NAD: Mesa TC-100

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peckhart

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This thing is sweet. Opened it up a bit this morning and I am very impressed.
I hear the mix of Marshall and Mark some have referred to...with a splash of Bogner chewiness on the red channel.
I had a Roadster once and a Mark IV. I could never get the Roadster to give me the forward grind in the mids that I wanted. This has it in spades. The Mark sometimes felt fake to me. Something about the Eq the just wasn't natural. I don't detect that here, but it has that really nice fluidity and sustain.
Cleans are awesome! I haven't gone after an amp for its clean in like forever, but really wanted good cleans on a multi channel head and this delivers. Warm, full, yet nice top end chime.
Blue channel does great low gain and can pretty nasty. Red is just insane and while it was probably the channel I was least interested in, I may like it the most. Super fun to play.
Good stuff here and really glad I pulled the trigger.
 
I've been eyeing up the TC-100 since they came out. It sounds a lot like I would really dig it. Congrats!
 
Mine landed yesterday, so I'm hoping to put it through its paces tonight. Based on the specs and demos, it promises to be stellar for live use.
 
There is a TC-50 locally and I’ve always been in the fence with this. I’ve never actually owned a Mesa amp, sac religious I know
 
peckhart":2nzcut0b said:
Curious to hear your thoughts Rising Farce
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First impression: It's really good.

Channel 1 (Clean): It's, well, clean. I only play clean when forced to, so it should do the job just fine.

Channel 2: The gain ranges from cleanish to pretty damn heavy. Activating the Tight Control (a brilliant feature that, happily, does pretty much exactly what it says it does) and hitting it with a Grid Slammer makes it fully viable for leads or thrashy rhythms. Clarity and note separation are superb, but it's never stiff-feeling.

Channel 3: Basically the Rhythm Channel on steroids--lots of them. There's a f*ck ton of gain available, but the chewy feel of the amp is so nice, you really don't need to wind it up into the stratosphere (or use a boost, for that matter). Single notes are super-fluid and the sustain goes on forever. I'll most likely use this channel 90 percent of the time live, activating the Solo feature for leads.

In short, the amp sounds fantastic, feels even better, and has a ton of built-in features (power soak, Cab Clone, etc.) to boot. The tone has that "produced" sound that some high-dollar heads produce (e.g., VH4), but isn't overly polished to the point of being bland. I'd put it somewhere between a good modded Marshall and a Mark IV, though with more gain than either.

Downsides? The amp doesn't have a whole lot of low end, at least not with the stock EL34s. But given how tight and clear it is, that's a small price to pay. I may try KT77s or 6CA7s at some point to beef it up a bit.

As for the loop, I didn't notice any tone degradation with a Hardwire Delay running through it.

In all, one of the better purchases I've made in quite some time.

:rock:
 
I've never been much into using boosts to achieve the gain I want. That said I've found some great tones boosting the lower gain channel of my Helios with a Cusack screamer so I have that to try into the blue channel. I also just got a Friedman Buxom Boost to try out.
I agree with your assessment though Rising Farce. The thing I kept thinking was that it's really going to sit nice in the mix with a band. There is not a big thundering low end, but I don't feel it will be lacking for me in a band context. I do have some EQs to try in the loop though. I was adding some low end to my Helios for a while with an Empress Para EQ, but have stopped as it's just not necessary.
Of course for some types of music or depending on what some people want it may not be enough.
 
peckhart":3nmmw04y said:
I've never been much into using boosts to achieve the gain I want. That said I've found some great tones boosting the lower gain channel of my Helios with a Cusack screamer so I have that to try into the blue channel. I also just got a Friedman Buxom Boost to try out.
I agree with your assessment though Rising Farce. The thing I kept thinking was that it's really going to sit nice in the mix with a band. There is not a big thundering low end, but I don't feel it will be lacking for me in a band context. I do have some EQs to try in the loop though. I was adding some low end to my Helios for a while with an Empress Para EQ, but have stopped as it's just not necessary.
Of course for some types of music or depending on what some people want it may not be enough.
Click to expand...

Let me know how the EQ-in-the-loop experiment goes. I thought about grabbing a Mesa five-band, but I'm not sure it's necessary.

And definitely try boosting the blue channel for a different gain texture.
 
Congrats! Appreciate you posting your thoughts. I've been contemplating a change to my gigging rig and the TC-100 was already high on my list of amps to try. Your comments hit on a lot of what I'm looking for.

I'd been through the Mesa thing years ago (TriAxis, Dual Recto, Tremoverb, MK-V). I finally came to grips with the fact that Mesa wasn't my thing. Wish I still had the Tremoverb though. :) I was most surprised with the MK-V. I couldn't get any lows out of that thing to save my life, not sure what was going on with it. Interesting to hear similar comments about the TC. Hope it's not as bad as the V. I ran it through two Bogner 4x12s, amp EQ properly V-ed a-la Petrucci. Wasn't looking for chugging metal lows, just a little low-mid woody bark. That amp didn't last long.
 
I wouldn't say that there is no low end or that it is even severely lacking. Someone wanting the modern crazy low end like an Uber or the like would be disappointed. But thats not what it is supposed to be. The low end is tight and punchy. Really pretty similar to what my Helios has.
No density control like a lot of amps that deliver those crazy lows. When the volume is down its deceiving as without a density control you don't have the ability to add in that exaggerated bottom. Get it going a little and I think the lows come out and become realistic and usable in a band mix.
 
Couple of updates.
I tried the Buxom Boost and Cusack Screamer. Like the Buxom a little better as it does a better job just adding saturation and juice to the tone without changing how the low end feels.
I also got my HD500 working with it. I can set patches to send program changes to go between channels with control of FX, Solo or Reverb being on and then use pedal buttons within the patch to toggle those things. What's pretty cool is I can have a FS button assigned to toggle say the Solo while also turning on/off an effect. Pretty cool if you only want delay to come in when you kick up the Solo volume to do a lead.
I don't intend to use the HD500 live with my band. I'll probably run the TC at a gig to see how it does, but I didn't really get it to replace my Helios for my main hard rock band.
Haven't tried the loop yet or running an EQ there to fatten up the low end, but hope to in the next few days.
 
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