NAD TA-15....Awesome!

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shimmilou

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Hi all,

Just joined after getting my new TA-15, and wanted to say that this little amp is awesome. I have played a few MB amps, and have friends that use them, and while they all have great sound, they were never really "my thing"......until I tried the TA-15. This amp has an excellent combination of clean and drive sounds that suit my tastes, and has a simple panel which I appreciate a lot. A friend and Boogie Board forum member recommended this amp awhile back, and I dismissed it because I wanted a small 6L6 head, and thought that the EL84s wouldn't do it for me.....I was wrong, this is perfect for what I wanted. I wanted a small, two-channel amp that had great cleans, and great drive sounds at decent volumes, and this amp delivers in spades. I won't go into my horrible experiences with certain well-known Chinese-made amps, except to say that the TA blows away the "Eglayers" that I owned, and the fact that MB are Made in USA means a lot to me. After much experimenting and knob twisting on the TA-15, I found the two sounds that I wanted/liked most, and the included foot switch allows me to easily switch between the two types of sounds on-the-fly.

For the clean sound, channel 1, 25 watt, normal, volume at about two-o'clock, treble and bass about in the middle, with the master pulled out and fully CW. This gives me a very clean, sparkly sound with lots of harmonic content when using a single coil or hum-bucker bridge pup, and gets nice, warm and rich with some great chirpy sounds when using two pups, especially two hum-buckers together. Very sweet!

For the drive sound, channel 2, 25 watt, H1, Gain about three-o'clock, treble and bass about in the middle, with the master about ten-o'clock. This sounds a lot like a Marshall-type sound, very crisp/crunchy and touch sensitive with killer sustain and great controllable feedback with plenty of gain for terrific hard-rock style. Again, very sweet!

The descriptions were perfect for the five different sounds that this amp can produce. Channel one normal and Top Boost are definitely very Vox-like, and Channel 2 Tweed is very vintage Fender-like, H1 is very Marshall-like, with H2 just like a MB should sound, very chunky and distinctive. Such great versatility is nice and unexpected in such a small and simple amp, and yes it can get very loud using the 25 watt setting, a very surprising amount of volume.

I initially dialed in my tone using an 8-ohm, 1x12, closed-back cab and thought that it was great, I was very satisfied. Then I plugged into a 4-ohm, 2x12, closed-back cab with V30s and was really wowed! I tried several guitars, with various pups, everything from hum-buckers to P90s to single coils, and all sound great, but my favorite was a semi-hollow body with hum-buckers, as the clean sound is beautiful, and the drive sound and feedback on channel 2 was absolutely wonderful and very controllable. I bet that Uncle Ted would be proud.

I can't say enough good about this amp, and so-far I have no serious criticism. I have played this amp for about 24 of the last 48 hrs and still only stop when I have to do normal life stuff. :lol: If you get the chance, definitely put this amp on your "must try" list. I am extremely pleased with my purchase, and would recommend it. Only time will tell about the reliability, but based on the MB reputation, I'm confident that it will be a great amp for years to come. :D
 
Welcome to the club!

IMHO, tonewise this is one of the finest amps Mesa have ever made. I've been gigging mine for two years now and play it most days - for me this staying power is the true test of a great amp.

There's a ton of great clean and edge of break up tones on the top boost and fender channels that I reccommend you spend some time with - pedals also sound great through these channels.
 
Good to hear that it holds up well. Yeah, I've been trying all of the different settings, and all are great, I've just settled on two sounds that I really like and use most. I have pretty much given up all pedal use and I like to get the sound from guitar, amp, and speakers alone, as I like the simplicity and lack of hassles. I just don't need to add anything to this amp to get the killer sounds that I like.......except maybe some reverb. I'm going to have to check out the TA-30 now......DOH! :lol:
 
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