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NAD: PRS MT15

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mt15 nad prs
9K views 27 replies 13 participants last post by  bigdave 
#1 ·
I really dig the smaller amps, and I've gone through a bunch the last couple of years looking for the right one. I loved the Mark V25 and liked the Mini rec, but found the master volumes just didn't push loud enough when I was in a band situation. I've also played around with every little amp I could get my hands on, from Orange to EVH, to the 6505 mini head. All of them are good, but I realized that lacking big bottle tubes may have kept me out of the mini amp market. I guess I just need the big 6L6s.

That's why I've been so interested in the Tremonti head, a smaller amp with 6 12ax7s and 2 6L6s. I saw the video with the main engineer saying if he just replaces the power transformer and ups the voltage, it's a 50 watt amp. I can see what he's talking about, and I think the 15 watt label is underselling the amp a bit! It's DEFINITELY able to go louder with more of a usable sweep of the master volume knob than the two Mesa mini heads I've owned in the past.

So here's my take on it, it has the throaty, low-mid grunt of a Dual Rectifier with the treble/presence of a 5150. It also has impossibly too much gain, I keep the knob at 9 or 10 o'clock and it's already in the brutal range. The EQ knobs work a little too well too, as a slight nudge to the bass or mid knobs reveals a completely different sound. The clean channel is pristine and amazing, and the pull boost knob gives a slight bit of crunch putting it into Plexi gain territory (though not exactly Marshall-esque).

All these pro's, and one big con... the effects loop has a 60Hz hum that is a bit annoying at low volumes. It's not the tubes, not pedals or rack gear. When a guitar is plugged in and nothing is in the effects loop, it's dead silent. Putting even just a patch cable in the effects loop makes the amp hum. I knew this was a talked-about defect in these amps going in, so I knew what I was getting. The only other downside is that there is a big change in volume from 1 to 2, similar to the old Mesa Mark IIIs. The amp goes from whisper quiet to coliseum volume a little too quickly, and the master volume could have used a taper. To bring it down to bedroom levels, I literally set the effect send on my MS3 to 4%, this amp is that loud.



You know what's funny, I'm not even that big a fan of Tremonti or Petrucci (though I highly respect them both), but both these amps are exactly what I love playing through.
 

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#13 ·
Congrats Vince! I finally got to check one of those out at my local Sam Ash recently and was very impressed. I'm lugging my JP2C to weekly jams and my old weak self thought that might be a perfect travel amp to use instead to lighten the load a bit. One favor to ask: I dug around online and could not get an answer - if it is not too much trouble and you have the means - could you tell me if the footswitch jack will work with a loop switch signal/cable to switch channels?
 
#14 ·
That's actually the same reason I picked this up too, I didn't want to take the JP2C out of the house. For the footswitch, it seems the same as any other on/off jack, in that I can control it with the PRS footswitch or the CTRL 1/2 out on my MS3. It makes it so I can set presets with it on the MS3 as Channel 1 is 'off' and Channel 2 is 'on'.
 
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