Dreamtheaterrules said:
Any updates? I'm even more interested after what you said about the 5 watt mode, because that's kind of what I wanted from the lower watt mode. More and more interested in this. Plus, the guy still has the used one I found on Craigs List
You should go try it out. I think you'll know right away.
Here's what I experienced, in more detail. The TA15 I first tried at Guitar Center sounded great. It made me want to buy it. Instead, I bought one from a forum member, and when I tried it at home I was amazed at the stiffness, cold and unforgiving response I got from it. I am very much a touch player, and I just couldn't get comfortable with the amp I had at my house. I tried it through a couple of different cabs, swapped power tubes -- nothing really helped. The volume was jumpy and ultimately the amp was ear-fatiguing, so I sold it. It was NOTHING like the amp I tried at GC. Very puzzling.
I later tried a TA30 1x12 combo at the same GC. Again: sounded GREAT. Wow! Ordered a demo head from Sweetwater, and was again disappointed. However, I must confess: it's possible that the TA30 sounded stiff and cold because I could never get it out of the gates at my house. I play at home a lot (although I do gig with varying regularity, I guess I would call myself a part-time pro) and my main amp is a Lone Star, which feels like a Cadillac in comparison to the TA, which would be more of an Italian sports car that only goes blazing fast or not at all... the LSC has an extra volume control in the Effects Send, which allows you to warm the amp up a bit, while keeping the levels reasonable. The TA30 does not have this control, so it's way more dependent on the Master Volumes in each channel... my feeling was that I couldn't really use it because I couldn't see the TA30 replacing my LSC, and as an at-home amp it seemed like I could never get it to feel right without it being too loud. I may have interpreted that in the same way that I perceived my first TA15.
The new one that I have now sounds just like the first one that I tried at GC long ago. The power levels do affect the tone in the same dramatic way that they do with the Mini Rectifier... possibly even more dramatically, actually.
The other thing that was more dramatic, even more so with the colder amp I had originally, was the response of the Gain and Master on Ch1. The Vox side is pretty sensitive and takes a bit of getting used to in terms of finding the right feel at the desired levels. It can be jumpy in certain points of the controls, and the pull-MV control responds differently between the wattage settings. In fact, all the modes are very different in how they react when you change power levels, depending on how your volume and gain settings are set. The MiniRec is way more predictable in that way... it's more straightforward and logical, once you get an initial grasp on it. The TA15 has fewer knobs, but more variance with all those switches.
So, back to the amp you're interested in... I've tried two different TA15's in identical settings and one was very different from the other. It could possibly have been a tube issue, but I'll tell you another thing: the one I have now started out with a power tube issue right out of the box, which I discovered in the first 30 minutes of playing, and reproduced easily over the next two days. It would sound GREAT, and then crap out. I've been poking Mesa about it, and am still waiting for a response. But after reading up on it, I decided to swap in a pair of brand new Mesa EL84s that I happened to have on-hand, and after a few days of trying, I discovered 2 things: 1) the problem disappeared, and 2) the amp sounds exactly like it did with the original tubes. The originals were GRY labeled, and the new ones are GRN. No apparent difference, to my ears. I am hoping Mesa will replace the tubes that I swapped, because the cause seems clear to me at this point.
I think these amps are very cool, but also sort of finicky and sensitive, which is consistent with EL84 tubes in general. I am very happy with the one I have, as I think it's working just like the one that drew my attention in the first place. I have not given it a gig-level workout yet, but I am hoping to do that mid-week at a jam-session. In any case, the one I have now is way less ear-fatiguing and more pleasurable to play than the one I had before, and I trust my ears implicitly in this way.
So again: give the CL one a try, and see how it feels. If it works the way it's supposed to, I think you'll like it.