Discussion
I run a Sound City 50 watt head with one of the new cabs that have been brought out. The guy that built them went on to build on Hiwatts after the company finished and the amps are pretty much exactly the same as the classic Hiwatts that are greatly desired, only about half the price. My head was £350. How much you got to spend?
Depends what kind of music you play and how much you want to spend. You can get a Peavey Windsor combo with switchable power valves for £250 with between 10-20 watt output depending on what power tube you use or you could spend a grand and get a hand made Cornford Carrera that does something similar. Going upto 50 watt gives you plenty of choice- my favourite 50 watters would be my greatly missed VHT and JCM 800 heads
Take a day off work and spend it in your local guitar shop not forgeting to take your guitar with you.
Take a day off work and spend it in your local guitar shop not forgeting to take your guitar with you.
After a lot of searching around, and having had a load of different valve amps ('tweed' Peaveys, original '60's AC30s, Laneys etc etc) to say nothing of the modelling amps (Line6) and others, I've just bought an Orange TinyTerror. For home use only, it should be spot-on, as you can switch between 15w down to 7w.
Good reviews here...9.5/10 average for sound says it all. And you can get them new on eBay for +/- £260.
http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar+...
Good reviews here...9.5/10 average for sound says it all. And you can get them new on eBay for +/- £260.
http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar+...
AdeTuono said:
'tweed' Peaveys
I've got a 4x10 Classic 50 and it's awesome. I've seen the single speaker 30s this side of the pond going for about 400 new.About the only thing it can't do is high gain, but I just run a cheapie EQ into it to boost the signal and then
Probably much too loud for the required application but meh!
Hi,
Lots of cool amps here, but even 20 or 30w of valve power is gonna be pretty loud! When you say home use, but what kind of use? And what kind of sound do you go for?
There are some funky little low wattage valve amps out there - I am currently digging the 8 Watt Carr Mercury, 1x12 combo. but its bloody expensive! Problem is lots of small home amps come with tiny 8" speakers, which sound thin even with a valve power amp.
The fender Blues junior is pretty cool, 12" speaker, 15w, EL84 power section. Sweet sounds.
Again, all depends on the sound you like.
All my stage amps are old 40 or 50w fender amps (bassmans, Super Reverbs etc) but they are WAYYY to loud to use at home with any quality. You have to get a bit of signal running or they just sound small. Live is a different story when things start pumping...
Hope that helps.
Russ
Lots of cool amps here, but even 20 or 30w of valve power is gonna be pretty loud! When you say home use, but what kind of use? And what kind of sound do you go for?
There are some funky little low wattage valve amps out there - I am currently digging the 8 Watt Carr Mercury, 1x12 combo. but its bloody expensive! Problem is lots of small home amps come with tiny 8" speakers, which sound thin even with a valve power amp.
The fender Blues junior is pretty cool, 12" speaker, 15w, EL84 power section. Sweet sounds.
Again, all depends on the sound you like.
All my stage amps are old 40 or 50w fender amps (bassmans, Super Reverbs etc) but they are WAYYY to loud to use at home with any quality. You have to get a bit of signal running or they just sound small. Live is a different story when things start pumping...
Hope that helps.
Russ
Getting the valves to saturate at home volume levels is tricky. I've had Laney stuff for years, and started off with a LC15 reverb. That would saturate at reasonably low levels and sounded great. The VC30 2x10 has a drive channel which sounds good, but it is a loud amp. I'd check out the Tiny Terror Orange amp, as it is designed to give the big amp drive at low volume. Play a few.
jbudgie said:
Would anyone like to suggest a good valve amp for home use ( ie not megawatts).
Budget?I've got a Mesa Express 5:25 (Baby Boogie) - it's a 1x10 combo, albeit a fairly chunky one, which means it's a compact package and the 5:25 indicates the power output (it's nominally a 25 Watt amp but can be switched to a 5 Watt "single ended" configuration). Two footswitchable channels each with 2 selectable voices), completely independent eq on each channel, independent (footswitchable again) reverb on each channel, independent channel master volumes, and a footswitchable "Contour" (basically a sort of variable loudness control which adds a bit of extra thump'n'sparkle - can be used to liven things up for low volume practicing or to give a little bit of extra "push" for solos). Sounds great, happily goes from Fender sparkly clean through Marshall raunch to full-on rock (some reviewers claim it hasn't got enough gain for proper metal but it goes more than dirty enough for me!), and classic saturated Boogie lead sounds.
Not cheap (~£1K), but worth it for the sheer versatility and when I consider how much I've spent over the years on amps, pedals etc which didn't quite give me the sounds I was looking for I can honestly say if that this thing had been around when I first started playing I'd have saved a ton of money...
If the budget doesn't stretch that far[1] then I'd look very, very closely at the Laney VC15 or LC15R (the VC if you're an old skool Blues/Rock player, the LC if you're looking for more contemporary sounds) - they're both nice little packages and, in my opinion quite silly value for money.
[1] Mine didn't, but there's an Arts Council funded interest free credit scheme for musical instruments running at the moment (Look for retailers advertising the "Take It Away" scheme) so I bought it anyway...
--
JG
Is this for Hi-Fi or Guitar. I notice most of the replies are Guitar based with one or two Hi-Fi Amps. I'll stick to Hi-Fi.
New and cheapish the Chinese build most of them. In that bracket you can look at "The Affordable Valve Company" or The Shanling Amps. On the British design side I'd also look out for Icon Audio and Bewitch.
Esoteric Audio Research and Audio Note are the ones I'd look at though. Good Designs and on reputation very well built.
On the Second hand front, Audio Innovations were the biggest maker of Valve amps recently. The S300 wasn't much to look at but produced 10 Watts per channel and with 90DB speakers was an impressive performer. The S500 looked a whole lot nicer and if you don't need a Phono input the S700 is also out there. Croft produced some good amps but they are a bit eccentric on the control front. Unison are European and combine good design with sound. Beard are another UK maker whose output has been erratic. They seem to pop up every now and again and produce a new batch of amps. Personally I have the S500 with Mullard EL34 Power valves giving out 25 watts per channel, which given each Valve can produce 25 watts allows them to perform well within the performance envelope.
The Problem at the moment is the clutch of Chinese Valve amps available. They sound ok, in fact they sound like most people believe a Valve amp should sound like!! However it's a case of variable quality and support. I'd avoid them like the plague. Shanling have European and Japanese guys checking the output in order to get QC right and even then only the best get here.
New and cheapish the Chinese build most of them. In that bracket you can look at "The Affordable Valve Company" or The Shanling Amps. On the British design side I'd also look out for Icon Audio and Bewitch.
Esoteric Audio Research and Audio Note are the ones I'd look at though. Good Designs and on reputation very well built.
On the Second hand front, Audio Innovations were the biggest maker of Valve amps recently. The S300 wasn't much to look at but produced 10 Watts per channel and with 90DB speakers was an impressive performer. The S500 looked a whole lot nicer and if you don't need a Phono input the S700 is also out there. Croft produced some good amps but they are a bit eccentric on the control front. Unison are European and combine good design with sound. Beard are another UK maker whose output has been erratic. They seem to pop up every now and again and produce a new batch of amps. Personally I have the S500 with Mullard EL34 Power valves giving out 25 watts per channel, which given each Valve can produce 25 watts allows them to perform well within the performance envelope.
The Problem at the moment is the clutch of Chinese Valve amps available. They sound ok, in fact they sound like most people believe a Valve amp should sound like!! However it's a case of variable quality and support. I'd avoid them like the plague. Shanling have European and Japanese guys checking the output in order to get QC right and even then only the best get here.
telecat said:
Esoteric Audio Research and Audio Note are the ones I'd look at though. Good Designs and on reputation very well built.
A friend many years back had a home built amp based on the Audio Note Ongaku design, I think he'd used the same, or at least very similar components.
And the sound through his Rogers speakers (LS4, my memory is fuzzy - they were once the BBC monitors?) was absolutely sublime. Possibly one of the best sounding systems I've ever experienced. Much better than another friends system - he gets some of the latest/greatest kit practically given to him (he reviews for Hi Fi News), and it still doesn't come up to that beautiful old valve kit.
clonmult said:
telecat said:
Esoteric Audio Research and Audio Note are the ones I'd look at though. Good Designs and on reputation very well built.
A friend many years back had a home built amp based on the Audio Note Ongaku design, I think he'd used the same, or at least very similar components.
And the sound through his Rogers speakers (LS4, my memory is fuzzy - they were once the BBC monitors?) was absolutely sublime. Possibly one of the best sounding systems I've ever experienced. Much better than another friends system - he gets some of the latest/greatest kit practically given to him (he reviews for Hi Fi News), and it still doesn't come up to that beautiful old valve kit.
--
JG
Gassing Station | Music | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff