NAD: Mystery Science Theater 3000 Edition (Mesa Boogie Royal Atlantic)

The best thing about the Royal Atlantic is that you can tweak a knob during a jam and the RA will do exactly what you expect a knob called that would do, and then you can go back to jamming. It's like it was made by a different company.

The fairest critique of it I ever heard is that it is three entirely different amps in the same box.
 
The RA has become a daily driver here at home. I was using a Bogner Goldfinger together
with a Mesa TA-30 in wet/dry configuration. Goldfinger's tubes took a dump and I put
the RA in its place and it is staying. Probably swap out the TA-30 here for something else.
Feeling the pull of higher-wattage, big headroom amps at the moment.
 
I had the 2x12 AND later the head. That combo was !!@@$$%&%$%$$!!! HEAVY! I was doing some serious weightlifting at the time, but it was still doggone heavy! I think it was heavier than the original Lonestar 2x12 I had before it... and sold. I could never gig those amps anymore, my back can't handle it, too much wear and tear... not to mention arthritis...:wat I have an old Rivera Jake that sounds amazing, but even that is too much for me to schlep about.
 
ucnick said:
I had the 2x12 AND later the head. That combo was !!@@$$%&%$%$$!!! HEAVY! I was doing some serious weightlifting at the time, but it was still doggone heavy! I think it was heavier than the original Lonestar 2x12 I had before it... and sold. I could never gig those amps anymore, my back can't handle it, too much wear and tear... not to mention arthritis...:wat I have an old Rivera Jake that sounds amazing, but even that is too much for me to schlep about.
Click to expand...

I recently got a Mesa f100 2.x12 combo for Pennie’s on the dollar. I have a personal rule about gigging all gear at least once. Fuck me thst thing was a beast

It’s a sweet amp and the V30s are were worth the cost of admission alone but shit :rofl
 
"Three completely different amps in one box" = each of the 2.5 channels has basically a completely different core sound, I know somebody is going to say that lo and hi are the same circuit with another gain stage and a stepping grid flux capacitor or something but they have nothing in common in terms of sound or playing feel.

One one hand it's cool to have them all there but on the other it's like "what does the RA sound like" and you can't really say, it's like there's this really big, loud almost Ampeggy clean channel that's supposedly "the Lone Star circuit" that's in a bunch of different amps and sounds different in all of them, then the brightest and most unforgiving 800 ever, and then like a silver jubilee and a slo hitting the bong together. They're all really good, but they're all really different and the gain modes especially are really kind of their own things.
 
Is the Triple Crown a descendent of the RA? I feel like I often hear a similar "complaint" about the channels sounding "too different" from each other on that one
 
spawnofthesith said:
Is the Triple Crown a descendent of the RA? I feel like I often hear a similar "complaint" about the channels sounding "too different" from each other on that one
Click to expand...
Allegedly it is. I haven't played one. I can dial in the Fractal "High Gain" TC model to sound more or less like my RA's red mode, but haven't ever bothered side by siding them.

The other cool thing about the RA is the attenuator is non-transparent, which is actually neat. Like the -3dB setting makes the gain channels sound absolutely dimed at a decent rehearsal volume. I pretty much only play it thru a 4x12 now and have found the higher attenuation settings don't push the cab hard enough, but when I was recording with it years ago I got great tones thru a 1x12 on high attenuation settings at a studio-monitor volume.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top