the 4x12!

 

[Cagey]

The TSL was so thin and bright with no clean tone wirth talking about. 

Funny you should mention that. I have a chance to get a TSL at a "brother" price because he doesn't like how dark it is. The high end/clarity just isn't there. Changed tubes, speakers - no joy. Sounded really good the last time I heard it, so it just goes to show how much expectations change things.

Same brother is fixin' to take a recently purchased Mark V back this week. Can't get it to sound like a Marshall. Go figure.

He does love his Rivera Fandango, and apparently it's forgivable that it won't sound like a Marshall.

I think he just needs an ass-beating to help get his mind right <grin>

 

[fdesalvo]

Lol, yep - I'm sure that the Marshall cab I was running it into at the time made a huge impact on the biting top end - those G12T75 can slice your head off with the wrong amp.
Funny, but the DSL I heard was a really nice sounding amp by comparison.

It's funny how we tend to compare the tones in our minds against what the amp/guitar is producing.  I grew up on 80/90's music and tend to hear that modded marshall tone or fender clean in my mind.  Whenever an amp can't deliver those two "basic" sounds, I end up moving them. 

I heard those Fandango's are the tits! 

I played the MKV and couldn't get into it.  I saw myself falling into that same trap as with the MKIV - the road to tweaker's paradise.

On an unrelated note, I'm seriously gassing for a Ceriatone *umble clone - bad.  There's a newish head with case on sale here in LA on craigslist for $1300.  Someone should scoop that thing up.  Talk about clean to mean with your guitar's volume knob.  Slap that puppy on top a 1x12 and it's blues city.

The TSL was so thin and bright with no clean tone wirth talking about. 

Funny you should mention that. I have a chance to get a TSL at a "brother" price because he doesn't like how dark it is. The high end/clarity just isn't there. Changed tubes, speakers - no joy. Sounded really good the last time I heard it, so it just goes to show how much expectations change things.

Same brother is fixin' to take a recently purchased Mark V back this week. Can't get it to sound like a Marshall. Go figure.

He does love his Rivera Fandango, and apparently it's forgivable that it won't sound like a Marshall.

I think he just needs an ass-beating to help get his mind right <grin>

 

[Cagey]

The Fandango is a seriously nice amp. The tones you can get out of it are just so sweet. Plus, it's a very high-quality piece of gear - one of those things you buy that if you like it, you can keep it forever without worrying about it.

I've been nibbling around the edges of building a Ceriatone for a couple/few years now, but haven't pulled the trigger yet. Although I shouldn't be, I'm a little resentful of the shipping costs, which are shocking. They're bulky and heavy, and there's just no cheap way to get one from there to here. I imagine if they had an outlet here, they could get some economies of scale bringing in stock and we'd all benefit, but I suspect they have a pile of patent/copyright issues that prevent them from setting up shop and selling the things here. Even if there weren't any legal issues, they certainly couldn't build them here at any reasonable price so they'd all be kits.

 

[fdesalvo]

Yep.  Your best bet is to just find one that's been built by Nik and rock it.  Unless you want the exp of putting together a kit, which I totally can understand.  If shipping is prohibitive, consider making a parts list and following their layout.  Punching holes in an aluminum chassis isn't that hard - 'specially with all the goodies you've got in the shed!

 

[fdesalvo]

Back the RA-100 - here's the dilemma.  It sounds amazing at the suggested settings on the video demos - where the master is at 9:00 and above.  However, at that point my ears are bleeding.  We don't even play at that volume on stage.  I'm not tooooo happy with the tone at rehearsal volume.  I'll try again saturday with the drummer and decide whether or not to keep it. 

It's making me want to keep my splawn at this point. 

 

[Tempest]

You might invest in an attenuator.  That does wonders for me and my tube amp.  Cranked tone, low volume

 

[thebutcher85]

You might invest in an attenuator.  That does wonders for me and my tube amp.  Cranked tone, low volume

Mesa's RA100 head has a built-in attenuator already.

From Mesa's website on the RA100:
•Proprietary Multi-Soak™, Channel Assignable Power Attenuator provides each channel with a 5-position power attenuation switch (-16db, -12db, -8db, -4db & 0db) for Power Ratings ranging from 3 Watts to 100 Watts of Class A/B Power

http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Transatlantic/royalatlantic-RA100.html#gpm1_2