I tried out the Royal Atlantic today for about an hour. I played it with my American Strat through a little closed back 1x12 Mesa cab, that was housed with a C-90. My opinions after playing with it and using the settings provided by Mesa in the RA manual? My first thought was a joyous one. I used the first setting listed in the manual. The cleans seemed great, but not as dynamic to my ears as the EDs cleans. To my ears, and through most of the manual's settings, I found the cleans to be more like the Mark Vs cleans -- minus the immediacy of the Mark Vs attack. I am pretty picky with clean tones and tend to hold the Fender 65 Twin Reverb cleans as the ideal clean tone. To my ears, the ED gets closest to that sort of shimmery clean dynamic.
The lo mode is incredible! Seriously my favorite mode on the amp by far. I found the crunch to be very boutique British sounding. I know a lot of people like the Mark Vs crunch tones, but to me the RAs crunch was much more British in every way. The feel was there, as well as the tightness and breakup. The Mark V can get close, but the sound to my ears is more narrowly focused and a touch more compressed. Through and through I loved the lo mode for '90s rock tones -- Everclear, some Foos stuff, etc. My only complaint would be that this mode didn't yield a very good tone when I rolled back the volume knob on my guitar. It just wasn't there. Where the Mark V is too tight, the RA is just right to my ears. The voicing also helps the RA yield a more memorable crunch tone vs. the MKVs take on crunch.
The hi mode was good, but something I couldn't get used to during the 10-15 minutes I dedicated to that mode. I tried numerous settings with the eq and the power scaling (which I will discuss in the next paragraph), but in the end I was just a bit overwhelmed. The mode just behaves so differently than the Roadster, the Dual Recto, the ED, the Mark V, and the Stiletto Ace. It had some good definition for complex chording, but I feel the higher gain crunched too much, to a point where I was wanting some of the smoothness of the Dual Rectos to help even it out. For some of those punky, palm muted, note-filled chord licks, I just didn't jive with this mode. It seemed suited best for some more straight forward rhythm work. Alas, this was and is only an account of my first experience with the amp.
The power scaling feature is very good! Very, very good! Seriously, I couldn't detect much tone changes. The manual hits the point home, and rather logically, that as you use more power soak and add in more power tube clip, the less gain you will need dialed in. I did notice more power tube clip as I followed Mesa's stringent instructions on how to use the power scaling feature, but the difference in tone seemed to my ears to be minimal at best. Overall, I think the power scaling is a very good feature at keeping the loud tonality intact at lower volumes, while adding just enough power tube clip to make the feel of the amp just as lively under your fingers.
The reverb is very, very usable, much more so than the Roadster's dreaded reverb. Anything past nine on that amp sounded like a weird digital effect. With this amp, the reverb, even at full, sounded very usable and almost Fender like (not Super Reverbish, more so Twin-like).
All in all, I like the amp a lot. It definitely seems to sit, in its voicing, in the middle of the Stiletto and the Mark V. To my ears and in terms of where they sit with the mids, the Stiletto is Mesa's brightest high gain amp, followed by the Royal Atlantic, Mark V, Mesa Dual Rectifier Multi Watt, ED, and then Road King/Roadster. The amp definitely feels like a British inspired amp from its voicing and crunch.
I also spent 20 minutes with the Stiletto Ace. Boy, is that amp just bright! Actually, the gain from that amp is more so high gain Marshall-like to my ears than the RA, but the RA is much more of a crunchy mid gain British sounding amp. It felt almost like a smoother, higher voiced Rockerverb.
I also spent about 30 minutes with the ED. I think this amp is just my favorite Mesa amp currently. That, or the Mark V. The cleans are so dynamic and rich sounding, and the crunch has so much complex low-end and top end sparkle. The only thing I can continuously say about my experiences with the ED is that it is one hell of an organic sounding amp.
The RA is definitely worth checking out. I am scheduled to put in a custom order with Mesa Hollywood in the next couple of days. If I get the order in by Thursday, I can have a customized Mesa RA combo by the second or third week of July. I believe the second week of July is when they are scheduled to spend some time rolling out another batch of RA combos. The rep at Mesa Hollywood, after speaking to Mesa, felt confident that I could get my amp no later than the last week of July. Talk about quick! I guess it is all about timing. Mesa doesn't just build all models all at once. The have a schedule where they build a head version of a model according to orders, then they move on to something else, etc, etc.
Considering the RA has been out since Friday, I am surprised that they hasn't been any reviews online thus far. I thought this amp would be a real sleeper. I am going to spend a couple of hours with the amp tomorrow. I am contemplating bringing my Rivera Silent Sister, Macbook Pro, Apogee Duet and SM 57 with me to record the sounds I am getting. This way I can be sure it is an amp I want to pursue putting out a custom order on.
As for the 50/100 watt mode on the amp, I didn't notice too much of a difference between the two modes in my initial experience with the amp. With most Mesa's, there is a noticeable compression that occurs when switching power modes. I didn't get that feeling with this amp. It seemed to just change some of the volume some, as well as the feel while I played. I should also mention that the low end of the amp is very tight and focused on the higher bass frequencies, more so than the Mark V. Where the ED sounds a touch similar to much of the crunchy tones from the RA, the bottom end responses a wicked different (as well as the power tube stages, voicing, etc). The ED has some massively tight low end, while the RAs bottom is tight and higher pitched. That is actually one of the reasons I found so much trouble riffing away as I would on a Roadster. I just wasn't used to the low end response of the amp. For tight riffing, and complex and quick chording, I prefer the focused response of the Mark V to the RA. Although, I will absolutely be able to form a better opinion of the amp tomorrow, now that I sort of now how the amp plays.
As for a lead tone, I thought the RA had good potential for a lead tone. I didn't really spend a lot of time with this. I was more overcome with the crunchiness of the amp, and how the harmonically rich the notes sounded overdriven in a more rhythmic setting.
Did I also mention I played through a cranked Fender Super Sonic 22? To steal a line from Santana, that little amp can really Boogie! Seriously! That amp was the talk of the store and I couldn't help but try it out myself. It is great on the vintage channel!
This was a long review! More tomorrow ...
