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My focus has turned to amps
zoglug
Posts: 314Member
Hey everyone,
my 30th is fast approaching and with that comes funds to spend! I dont really want these funds to be consumed in the house i have just bought (those are saved elsewhere!), selfishly i want them to be spent on me! I pretty much have all the guitars i need right now in the Crafter and the Shine so my focus has turned to amps.
Currently, i have a Fender Mustang 1 which i picked up mid 2012, and it has served me well as a practice amp. Recently however, i find i have it on a clean tone and use my Joyo VO and Mooer Shimverb to vary the sound. Also, when reading around (i hate the internet!) so many people recommend tube amps. So with the fact i dont really use the Mustang for anything other than cleans, and the fact that everybody raves about tube amps, i feel like i am missing out.
I have no real intentions to join a band and gig as i am nowhere near good enough may change in future but i doubt it, so im wondering if it is actually worth purchasing a tube amp when for home use i cant really ramp it up (without annoying the neighbours!). Then comes the whole minefield of which amp to take a look at. Combo or head & cab? Fender, Marshall, Vox, Blackstar, Orange whatever else!
So im in complete confusion at the moment, and any light anybody could shed would be great.
my 30th is fast approaching and with that comes funds to spend! I dont really want these funds to be consumed in the house i have just bought (those are saved elsewhere!), selfishly i want them to be spent on me! I pretty much have all the guitars i need right now in the Crafter and the Shine so my focus has turned to amps.
Currently, i have a Fender Mustang 1 which i picked up mid 2012, and it has served me well as a practice amp. Recently however, i find i have it on a clean tone and use my Joyo VO and Mooer Shimverb to vary the sound. Also, when reading around (i hate the internet!) so many people recommend tube amps. So with the fact i dont really use the Mustang for anything other than cleans, and the fact that everybody raves about tube amps, i feel like i am missing out.
I have no real intentions to join a band and gig as i am nowhere near good enough may change in future but i doubt it, so im wondering if it is actually worth purchasing a tube amp when for home use i cant really ramp it up (without annoying the neighbours!). Then comes the whole minefield of which amp to take a look at. Combo or head & cab? Fender, Marshall, Vox, Blackstar, Orange whatever else!
So im in complete confusion at the moment, and any light anybody could shed would be great.
Comments
I don't know the budget you're looking at, but for great cleans I'd look at;
-Laney VC15
-Fender Blues Junior
-Fender Princeton Reverb Reissue
-Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue
-Vox AC15/AC30
Obviously those are right across the cost and size spectrum but all have excellent clean sounds.
“There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.”
I'll give my conclusion first - then you don't have to read the rubbish in the rest of the post. The best amp for you is the one that you love the sound of, and that makes you want to be creative. It's the one that makes you think in the morning - damn I wish I could stay at home and listen to my guitar through this amp instead of going to work. That amp could be solid state, solid state modelling, hybrid modelling, tube modelling, all tube ..... anything!
I've been through at lot of amps and I wish I'd had the chance to experience them longer term before buying them - would have been a lot less expensive.
Depends what you want from the amp. If you want a tube amp for that naturally overdriven sound when it starts to break up you're going to have to go for low wattage unless you've got very understanding (or deaf) neighbours. If you get a tube amp that has an attenuator - e.g. the Vox AC4TV - bear in mind that with each downward step in wattage on the attenuator you lose some tone quality.
Also with a lot of tube amps you're going to need to be pretty happy with a fairly limited, though high quality, sound palette unless you have quality pedals to give you the bigger range. Now I love the sound of a guitar jut through a tube amp cranked with no extras - think Paul Kossoff for example. But if you don't want to always play in that sort of style ....
I've had two tube amps. A Vox AC4TV and a Fender Blues Junior III. Both produced very nice quality sounds and tone for their price points.
The AC4TV replaced a part tube Vox modeller - an AD15VT, and it was a massive step up. But the AC4TV was limited in tonal range - the tone control didn't do too much at all - and I ended up usually using it with at least 3 pedals at a time.
The Blues Junior was one I tried recently - a very popular real tube amp and I thought I should give one a go at last while I'm still alive - at 15 watts it was WAAAAYYYY too loud for the house to be played with natural crunch - attenuating it with a Weber Micro Mass helped but the natural sound of the BJ was something I found after several weeks wasn't quite right for me - again I was finding I was automatically reaching for the pedals when I got the amp out to play.
I think both these tube amps for me eventually fell foul of my need for a bit more variety of sounds to cover the different genres I like to play.
So Solid State amps? I once had a basic Solid State amp with a clean and a dirty channel. One of the cheaper Marshall jobs. Dirty channel fizzed more than a shaken up bottle of Pepsi and the clean channel was quite prone to buzz / noise and was not a beautiful tone by any stretch of a fevered or even a deranged imagination. I currently still have a solid state Fender amp, but one of the modelling variety - a G-Dec3 30 watt. A lot better than that Marshall was but ultimately if I'm wanting to have my fix of sweet sounding tones from a guitar it doesn't do it - not even with all the tweaking available on the Fender Fuse software. It is pretty well relegated to playing backing tracks - it does this very well due to having an additional tweeter speaker.
The two amps that have worked for me have been part tube / part modeller. The Fender Vibro Champ XD - just 5 watts and one channel - all valve configuration with a number of specific preamp voicings and on-board DSP effects. Half a dozen Fender voicings on there which do the job for me - great for clean or nearly clean sounds and have tonal qualities that make my ears happy. A single 6V6 valve and a 12AX7, so it's only just a tube amp and only has an 8" speaker. Then there's the Fender Super Champ XD which is by several streets the best home use amp I have ever had the pleasure of using. Two channels, 15 watts, 10" speaker, a pair of 6V6 power valves and a single 12AX7, but otherwise very similar to the Vibro Champ.
Perversely after that rave review tne amp that did not work for me at all in any way was the Fender Super Champ X2. Sent to me as a replacement for my first Super Champ XD that developed a fault - I absolutely hated and loathed it with a passion - it was supposed to be an improvement on the XD model it replaced, and it also had the all singing, all dancing Fender Fuse software which was supposed to be a big selling feature. If you could describe tone by way of food, then while the Super Champ XD was a particularly succulent steak the tones I managed to get from the X2 were rotting road kill. But just to my ears - lots of people seem to love it - it's all a matter of personal taste, the music you like, and how your ears work.
Like you I have a Mustang 1 and like you it's either on clean or nearly clean.
Like you I only play at home, but one day I hope to make it to the pub.
Like you I want a tube amp just because of the rave reviews they seem to get.
The one that grabs my fancy (perhaps for all the wrong reasons) is the Orange OH15R with their 1 x 12" cab.
I've tried to have a play through one but my local music shop doesn't have one in store. I tried a larger Orange tube amp using a borrowed guitar at low volume and I couldn't hear what all the fuss was about.
That hasn't dampened the longing. The £700 price tag for head + cab has though. If I'm spending that sort of money I want to be able to hear a big difference !
I expect that our Mustangs wouldn't fetch a lot on the used market so perhaps your tube amp should be an addition rather than a replacement. That way, if you find you need tones other than clean, you'll be able to plug into the Mustang and be spoilt for choice.
Good luck with the search and let us know what you settle on.
Graham
Mark, first of all, the post does not contain rubbish at all! Secondly, you have hit the nail on the head with this statement, it is exactly why i have started looking at/reading about tube amps!
Im finding that the Mustang 1, no matter what i find on the fuse software, just does not get the juices flowing! Partly, it is probably my ability to play, but it has got me thinking about other amps!
Thank you all for the responses! Ill check out all the suggestions soon, as for budget, it depends on what my Cort sells for, whether the projector sells on evilbay and what birthday funds i get!
Like you I have a Mustang 1 and like you it's either on clean or nearly clean.
Like you I only play at home, but one day I hope to make it to the pub.
Like you I want a tube amp just because of the rave reviews they seem to get.
The one that grabs my fancy (perhaps for all the wrong reasons) is the Orange OH15R with their 1 x 12" cab.
I've tried to have a play through one but my local music shop doesn't have one in store. I tried a larger Orange tube amp using a borrowed guitar at low volume and I couldn't hear what all the fuss was about.
That hasn't dampened the longing. The £700 price tag for head + cab has though. If I'm spending that sort of money I want to be able to hear a big difference!
I expect that our Mustangs wouldn't fetch a lot on the used market so perhaps your tube amp should be an addition rather than a replacement. That way, if you find you need tones other than clean, you'll be able to plug into the Mustang and be spoilt for choice.
Good luck with the search and let us know what you settle on.
Graham
You certainly echo my sentiments with the Mustang, perfect amp to get me started but just feel it lacks something now. This is the case as my go to guitar is my Crafter (unless I need to play quietly because little un is in bed!), the sounds from the Mustang just don’t sing to me. I love the tone from the Crafter and have no longing for another acoustic, it ticks all the boxes.
I discussed getting a new amp with the girlfriend (now I’m all grown up with a house I realise I need to do these things) and I reckon the budget will be around £300 - £400 maximum depending what funds I get from my birthday. I won’t be selling the Mustang, as checking on eBay they go for less than £50, and for that price id rather keep it, and I am dubious to sell my Cort, as whilst it is an entry level guitar, it was the first guitar I bought, the guitar which sparked this journey and holds a lot of sentimental value. On the other hand this limits the funds available.
As for which amp, it is a total minefield, and I think I need to go armed with my trusty Shine and try a load of amps out. I did spend an entire evening last night armed with YouTube and coffee just listening to many amps.
Thank you very much for the insight Lester, I was unaware that they contained different tubes, but was aware that they create completely different tones. I’m hoping to find a shop nearby which stocks those amps, as I’d also like to try out the Blackstar HT5 as well as the Laney Sticky mentioned above too.
I think I’m set on picking up a tube amp, but I don’t think it will be a snap decision like some other things I have purchased!
I tried all sorts and it eventually came down to either a Laney or the Blackstar HT5, I went for the Blackstar in the end but try to go for the HT5R though with on board reverb if you can. Cracking little amp with amazing tone and breaks up nicely when pushed, not too loud for home use, I've had mine up flat out and it's fine just as long as the neighbours are out! Build quality is first class too.
Obviously with all these things tone is purely subjective so try everything you can.
Jerry
Even though it's called YouTube, you do realise that there are no real tubes in it!
PS. Is that my coat? Thanks, I guess I'll be leaving now.
All it has done is given me even more options to consider!
I ended up buying a Vox AC15C1 and I love it, even at low volumes the tones are great. It's also great to be done with all the built in effects that most solid state amps have. the Vox only has the tremelo and the coolest spring reverb ever! I would never want to use any other reverb now, the difference in quality is amazing. The 'Tone Cut' is a nice feature too.
I live in hope of being able to really crank it up. Wish I still lived in the country!
I can say the same about my Fender super 60 and Vox ac15.
If you play at bedroom levels and want a valve amp, it's really not worth getting anything over single figure wattage, even then they'll only really come alive when they are pushed and consequently sound loud. My Orange dual terror sounds quite boring even when it's cut down to 7watts and played loudly at home. 7watts to 30watts is not a massive difference volume wise. Plus the amps sound is created by pushing the tubes, it needs to perform at an optimum...very different concept to modelling/digital or even solid state amps...they are a different beast altogether.
I too have a Vox AC15 (the cc1) and although this sounds really nice at home, it sounds so much better with the band (it begins to sing with the master volume just over half way). So although I use my ac15 at home, I don't think I'd say it is ideal for home use (as you miss the best part of the amps sound/voice).
But back to the orange amps debate. The only orange amp that is good (IMO) for a bedroom player is the micro terror, and even then you are looking at fairly high volume levels before the amps true voice kicks in...and that is not a valve amp, it's a 20watt solid state amp with a valve preamp.
The Vox ac4 and the new marshall 5watts (although great amps) still need to be played at volume to engage their "voice", so even though you might be thinking...this amp has a nice clean sound...you're probably not getting the full picture of the amp until it's really cranked. So these are possibly closer to being good "home" valve amps...but still not ideal.
I might even say that if you want to play at bedroom levels, it might be worth avoiding valve amps...but I couldn't say that as I love them too much.
“There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don't.”
A Marshall JMD501. It has a modelling front end, using software developed by a partner company that is intended to mimic specific marshal preamp stages.
The back end is a 50w pair of EL34's. now, in reality, since master volume wa invented, most overdrive/distortion sounds come from,preamp gain stages, rather than power amp breakup, which is why you can get half decent drive at low volumes. Same applies if the back end is valve. So this amp can be played quite comfortably at bedroom levels, with some nice gain sounds.
However, the really sweet sound of a hard driven tube power stage is where it really starts to get groovy, especially for 'vintage' sounds (how come all my favourite guitarists are now considered vintage?...), because back in the day, there was no master volume, and the only way to get distortion was turn the knobs up really high. So all those old sounds are largely distortion in the power stage. And that, you can't get at bedroom levels...
Unless you use a power soak, such as a 'Hot Plate'. This is a device that sits between your power stage and your speakers, and, as the name suggests, soaks up some of the power. So, you can crank up the power stage on the amp, and then turn down the volume on the soak so your overall output volume from the speaker is very low,must the tone has that classic power stage valve distortion sound.
So, to cut a long story short, yes, valves are totally legit for home use, and with the right equipment, you can get the full on benefits without getting an ASBO to go with it!