Keeps Me Playing

I've been using modeling software to record guitars for some time and have gotten decent results, but I knew I'd never be able to reproduce the true tube tone I love without a great amp. The last amp I owned was a Fender Blues DeVille that made me work really hard to get anything close to a good recorded tone out of it. At one time I had a Mesa Dual Rectifier half stack, and that's always been my bar for great distorted tone. My all time fave. But I work in a lot of styles and needed something versatile that would sound good at low to mid volumes.

I auditioned the Mesa 5/50 and Lonestar and found their distorted tones lacking. I played through a BlackStar which I did not like at all and an Egnator, which felt like a good imitation of a great tube amp. But when I played through the TransAtlantic, it immediately felt like home. Nice beefy distortion with the Mesa chunk I love, beautiful clean tones, and a tweed / slightly dirty sound that I am just falling in love with.

I've played more electric since I got this amp than I had in years prior, that's how good it feels to me. If you're looking for a small, lower wattage amp that can do a variety of tones better than 95% of the amps out there, I would recommend the TransAtlantic.

A couple notes - if you're looking for all out metal distortion, this will get you close but you're probably better off with something better suited to that. I'd recommend getting a Mesa cabinet with it, imho you won't really experience the full magic it has to offer through another cab. I like it with a guitar with high output pickups.

A Drummer's Best Friend?

Fortunate to be a Spaun drummer, I appreciate quality and innovation...I find both in this wonderful little powerhouse. I bought the amp for my guitar player because I wanted to hear what he was playing...clearly. Also, when the amp was demonstrated for me it blew away anything near it's price point. Do yourself a great service...talk
your guitar player into any Mesa Boogie; you cannot go wrong.

Great little amp!

Great little head. Tone: Check! Ease of use: Check, Tone: CheckX2!
I was looking for a lower powered amp so I could get some nice Boogie tone without drive my wife and kid crazy. This fits the bill. But it should be plenty loud to play unmiked in any small venue. Really versatile. Still experimenting but I find I like the tones in the 15W settings the best.
I know that a lot of us musician types don't read the manual, we want to open her up, plug her in and wail away, but you can save yourself some time and probably a little frustration working toward the really nice tones in this amp if you take about 10 miuntes to go through it. The manual does an excellent job of explaining the different power modes and what the limitations are in each. It also provides some sample settings which I found really helpful as a starting place to work towards finding the tone I wanted. I've seen a few reviews where people complain about a "POP" when switching channels. The manual explains early on the circumstances in which that can occur (usually a 5W setting on one channel and a 15W or 25W setting on the other) and what to do to keep it from happening. I followed the guidlines and haven't heard a single pop during channel switching.
I'd rate it a 5 but I have one minor complaint and one not so minor complaint. The minor complaint is that the blue LEDs inside are almost ridiculously bright. The need to be toned down a bit. Second complaint is the price. at $900 it's a pricey little lunch box. Do I think it's worth it? Absolutely!! But still, that a lot of money for a small amp like this.
If it's in your price range though, this is the one to own!

great head

Great little head. I got tired of hauling a Marshall half stack to gigs, plus, unless you're playing outdoors (some of our gigs have been),. the Marshall stack has too much headroom. I picked up a 1x12 cab for practice with the band and a Mesa Rectifier 2x12 cab for gigs. I have consolidated the gig gear. I can get any sounds out of this head and use a Gibson trad pro with coil taps and a Bigsby vibrato. So, now I don't have to switch guitars between a Tele and LP, or switch speakers (Fender v Marshall v Vox). I'm still playing with all of the settings. Great possibilities. And made in the US. Have had this since it came out. Picked it over the Tiny Terror, Night Train and others. Would take a good look at the TA30, now. Good job, Mesa.

Buy this! You won't regret it!

I'd give it 10 stars. You can get soooooooooooo many tones out of one tiny box. Seriously, forget about the Vox Night Train and Orange Tiny Terror. The Transatlantic can do Brit tones, Mesa tones, Fender tones and everything in between. Damn.

Amazingly versatile amp

This is one of the easiest amp to dial in tone. I use it with a split wired '70's Marshall 4-12 cabinet with 25 watt Celestions. The amp sounds of Vox, Fender and early Marshalls all in one. If you need a harder Marshall sound, just use a boost pedal inline with your guitar and your ready to shredd too!!!!

Dynamic Tone for Miles!

When I first demo'd the TA I was blown away! Not looking for an amp that required a lot of tweaking or one that could "do it all," I wanted a simple but powerful amp that could be used in the Studio, at Home, or on the Road, and still had the tone I was getting from amps that cost many time more. This is it!

I need a dynamic clean sound that could go from mellow picking and strumming to a classic tube-driven Fender distorted tone with breakup and warmth equal to the pressure I placed on my strings. Best clean channel I have ever heard! When I was playing it at the store the Salesman - lifetime guitarist and tone junkie - was speechless when he heard the range and tone.

The 25, 15, 5 watt switching is a huge bonus as it allows me to use the amp with a variety of different Cabs to get the appropriate volume and tone. If I am using a 1x12" cab, the 5 watt is sufficient to get the tone and volume I need (ideal for the studio). With a 4x12" cab, the 25 watt channel will blow you away with volume that rivals any high watt amps. Fear not the low watt amp!

In addition, the amp has tone presets, two on the clean side and three on the dirty side. The clean and dirty can be switched using the foowswitch that comes with the amp. The standard clean is good, but the top boost has so much range and great sound, even a finicky Tele picker will find it a good home. The dirty side features the classic Fender sound with a little gain. You can add more gain to it providing a controlled but dirty tone that can again be played clean to dirty with a shorter threshold for distortion, depending on how hard you are picking. After I got this amp I eliminated my Overdrive Pedal and use this channel instead. The second setting is gain boosted and is really kinda dry. Good for a Hard Rock or Metal Rhythm guitarist who wants to prevent stomping on their Lead. The third setting brings back the tone again as it emulate a saturated, warm distortion you only see from a Marshall or similar British amp.

Finally, the amp has two speaker outputs, able to handle two 8 ohm cabinets. I tried a lot of Vintage Celestion 30 watt cabs out there, and found the Fender Supersonic and Vox gave the amp the best match.

Nice amp but where is the effects loop?

Just amazing the Blackstar HT5 has one but this doesn't. Tube drive loop would have made this a must have.

Crazy good, totally gig-worthy

Got the TA-15 late afternoon, gigged with it that evening. I don't switch up rigs without being absolutely certain that the tone will be there when the house lights go down and quite frankly with this little Boogie you'd be hard pressed to find a tone that didn't just knock you out. My bandmates stood drop jawed for the first three minutes, then just smiled and looked me then my amp the rest of the night. Gigged with the TA driving a Black Shadow driven Mesa 2x12 on top a Genz BenzGflex 2x12. Plenty power for small clubs w/o micing the cab. No worries cutting through heavy handed drummers(you know who you are). Incredible "chime" clean or overdriven, the best Boogie has achieved to date. My rectifiers are about to get some much deserved time off. Bet we will be seeing an increased wattage version of the TA soon. In conclusion, Mesa/Boogie TA-15. Get it.

Mesa Boogie TransAtlantic

I live in Petaluma, just a few minutes from where the Boogie Factory is located, so I'll admit up front that I've been partial to Mesa products. Having said that, I felt my last Mesa amp, the 5:50 really pales in comparison "tone -wise" to the TA 15. In fact, insofar as any Mesa amp I've owned (four so far), this, by far, is the most veristile by a country mile. I play the TA through a Boogie 1 x 12 open back, loaded with a Celestion Neo Vintage and it's simply killer. It loves pedals too! Oh...and the service at Sweetwater deserves a 5.0 too!

Worth the wait

Well I had preorder my Mesa TA/15 back in Late January, And I got it today . Its a (HELL OF A AMP) A great 2 channel multiple tone amp. Yes, its made in thee USA. Great for all styles of music ,even hard rock. Sorry Metal Heads this amp is not for you. Mesa has this amp at a fair price $899.00 And Sweetwater was great I will buy all my Boogies from them. Thanks Joel your service was great!

Best one out there

Typically, "lunchbox" amps are designed with either recording in mind, or cranking the amp up and getting big amp sound at low volume. This one does all that just fine, but it's also an extremely viable LIVE rig for the gigging musician. There's so much headroom in the 25 watt mode, and EITHER channel sounds good clean or dirty, (Though quite different) depending on how you set it. That's a feature not usually even found in higher priced Boogies. That 10 watts makes a big difference. Lots of clean volume available.

Awesome little lunch box!

This thing is really a beast, clean tones sound amazingly rich and deep with plenty of blossom, with the master volume too its ridiculously easy to go from ultra clean to great srv tones with just the weight of your hand. top boost really captures that classic british sound and the tweed gets all the deeper fender sounds, its like having 3 amps in 1. I have to say I wouldn't say the 25 dyna watt setting sounds 10 watts louder than the 15 watt setting but it does provide better lows on the overdrive channels. My only complaint is this might not have all the classic boogie overdrive you might expect, lower gain sounds great but as you start to pile it on it kind of losses its focus making it tough to nail those tight overdriven rythyms. nothing a good pedal cant fix though. besides that minor complaint this really is the best sounding amp i've played with a plethora of sounds on tap.

Expensive - and worth it!

It's what I have been searching for - a low / medium power amp for my project studio. It's very versatile with both true Class A and AB (push pull) with a wide range of good sounding voices in the two preamps. A lot of studios are going to have one of these! I'm using two closed back Blackheart cabinets with 12" speakers. Made in America! It had a good printed manual, carry bag and a great foot switch and cable to change channels. It also has a 5-year warranty.

Cons: no built-in reverb (if it matters) or a 16 ohm speaker output, which would could be useful (it has one 4 and 8 ohm output). I usually record dry, but also use a Boss FRV-1 reverb pedal, which I like. No service manual or schematic.

joel @ Djembe Records / Dallas

So So amp

I purchased the T-15 amp on a whim, but also have the Vox Night Train. Comparing the 2, both sound good for what they are, lunchbox amps to go to practice with and play small venues with. Comparing the two, Mesa has a much better distortion channel than the Vox, however, it's not great. It does not have the creamy full sounding distortion you would expect in a hand built tube amp...it is honestly pretty sterile. Also lacks the lows you expect from Mesa, but if you love Marshall sound, high/mid high gain, than you may like this amp. The clean channel is versitile and it comes close to an AC-15 sound. However, overall something is missing. The sound of the amp is uninspiring. It lacks the warmth of a AC-30 or Budda or the wha wha vibrato sound you hear in a great tube amp. My biggest complaint is this amp has a delay and loud "pop" when changing channels. Although it isn't as bad if you keep both channels 15 or 25 watts as suggest in the manual, it is still unacceptable for any amp to do this and renders the use of both channels unusuable during one song...very poor design on Mesa's part.

Fantastic Sound/Horrible Design

The tones you can get from this amp are outstanding. HOWEVER there is this channel switching "pop" you hear when switching channels with or without the footswitch. It is LOUD on all wattage settings. Called Mesa and was told this was normal and part of the design of the amp. THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE for a $900 amp.