Tony: First off, thank you for taking the time to start reviewing acoustic amps. I purchased the Rosette and like you had a bit of problem trying to find the sound I wanted. I play a single at wineries in Northern California and wanted something for smaller gigs, I currently use the Bose L1 Model B2. The amp is beautiful and I bought one that was tricked out a bit. The sound was missing a lot of bass when I mounted the amp on a stool. Mesa Boogie does not recommend it. So, I took the time to write to Randall Smith at Mesa/Boogie and suggested he develop an extension sub-woofer for the unit. He was kind enough to write back and they are "on it". In the meantime, I decided to hook up the amp to my Fishman Platinum. All I can say is WOW, what a difference it made. The bass is fantastic and I really enjoy the amp. In addition, I asked Mr. Smith if he would make a few video''s showing a live performance as well. I'd love to hear the unit at several small venues like coffee houses. I really would like to hear how a singer uses the amp before I bought it but that was not to possible. In closing, thank you for your outstanding report. PS: I am waiting to hear how the L.R. Baggs Synapse sounds. The Rosette is good but I like the idea of the radial speaker and tweeter. The Bose with Tone Match is very hard to beat at least for me. I am waiting with great anticipation for the Synapse. I want a smaller unit as well. All the best my friend!
If I’m paying $1500 for an amp, It sure as hell better not need additional equipment to sound good. Love my Mesa electric amps, but not too sure about this one.
How is it odd for a major electric amp company to make acoustic amps? All of the majors (Marshall, Fender, Peavey, Crate...)have made acoustic amps for decades.
Thanks for the review Tony. I appreciate that you are trying to get the best sound for the room you are in, but I think we would like to hear more tunes to get a handle on what sounds are possible. I know there are lots of knobs but, you know, a ball park, general sweep of the controls would be nice if you have time. Maybe different guitars through the amp too, and of course, Mesa v Fishman Loudbox!
All Mesa amps require very very minimal knob adjustments to get very different tones. In other words, it easy to be heavy handed with your knob turning with Mesa amps. You must spend time and be gentle with the adjustments and then you will discover the greatness of Mesa amp tones.
Great review thanks for highlighting this, but I would have preferred to hear a demo of the range and capacity of it's sound shaping abilities you told us about.
Mesa as well as Sweetwater have extensive reviews that go over all of the settings and do a sweep of almost every knob. Due to time constraints I opted out of that since those vids are already available :-)
In major parts of this video the sound is actually very closed. Seems like you cut too much of the high and mid-high end. Still, I bet this is an amazing amp.
Extremely helpful video...I bought this amp today and Im gigging with it tonight so not much time to dial in the ideal tone but I will use your settings as a starting point and go from there.
I've never heard something better than SR 150 Jam for acoustic guitar. It's something about clarity and fidelity of sound. Something this Mesa is a loooot behind. SR 150 Jam: made in Italy, 600$. Top.
great playing mate, but this amp doesn´t stand a minimal chance against much better sounding and less expensive options. If you try Acus or Schertler, I don´t think Rosetta will be ever turned on again
This is a great amp, and sounds really, really good - and warm, which is rare for an acoustic amp. Don't mention that low-quality garbage that Fishman produces in China. Even with little use, my fishman loudbox artist quickly began to fall apart. I heard the AER - great if you want to sound like plastic.
Tony, I like the sound of the Mesa, thanks. I purchased a Fishman Loudbox Pro a couple years ago and like it. If I was starting over I would certainly give the Mesa a thorough test and review. By the way, what's the tune you're playing at the end of the review?
Bruce, Glad you dug the review :-) The Fishman Loudbox is a great little amp for sure. That tune ta the end of the review is a David Qualey tune, called "Santa Cruz" (it's just a snippet of it :-) ).
Hi Tony, thanks for the demo. I love Mesaboogie amps but sometimes feel tired of knob tweaking. What amp(s) would you recommend for people who don’t want to spend 20 mn or so to dial a good tone?
Hey Tony, Thanks once again for freely sharing your experience, wisdom and antidotes. I am relatively new to this whole guitar world. I started 2 years ago and never looked back. I get why people say you can never have too many guitars! Haha. Anyway, I have a few questions. 1. Is it safe to add pick up to my Taylor mini so I can plug in ? 2. I have found guitar geekdom.to be an expensive habit. What is the price on the above amp? 3. Can you please recommend some budget friendly amps for beginners? 4. As I progress I am also trying on some electric guitars to enhance my guitar geek experience. I am starting to write songs and one of my pieces works well on electric, especially since some electric guitars have that lever thingy that gives just the right spice to the particular piece I am working on. .Anyway, your review got me thinking about amps...Especially amps that can make both acoustic guitars and electric guitars sound amazing. But, at the same time I don't have thousands of dollars to spend on a decent sounding amp...what can you recommend in that case? Thanks a bunch!
Great questions I will do my best to hit all the points :-) 1.) It is A-OK to add a pickup to your GS-mini. Taylor makes the Es-Go pickup which works pretty good, but really any pickup of your liking would suffice. 2.) The street price of the Mesa amp at the time of filming is around $999 for the base model. 3.) Both Fender and Fishman offer some lower priced acoustic amps that sound pretty good 4.) It is really tough to find an amp that will handle both electric and acoustic instruments due to the inherent sonic differences, I would be open to hear others recommendations here as I haven't found one that really tackles both sides of the spectrum well. I hope that helps :-) Cheers, Tony
The Rivera Sedona and Sedona Lite series of amps are supposedly the best amps for folks who play both acoustic and electric. Could you please do a review on those (at least from the acoustic side !)
I would like to hear your take on the Phil Jones Acoustic Guitar amp...plenty of wattage...two channels...even great bass amps as well....check this one out...
Thanks for all the information. I would love to get the tabs and wav files for the two pieces you played in this review. Great player and great information. Tom
@@amandahammond2691 Yes, as much I like it, I have to relegate it to practice amp status. The new Acoustasonic 40 is light and sounds great. any of their amps above the 15 will work in a coffee house or better.
What I'm surprised is they didn't even mention the fact there's two models. Tony is using the dual 8" version I believe and definitely more geared toward that fingerstyle player. The 10" single version is much warmer especially for the strummer flatpicker I've heard from many people. Try this link to see them both done side by side. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-yqnIo1lHXVI.html Although I'm a new Genzler Acoustic Array Pro guy / this is the next one on the list try. I will say my new Genzler AA Pro is absolutely saweeeeet, simple, functional, great sound and has an optional 2 cabinet to chain to. And yes from what I know so far to the Fishman people seriously....ya never hear Amp builders or customers using or comparing themselves to Fishman....Ya never them say "it's every bit as good as a Fishman". Fishman is not the barometer folks if you're gonna trash this amp.
Based on the recorded sound quality presented here (and listening through my studio monitors). This is kind of sad, all that tone control for roughly $1k and this little beast still can't match a $500 Fishman Loudbox... Try harder MESA.
Maybe it's not the amp, maybe it's Tony's settings that you're not digging. With that much adjustability there should be a whole world of tones available. I kind of wish he had gone through more settings just to show the extremes and get an idea of where you can go with it.
Ray, you make an awesome point here, the settings are quite flexible so if a tone isn't desired or something sounds wonky you can easily change it. Mesa as well as Sweetwater have extensive reviews that go over all of the settings and do a sweep of almost every knob. Due to time constraints I opted out of that since those vids are already available :-)
Go ahead that I love your reviews Tony. I'm pretty sure what sounds on my monitors is not what sounded on the demo´s room I don´t know what happend but don´t sound really good. Maybe the microphone position? Mesa Boogie´s demo on his channel sounds amazing: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--Vi71YH7DNI.html
