MusicRadar

A glowing, growling box of tonal wonder

View in gallery

• Related News
• Review

Channel one also has a tone 'cut', just as you'd find on many Vox AC30s: you cut presence and high-end as you turn it clockwise. Pull it out and it becomes a master volume for channel one, presetting the 'cut' value to around 11 o'clock on the dial.

Channel two's controls are almost identical, but with no cut control and a permanent master volume. As Boogie states in the TransAtlantic's manual, your amp's tone is 50 per cent preamp and 50 per cent power section, and the latter is an area in which the company has trailblazed in recent years.

So here you get a pair of EL84 output valves, which you can configure in one of three ways. Each channel has it's own independent power switch that draws on Mesa's Multi-Watt design to offer either five watts single-ended class A (one valve), 15 watts class A (two valves) or 25 watts using Mesa's Dyna- Watt design (also two valves).

It's every bit as much a tonal option as a volume consideration: the lower the power, the more clip, compression and drive from the power section. That you can switch between say, five watts in one channel and 25 in the other – silently and without fuss or delay – is a testament to all the unseen work and development that goes into making amps such as this a real pleasure to use.

After that, not much: no effects loop, no slave out, no reverb. Complicated this is not. Aesthetically it's very hard not to love the black powder-coated metal box with platinum pearl detailing. It's built like a tank, in accordance with Mesa's usual exacting standards.

The custom-designed PCB houses the main components, including valve bases in a feat of efficient design, while a pair of transformers are bolted to the chassis, the hefty OT seemingly the main size determinant in terms of overall height.

And when you turn it on? It glows blue thanks to an array of internally mounted LEDs. We just love that. Hooray too for the padded gigbag, which also transports your power cord, footswitch and cables. Guitar in one hand, cab in the other, amp over your shoulder. Brilliant.

Sounds

Kicking off at 25 watts with a Stratocaster, channel one's normal mode has a punchy, powerful delivery. It will overdrive if you push it, but it's a little ragged around the edges, especially in full power mode – much better to leave this for clean duties; funky rhythms and choppy chord stuff, even if we are left begging for reverb.

It's the same story with humbuckers, but with more girth, as you'd expect. In fact the bottom-end out of the supplied 1 x 12 open-backed cabinet (£429.99, with one 12-inch Mesa-Celestion MC-90 speaker) is the real eye-opener – we found ourselves looking in the back time and again just to make sure there wasn't something else hidden inside!