Mesa Boogie RA-100

Foreword

I've been dying to try one of these after seeing some more recent clips. I know a lot of people (including myself) have been dismissing the RA, thinking of it as just another electra dyne with an attenuator and a new head case--but it is much much more than that. I'll go ahead and get it out of the way: This has just has much useable gain as a rectifier or Mark series amp but it FEELS a million times better than a rectifier and has its own character distinct of the Mk series.

Features

Aesthetically, the RA is gorgeous. Black on black with a silver plate. The amp has a very "next generation" look to it. I've noticed this of all the newer boogie amps. Everything is space age and clean. The front panel gives you separate eq for the clean and gain sides of the amp as well as indepent master controls for the LO and HI modes. The power soak on the back allows for attenuation up to 16db (5 w) and the attenuation is independent for each channel. Also on the back panel: Bias select for EL34 and 6L6, Reverb control and bypass switch as well as a mode defeat switch. You also have a loop and control over the amp's fan speed. Having a global bypass switch for the power soak on the front panel is a great touch.

Sounds

Played through a Gibson Traditional Pro Explorer with coiltap. 4x12 Mesa cab. No Pedals.

The clean mode was pristine and when the powersoak was engaged I could get a variety of breakup sounds between the master and gain controls. Using the coil tap I could get some real 3d sounding spank out of it. The RA maintains a very percussive quality throughout all three channels-- You absolutely feel it when you dig in to the strings. I would compare the clean to the MkV save the fact that the RA is much more punchy and I feel its much easier to dial in useable tones.

The LO mode was god in an amp. If you play raunchy blues or country-- this is all you. double stops blossomed with overtones. It sounded like sonic halos enveloping the notes. I don't mean that in a flowery poetic sense, I really just do not know how else to explain the phenomena that came out of the speakers. Very complex gain sounds. The amp sounds extremely thick and percussive yet completely articulate. Dialing back the gain to about noon with the attenuation can get you into plexi sounds pretty easily while throwing the gain past noon can get you more fluid gain.

The Hi mode can cover a lot of ground. It cleans up with ease and can be pushed through pretty much the spectrum of the entire amp up to some very mean high gain tones. When attenuated this reminds me a lot of the mkiic+ mode on the mkV. Bypassing the power soak on this mode is night and day. The power section opens up and sounds fierce. When you push the gain it wholly reminds me of my old triple rectifier just without the stale, lackluster feel.

Lasting Impression

Its hard to find a 3 channel amp with this sort of excitement factor-- especially at a price point below 2 grand.
The RA-100 fills a gap between the fluid feel of the mark series amps and the sheer punchiness of the rectifier series.
I owned both to balance each other out but the RA can stand on it's own and doesn't leave me longing for anything.

Cool review ..... does it have as much preamp gain as the Marks and DR's.
Long time Mesa user .... always had one around since 1982 and have 3 right now.

.... that video in your signature every time....

stephen sawall":19mpp7u6 said:

Cool review ..... does it have as much preamp gain as the Marks and DR's.
Long time Mesa user .... always had one around since 1982 and have 3 right now.

.... that video in your signature every time....

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Absolutely! Once again-- this is not an Electradyne-- I hate splitting ear drums to get a good lead tone. I played with the master volumes quite a bit to see what all it could offer. On HI you can very easily get into recto/uber territory even at bedroom volumes. The power soak isn't required to get there either and that is what really impressed me about the amp-- You could essentially crank up the LO mode and use the power soak to get a more authentic plexi tone and use the HI mode without it and get something that could give a triple rec a run for its money.

This may sound crazy, but it really reminds me of how I wanted my Uberschall to sound like, less muddy and more focused. You can push the gain to insanity on the Ubers but those levels of gain are not really useable. They are both very thick. You can get a similar sound on the orange channel of the 3 channel triple rec's. Very Thick. I cannot stress enough though how much more articulate this amp is compared to both of those. Like I said, this amp leaves nothing to be desired. I'm trying to find a second job so i can pick one up.

Here is a taste of what it can do-- it can get much hairier than how he has it dialed too.

Another note: I never fiddled with the mode defeat switch. I'd imagine that defeating any portion of the amp would feed more juice to whatever is still active, that is if it's comparable to the gain taper on the back of the ED. If so, you could theoretically get another gain stage out of the HI mode. Just a thought.

SonicPulverizer":2l1f0wrh said:

The power soak isn't required to get there either and that is what really impressed me about the amp-- You could essentially crank up the LO mode and use the power soak to get a more authentic plexi tone and use the HI mode without it and get something that could give a triple rec a run for its money.

.... less muddy and more focused.

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Very interesting .....need to go check one out. Plexi on one channel and modern on the other sounds pretty practical.

I guess all those times I told Randy back in the 80's to make something more "Marshall like" finally sunk in.

If I was you I would copy your review and post it in the main forum ..... most people never look in here and it would be interesting to see if anyone else has checked it out ..... but whatever ....

Can it produce big modern low end like the Uber, DR red channel, Herbert, etc ...???

stephen sawall":28k8bgd1 said:

Can it produce big modern low end like the Uber, DR red channel, Herbert, etc ...???

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Yeah, it can do modern without any problem even at bedroom volumes and it really doesnt matter if the power soak is on. I would take this over all of those and I am a prog rock/ metal guy. Since you are in Seattle you should go to the GC in westlake and try it out. Its sitting in the back near where the acoustics are. It was sitting next to a rectifier.

Stephen, I reposted this in the main forum to get more people talking about it. Let me know if you get around to trying it and what you thought of it.

Looking forward to checking it out ....

Check out the Mesa site if you want to get a laugh. They use the worst metaphors I have seen in a write up yet.

Wow that video sounded fantastic to me!!!!

stephen sawall":28hdjqsf said:

Looking forward to checking it out ....

Check out the Mesa site if you want to get a laugh. They use the worst metaphors I have seen in a write up yet.

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HA! good stuff.

Audioholic":dyoosfi3 said:

Wow that video sounded fantastic to me!!!!

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Yeah I wasn't even remotely interested in the amp until I saw the clip.

Here is a clip of the cleaner sounds as well. Half way through he switches to the LO mode and then to HI going from clean to breakup. You can dial in the LO for a more modern gain sound by turning up the highs. The sounds at the end of the video are actually the Hi mode with the gain at around 11 o clock I'd say.

That sounds killer .... I wish the manual was up some place. I prefer to read the manual before I check out a amp.

Can you really get that British rock tone people claim yo can? I have seen several video clips but I can't really tell.