I have something of relevance for you, Mr. H. When Bodia told me about the ATMA, he mentioned the 1 watt mode for quiet playing, etc. The two times I turned it into 1 watt mode, it sounded TINY, small, compressed... and I was NOT impressed. It occured to me last night, that I really hadn't played with it much. Flipped it there, didn't like it, flipped it back.
So last night I decided to explore a little more. ATMA>1x12 Thiele/EM12. This time, I dimed both channels and flipped it to 1 watt mode. The clean channel is dialed up closer to tweed type tone. The gain channel in 80s mode. This sounded MUCH better than when I tried it with the volume down, but was a bit much on both channels. I turned the clean and gain channels down to about 3:00 on the volume knobs. While clean is tweedy, compressed, etc., it was not bad. Hit it with a variety of boosts/OD's to quickly test it. SHO clone- nice, Timmy-nice, Gain Changer and Zen, really nice, Amp 11 - really nice. Overall, didn't love it. The 5 watt mode kills it for cleans, IMO even dialed to the same volume levels.
Switched to gain channel. Much better. Compressed as you'd expect, but louder than most would think. I enjoyed this much more than the previous times. Opening it up made it sound much better.
Dialed both channels back to noon. Now the clean has lost any punch and needs an OD or Boost to wake it up. The OD channel sounded good but back to being a "smaller" sound. And then... I flipped it back to 5 watt mode. The clean channel now sang. Hitting it with any boost or OD was just different flavors of great. OD channel... SMOKES! I could live here, happily. Then I switched to the Zbest cab. Now even the 5 watt mode sounded big and just great. OH, and I quickly had to turn even the 5 watt mode down to about 10:00 because it was way loud for home at noon. At 10:00 it was still loud, but I can get away with that for a little while.
I love this amp. I love the tones. I love the 18 watt/5 watt capability. The 1 watt is ok, but no longer "great" IMO. Even at toned down volume levels, the 5 watt mode sounds better. This alone has at least helped with my gas for... another TA15. If I didn't have this amp I would have had to have another TA15 already. I still want one, but this amp allows me to have great cleans and killer gain channel tones at 18 watts and 5 watts SE. If I were wanting something for low volume home playing that was a tube amp and could also be used to gig, for a G get an ATMA for half a G get a TA15. For a G and a half, get both. As much as I'd like an MT15 (and I'll probably have one before long) I think these are both better solutions for even medium volume playing.
