Amp for my Son

[StarmistBlue400]

My 12yr old has asked for a new Amp for Xmas.

He is a decent player and now he's moved to secondary school his lessons are on his electric and his interest is increasing. His current amp is tiny and I don't know where to start (other than Dawsons in Reading).

Don't want to spend the earth but needs to be a decent upgrade.

Cheers for the help

[Tom_C76]

Small valve comb would be my choice. Vox AC4 gets great reviews, I love my Laney Cub 12R. Marshall Class 5 if you can find one. The Laney is 15W but has a built-in attenuator for bedroom use

Or an Orange Terror of some description, the Micro Terror is 20W so pretty loud with a decent size cab, but can power headphones or do sensible bedroom volumes on the matching Orange cab. It's a valve preamp with solid state power amp.

[conkerman]

Fender Vaporiser

12W valve goodness, £209 from Andertons.

[AlleyCat]

Vox Vt20+

http://www.andertons.co.uk/combo-amps/pid19406/cid...

These amps are great value for the package.

[B17NNS]

Marshall SL5 down to £399 with a Marshall Echo Pedal thrown in.

http://www.andertons.co.uk/combo-amps/pid27695/cid...

[6th Gear]

Look no further.

Yamaha THR series.

http://www.coda-music.com/yamaha-thr10c-watt-blues...

Or for more distortion...

http://www.coda-music.com/yamaha-thr10x-watt-high-...

Review
http://youtu.be/gE6V3QqGppA

http://youtu.be/zV6Bfb_ZtNM

Great value. Don't be put off by the size. Monster sounds from
these.

See the reviews.

[sw67]

AlleyCat said:

Vox Vt20+

http://www.andertons.co.uk/combo-amps/pid19406/cid...

These amps are great value for the package.

Vox VT20 is a great little amp. I have a US made fender blues deluxe and a few pedals and often use the vox rather than the fender. It has a lot of good sounds and covers most types of amps well for the price

[BaronVonV8]

Blackstar HT5 is a cracking little amp!

[Billsnemesis]

I have been using a Peavey Vypyr lately as a simple back up amp that is a little more portable than my Pod/Laney set up.

The 15W has a lot of flexibility and a good quality sound for a small cheap emulation amp, despite the rather silly name

[StarmistBlue400]

Thanks all for the great response, gives me an excellent starting point

[OldSkoolRS]

What kind of music does he like/play/aspire to? The Fender vaporizor is much reduced now, but might not be the style he wants to play (I think they are more clean/crunch than outright distortion for example). I have a Blackstar HT5-R and that is pretty poor for the clean sounds, but the distortion channel is great, the small Marshall amp I also tried was similar in this regard to the HT5-R.

The modelling type amps like the Vox VT mentioned might be a good compromise as you can tweak them to get decent sounds from clean to dirty, but perhaps more a jack of all trades as other amps would be better at specific jobs as above. There is also a Line 6 'ampli' which can be controlled using an iPad and is in a similar vein to the Vox VT amp.

I'd recommend trying Andertons (in Guildford) as an alternative to Dawsons. I'm pretty sure that Andertons offer an exchange program, so if you chose one he doesn't like then he can swap it for something else (within 28 days or such).

[Mad March Taffy]

+1 for Blackstar HT5

I have the head/cab set up at home but I would recommend the combo if he wants to lug it around

You can get great tones from it and it is PLENTY loud enough at home. Has a CD/MP3 input if he wants to play long with backing tracks too

[dojo]

Get a modelling amp over a valve amp at this stage.

If you wanted to go to Andertons would happily pop down and talk through options (after 7th Dec)

[davidd]

I'd disagree with that and say get a simple valve amp so he can concentrate on playing.

[dojo]

Whatever inspires the kid to play more is going to benefit them in the long term and IME something they can experiment with sounds, develop an understanding of different fx etc will provide more enjoyment and probably more practice.

Of course if he is jamming with mates then something with more power might be needed but the flexibility of some of the amps mentioned earlier will give him chance to try different styles and probably be better if following a Rockschool or similar syllabus.

[Disastrous]

davidd said:

I'd disagree with that and say get a simple valve amp so he can concentrate on playing.

I'd disagree with that and suggest a modeller too.

Simple amps will sound st to teenagers who will be busy, excitedly hoovering up as many soundalike tones as they can to recreate their heroes. Look at Line 6 amps-theyll let him dial up any combination of amp and cab he can think of, recreate some classic tones and give him a good idea as to why he should ultimately get an AC15 and bugger all else...

[suthol]

Have a look at a Fender Mustang, a 1 will be suitable for most home and small practice situations and the 3 will be gigable in most rooms.

Comes loaded with large range of preset tones from clean Fender & Vox to the most saturated overdriven sounds imaginable.

[PVN]

I just bought a Bugera V22 infinium for £203 new from Thomann.de. This is a cracking all valve amp with brilliant features and a great sound. Footswitch is included which is a bonus. Read the reviews and see what you think.

[davidd]

Disastrous said:

I'd disagree with that and suggest a modeller too.

Simple amps will sound st to teenagers who will be busy, excitedly hoovering up as many soundalike tones as they can to recreate their heroes. Look at Line 6 amps-theyll let him dial up any combination of amp and cab he can think of, recreate some classic tones and give him a good idea as to why he should ultimately get an AC15 and bugger all else...

Modelling shmodelling Line 6 amps which will let him recreate a slightly st approximation of classic tones. Oh course your point is completely fair, I grew up before such magic.

[littleredrooster]

I'm going to collect one of these this afternoon as my Chrissie Pressie from SWMBO.

Edit:wrong clip!

Edited by littleredrooster on Thursday 27th November 11:31