Triple Crown TC-50 - 50-watt Tube Head - Black Taurus Review

Love it From day one. love it. This is the best amp Mesa makes and that's saying something Need a lunchbox version Please!

I am 64 years old, Still play out live regularly and have owned or played everything and all Manufacturers including many Mesa amps. For the variety of music it is the best amp so far. good clean great crunch great drive Need a lunchbox 3 channel set up just like this.

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Everything I Expected And More

This may be one of the last custom finished Boogies before the Gibson merger. I took my time selecting custom colors and a matching 2X12 cab. This baby took three months from order to receiving! But all worth it. Thanks to Sweetwater Sales Engineer Greg Savino seeing this through. Build quality is stunning. I was concerned about the tubes getting knocked around during shipment… read more and made sure they were seated well when I received the amp. Not to worry - seating is rock solid. I'll cut this short and just say that just about any tone imaginable is possible with the 3-channels. Channel 1 clean can go from country chicken pickin' with a single coil Fender to jazzy warm to pushed edge-of-breakup. Channel 2 takes off from Channel 1 to hard rock rhythm AND soloing. Some may want to sit here all day and just use the guitar volume and solo boost switch. Channel 3 has all the gain I need and more. I'm not into dropped tuned djent so I'm not sure if this will satisfy progressive metal heads, but there is a LOT of gain on tap. EQ on all three channels can dial in (or dial out) just about any usable tone especially with the norm/tight switch on channels 2 and 3. Reverb is nice and usable but be advised that the adjustment for each each channel is on the back. I've yet to use the cab clone DI but plan to try it out soon, maybe today. And I probably won't try the midi programming; I'm quite happy with the included footswitch. As mentioned, I got a matching 2x12 Rectifier cab. Sounds great with the Vintage 30s and as far as I can tell, no voids in the closed back cab. It woofs! If there's any little peeve I have, it's that a speaker cable wasn't included. Ahhh, no big deal.

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Best amp PERIOD!

In over 45 years of playing guitar through too many amps I can remember, I will NEVER forget this one. If only I could have started out with this Mesa/Boogie amp head way back in my teens.... Having owned and played on all the best amps (including Mesa/Boogie) since the '70's, I kept going back and forth on this one. I didn't need another amp, but I couldn't get over the versatility,… read more functionality and quality of the controls, the tubes and the overall head itself (it's CabClone being hugely useful for direct recording into your DAW via your mixer, instead of having to mic up the speakers). I finally gave it an bought the 50watt version, which is loud enough to permanently damage your hearing. The foot switch is the best one I've ever used. You can click through Clean, Crunch, and Speed Metal presets very quickly and the "solo" button gives you even more sonic possibilities). For the price, I do not believe you can find a more comprehensive am with all the utility this one provides. I absolutely love it!

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The best amp I've ever played

After three years using this amplifier, I think it's time to write a review. I've been playing amps like Marshall, Laney, Pavey and MesaBoogie Rectifiers for more than 20 years. The Tc 50 is the best of all in performance and versatility. I prefer the 50-watt format after years using 100-watt amps. The reality is that 50 watts are more than enough for a small club.Where the Tc 50… read more stands out is how well it mixes with other instruments highlighting quality in channel one, good crunch in channel two and sufficient saturation for solo in channel three.Mesa Boogie is synonymous of quality and I do not intend to change this amp for any other.

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Awesome Amp!

In my nearly 40 years as a performing guitarist I've owned a variety of amps from Fender, Rivera, Marshall, Mesa Boogie, etc. As a weekend warrior that plays in several cover bands I'm always looking for an amp that can cover a variety of styles while giving me convenient, no-brainer performance tweaking while on stage. My main amp (until now) was a custom designed head built… read more to my specifications, with three channels patterned after a Fender Twin (clean), Marshall (crunch), and Soldano (lead). It's been an amazing amp, but I found that it suited me better for my three piece rock band because it has a big fat, slightly darker tone. In my quest to find a second amp that would fit into my other band that covers a variety of "yacht rock" tunes from the 70s and 80s, I impulsively purchased the TC-50 after reading some great reviews about it. When I received the amp a few months ago I plugged it in at home at low volumes and immediately loved the tones I was getting from it. I skimmed through the user manual, but everything was self-explanatory so I didn't read it in detail. I've now used the TC-50 for several rehearsals and multiple gigs with both bands playing a variety of styles from Little River Band to AC/DC to Whitesnake to The Bee Gees to Metallica, so I'm ready to provide an honest review of the amp. I first used this at a gig with my yacht rock band playing through a Mesa 2x12 vertical cabinet. For this band I generally play on the clean and crunch channels with an occasional riff on the lead channel. I had switched out the EL34 tubes to 6L6 prior to the show, and while playing around at home I decided I liked the "tight" setting on all of the channels. During the gig I got incredible tones and sustain throughout the for all styles of songs, but I felt like I was fighting the brightness of the amp. By the end of the night I had my treble controls turned completely down on all three channels. For my next show with my heavier rock band, I switched back to the EL34 tubes and played through a Mesa 4x12 cabinet. I was able to turn up a bit more at this show and felt that I was getting more punch and balls with the bigger cabinet. With this band I spend most of my time on the crunch and lead channels. The crunch sounded rich. Maybe not as classic as a Marshall, but really close. The lead sustain is insane...creamy with just enough compression to make shredding a dream. I should also mention that I play through a Les Paul Standard for most songs, but also use a Fender Strat for a few songs. The amp sounds great with either guitar. At some recent shows I switched back from "tight" to "normal" and think I enjoy that setting better. It's less bright and a bit fatter sounding and works great for all styles of music I play. I also took some time to read the manual more thoroughly to understand the interaction between all of the EQ, gain and volume knobs. I think I have my tones dialed in now. I've switched back and forth between my custom head and the TC-50 for the past few shows, and have found myself leaning toward the TC-50 now. I've gotten comfortable with the controls and have it tweaked where it sounds great in any setting without too much adjustment. It's not quite as "wide" or "big" sounding as my custom head, but it sits really nicely in the mix. As a performing guitarist, here are some things I love and some things I suggest could be improved: I love the separate EQ on each channel. Whereas some amps that have separate EQs per channel are difficult to get the settings to sound good when switching between channels, I can dial these in so they sound consistent and still have control of each channel. I love the single master volume to turn all channels up/down simultaneously. Great for making quick adjustments on stage. I also love the adjustable lead boost. I can adjust it to just provide a slight boost or an over the top, blow everyone away setting. This does take some attention because if you adjust the master volume one way or the other you have to adjust the boost as well. The amp is built like a tank but is still lightweight. Although, I just bought a flight case for it so it will now be heavier and bulkier. :) The effects loop works great with my pedal board. The clean channel is simply amazing. Sparkling, punchy and articulate when I want it to be. When I drive a slight boost from my pedal board in front of the amp the clean channel responds exactly as expected. The foot switch cable is very long, more than enough for any stage situation I'll encounter. Here are a few things that I'm not crazy about: The layout of the foot switch is not efficient for live performance. It has two rows of three switches each. The top row is Reverb on/off, Effect Loop on/off, and Boost. The bottom row are the channel switches. I find it frustrating that I have to gingerly guide my big foot over the top row boost switch when I take a solo. If I'm boosting on the clean or crunch channel, I have to be careful not to accidentally engage the lead channel at the same time. I have to be careful not to accidentally disengage the effects loop on the foot switch. I generally leave it on all the time, but recently had an experience where a signature delay part of the song was missed because I had accidentally turned the effects loop off on the foot switch without realizing it. There is a switch on the back of the amp that is supposed to determine if the effects loop is controlled by the foot switch or stays on. No matter where I set that switch, the foot switch still controls the effects loop. I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding how the switch works, or if is a bug in the amp. The reverb sounds great, but I never use it. Unless I need an over-the-top reverb wash for something, there is enough live ambience at my gigs to negate the need for reverb. Plus, if I did use the reverb with a pronounced setting, I'd have to be careful to not accidentally engage it on the foot switch (see above regarding effects loop and boost switch placement). I wish the foot switch had some type of rubber grip underneath to keep it from sliding around on smooth stage surfaces. I will probably install something myself. I've mentioned how the boost setting on the amp has to be adjusted along with the master volume. It would be really cool if the boost amount increased/decreased proportionally as you change the master volume so you can simply set the boost to something like "10% louder" and it will maintain that value over the full range of the master volume. I'm not a MIDI person, so I can't speak to that. Having a MIDI switch/controller would probably eliminate my hangups with the foot switch, but then I'd have another piece of technology to have to deal with. I'm considering having a custom foot switch made to my specifications. So other than the ergonimics of the foot switch design, I really love this amp. It provides plenty of tonal options, is much easier to adjust than previous Mesa amps I've had, and seems to be solid and reliable. One of these days I'm going to run the TC-50 and my custom head in stereo and really be in tonal heaven!

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