Hey All -
Appreciate the comments from a few posters who suggest that all amps deliver some level of noise at idle. This is indeed true and an irony of these particular comments is that in most cases, an amp that offers very little noise at idle is also VERY likely to deliver flat, uninspired and just plain 'ol boring tone. Not always, (and to each his own) but most of the time, quiet amps are exactly that.
This subject is generally a difficult one to 'answer' because there's no easy/layman's way to quantify how much is 'acceptable' or normal. Idle noise could be to each his own for taste and PARTICULARLY environment, but there are a few guidelines, things to know and comparisons to be made for each person to get a clear sense of what is normal. Then you can decide for yourself what is acceptable.
But before going there, it's important for everyone looking into this kind of thing for ANY Mesa amp (and any amp, really) to understand that guys like Randall Smith are not new to what is a normal or acceptable amount of noise from a tube amp at idle. BUT - to be blunt, while idle noise is ABSOLUTELY referenced
throughout R & D and ALL playtesting processes through and to a finished amp, the vast majority of time in R & D is spent 'toning' the amps for what they sound like when being played. There are always choices to be made in tube amp design and more often than not, we choose tone. This is not to say the TransAtlantic or any other amp we produce is noisy but it is to point out the level of experience that is present in the design and decision making process at Mesa and to point out to those who may not be aware, idle noise is a standard and reasonable result of most amps that are regarded as sounding great.
OK - Guidelines. Its very important first to establish the separation of guitar/pickup noise versus the amp's idle noise. For those who are not aware (I assume most of you are but there are plenty new to this kind of stuff), pickups are likely to vary MORE widely in the amount of noise they generate, particularly when single coils are involved, but also when wiring scheme's are not optimized for noise-cancelling. The shortened version of this important guideline is.... if you remove your guitar and cable from the input and the noise goes away, the noise is being generated primarily by the pickups when the guitar is plugged in.
The relationship of your pickups and the amp and the channels/modes you've chosen is the primary culprit here and while the amplifier amplifies your guitar's inherent noise, the amp is not to blame. Judge idle noise with nothing plugged in which removes pickup variation and noise from the equation.
Along those same lines, if you are listening for noise at settings of the amp that you would not actually play it, this is not a fair shake. Any amp turned all the way up will generate an unpleasant and unwanted and likely unusable amount of noise. Be fair and judge your idle noise with settings you would use the amp with. Maybe obvious but we've seen this unfair shake before so it's worth saying.
Frequency - Appreciate the comments drawing the parallels to the Vox AC circuits and their general brightness which stems from both circuit choices and the EL-84 tubes. I suspect most will agree here that AC circuits are agreeably considered to be bright compared to lots of other amps out there. Both the circuits and tubes have an infectious, brilliant high frequency potential that is a gas to play if that's your thing. That brilliance, shimmer, sparkle, haze and smear in the high end is a result of inherent characteristics of EL-84 power tubes and the selection of components that take advantage of what the EL-84 does. High end brilliance as a core part of the design, whether by tubes or circuit or both, will result in high end noise at idle which people refer to as hiss. The brighter the setting, the louder the hiss. The higher the wattage setting, the louder the hiss. If you want the brilliance and bounce, hiss is a normal part of it.
Which leads me to a story that many might appreciate. Many years ago, a friend of Boogie and amp fanatic sent in a Trainwreck amp for R & D to listen to and play. The amp sounded truly phenomenal and delivered an extraordinary 'open' quality in the treble and presence range that you just rarely hear with one caveat; the amount of hiss the amp generated was TREMENDOUS. Caps don't do it justice. It was absolutely unusable in a gigging or recording environment. However, the openness was generated by the amps wide-open treble toning which was the direct cause of it's idle hiss.
Moral - tone comes from the noise you hear when you are playing and even the noise you hear when you aren't.
OK - How does one best determine what amount of noise is normal? Compare. Compare to another relatively similar amp you own to see if you're in a ballpark. OR, better yet - take your amp to the store where you bought it and try to compare yours to another of the same model or at least close. Have your dealer give a listen and offer their opinion (a part of why a dealer is supposed to be there for you). Make sure to compare apples to apples - be diligent and make sure settings and speakers and all the testing parameters are the exact same or as similar as possible. This is certainly the best and perhaps the only way to find out where the amp (or you) are at since no one at Mesa or on a forum can say what is 'normal'.
Regarding 'out of a sealed box', keep in mind that glass and metal just got dropped across the country in shipping and if you didn't have to, you'd never send glass and metal that way no matter how well you packed it. I am reminded of a music store that had some clear custom packing tape made that read: Caution UPS and FedEX - contents fragile, please throw underhand...
With the perils of shipping glass and metal in consideration, and for the poster here who got a quieter TA after a noisy first one, it's important that everyone is aware that Mesa tests EVERY amp we build. Not 2 of 10 or 3 of 10. Every one. It's important to Mesa for that is the basis for us to begin taking care of customers when things don't work perfectly. Thorough testing of every amp that goes out there door in Petaluma is our starting point and one of many steps along that way that build the reputation that we have.
For those who have bad experiences with the TA-15 and noise issues or other products or problems, I invite you to engage Mesa's customer service to see if we are a company that seeks to take advantage of it's customers by selling them a bill of goods (as some seem to want to suggest) or a company that continues to make great products here in the USA
AND stands behind them and steps up to the plate when things aren't perfect.
Also keep in mind that of all the reviews out there(and there are quite a few for the TA-15), none of them have mentioned that the amp seems noisy. Mesa has seen few complaints about it that weren't tube related and the amp was designed well within what we consider normal for not only Mesa, but any amps in general. There are a number of Mesa amps that might fit the bill of noisier at idle but this amp is not one of them. If yours seems noisy, it's time to compare and be helped if it is.
Drop me a PM if you need to and I look forward to comments, questions and suggestions on this thread since providing a square black and white answer for this subject doesn't exist beyond what length I should have written already. As always, I hope this helps and for any still skeptical, I look forward to helping you better understand the amps and the company so that we can all play more guitar, more music and hang out in great tone.
