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Location: Germany, where delicious wine is growing (Rheinh) | Hey guys,
I want to buy an amp for an electical guitar. What is the best I can get (30-50 watt)???
Thanks for your help!
Bernie |
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Posts: 13303
Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | we really need to know your budget and how you plan to use it (full band with drums, practice amp,effects built in, etc) |
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Location: Germany, where delicious wine is growing (Rheinh) | Hi Stephent28,
it is for home use only, may be with an overdrive, reverb and chorus effects. No great band use. Budget is secondary, what sounds best?
Bernie |
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Posts: 4061
Location: Utah | There are a lot of good amps out there.
What kind of price range are you in? What styles of music do you want to play? What kind of electric guitar will you be using? |
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Posts: 1137
Location: Germany, where delicious wine is growing (Rheinh) | Music styles: pop, rock
Guitar: Les Paul
Price: $500,00 max. |
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Posts: 5881
Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | For home use, you may not need anything that powerful. Too bad you're across the pond. I have something that might fit the bill, although at 80 watts, it could offer more power and size (twin 12" speakers) than you need. It is a Fender M-80 Chorus made in the USA in 1994 and offers variable chorus (speed and intensity), reverb, and two levels of distortion, all controlled via its three-button footswitch. They're somewhat rare and not too expensive (about $300), but I don't know if you'll find one in Europe.
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Location: Germany, where delicious wine is growing (Rheinh) | Never seen one in Germany.
Thanks Prof.BB
Is yours up for sale?
Anybody else with other idea's??
Bernie |
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Posts: 160
Location: Montana | This is one of those times when it really helps to take your guitar into a store and plug into lots of amps. I shopped online and picked out the "best" amp according to the marketers and the experts. Then went into a shop and plugged into that amp and it sucked!
My advice for home use is that you don't need much power but that big speakers and cabinets sound better. My 25 watt Fender never gets played above 3 (out of 10). |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Originally posted by bburg:
Never seen one in Germany. Thanks Prof.BB
Is yours up for sale? Yes. I posted it in the For Sale section last month along with two other amps. The other two are sold. |
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Location: Germany, where delicious wine is growing (Rheinh) | Hi Prof.BB, I'm out of town for about 10 or 12 days now, when I'm back and nothing else is found, I'll PM you about it.
Thanks Scott for your advice. I've had a Fender 25 R, too, but I gave it to my son, a few month ago, combined with my Fender Mexico Strat. He was playing a very cheap guitar, witch was defective now.
I've an older Les Paul and now for the Strat ( that was not my sound) I've bought an VXT-Hybrid, I want to play with that amp.
Bernie |
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Location: Utah | I'd recommend something in the 5 to 15 Watt range for home use. Loudness isn't linearly proportional to wattage, meaning a 15 watt amp is not half as loud as 30 watts, it is more than half as loud. Even a 1W amp can be plenty loud for home use. Speaker efficiency plays a big part of the loudness, meaning some speakers are louder for a given input than others. Similarly, an open back speaker cabinet will be louder than a sealed cabinet for the same power input.
The amp I have now and really like is the Fender Super Champ XD, with a replacement speaker (Eminence Ragin' Cajun). It's a 15 watt tube amp that is plenty loud for playing with a full band. I've done it. The Ragin' Cajun speaker gives it a bit more low end oomph, though the stock speaker is adequate.
The SCXD has a real tube power amp section and two preamp sections. One preamp is clean with volume, bass, and treble controls. The other has digital emulations of various amps, which are very very good emulations. You can get pretty much any sound out of it that you want. It offers effects such as echo, reverb, and chorus which are passable though not fantastic.
Another good amp that I've owned was the Cube 30. Good amp, all solid state, but not quite as good sounding as the Fender. It's a cheap amp and good value for the price.
If you don't want a variety of effects built in, check out the Blackheart Little Giant tube amp, which is 5W, or the Killer Ant 1W amp, or the Handsome Devil 15W amp. These are no frills tube amps. You'll need a speaker cabinet, which Blackheart offers also. They now make combo amps of these models. People seem to unanimously rave about the sound quality of the Blackheart amps. |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | I concur with Flysig. Another advantage of using lower wattage tube amps for household applications is that tube amps are made to run at higher volumes, where they break up and provide that crunchy overdrive tone highly sought after by most electric players. Anything that produces more than 5 watts of output is going to be too loud for most types of home use when played in their upper volume registers. On the other hand, I am not familiar with very many low wattage tube amps that also provide the desired effects initially requested in this thread, so outboard pedals or devices will have to be used. Solid state amps typically provide a greater range of built-in effects. Several other lower wattage tube amps that might prove useful are the Fender Blues Junior and the Vox AC15. Vox offers a limited edition hand-wired version of their AC-15 that recevied very complimentary reviews from the media. An advantage of the Blues Junior is that it employs a master volume control, which means you dial up the volume control to produce tonal break-up (above 7 or 8, for instance), but dial down output volume using the master control (maybe 2 or 3). Some purists despise master volume controls, but I love them for home applications. |
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Location: Ballston Lake, N.Y. | Fender Blues Jr. Nice little tube amp. |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | I have a kickass Vox Valtronix 120 that can be dialed down in power for easy home playing or cranked up for playing live with your favorite rock band.
The built in effects sound outstanding.
I posted it up for sale around Christmas time but didn't try to hard. Shipping anything overseas will be a killer but then the amp is also. |
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Location: Jet City | The vox kicks but. I use an ad60vtx or ad120vtx as my live rigs depending on the size of the venue. |
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Location: Nashville TN. | Originally posted by Zen:
Fender Blues Jr. Nice little tube amp. Ditto
Champ 600 sounds good and louder than you think at 5 watts |
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Location: Okinawa Japan | http://www.amazon.com/Line-Spider-75-Watt-Guitar-Amplifier/dp/B000J...
Make sure to get the 4-5 channel line 6 pedal for your preset effects. Very cool amp, I had a spider II about 6 years ago, kept me occupied for many many hours! Also available in 30, and 150w versions. |
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Location: Carle Place, NY | Originally posted by PEZ:
Originally posted by Zen:
Fender Blues Jr. Nice little tube amp. Ditto
Champ 600 sounds good and louder than you think at 5 watts |
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Location: Carle Place, NY | I have a 30W Line 6 Spider II. It's a nice amp for very little money. |
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Location: Up North | I just picked up a Gretsch G5222 (5 watts, same as Fender Champ 600) Very nice tone in a small tweed package. $80
I run my Pandora PX4D through it and get some great sounds out of it. Definitely not loud enough to gig with, but loud enough to get me in trouble with SWMBO.
I also have a Hohner Hoodoo Box (5w) sitting at the border waiting to get picked up.
Muzz has a guy in Oz who will custom build you a tube amp, if you are so inclined. |
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| In Germany it should be easy to check out the small Koch amps from Holland. Absolutely fantastic. |
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Posts: 1137
Location: Germany, where delicious wine is growing (Rheinh) | Hi Folks,
thanks for your advices, now I've learned a lot.
Schroeder, Koch's are very fine, but out of my price range. I think I'll go for the Blues Jr.
I've a Genz-Benz Shen Jr. for my acustics and I really love it, so I thought 30 watts ....
Thanks again
Bernie |
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Location: Yucaipa, California | Vox VT30. |
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Location: Houston, Texas | Originally posted by bburg:
Hi Folks,
thanks for your advices, now I've learned a lot.
Schroeder, Koch's are very fine, but out of my price range. I think I'll go for the Blues Jr.
I've a Genz-Benz Shen Jr. for my acustics and I really love it, so I thought 30 watts ....
Thanks again
Bernie Yeah, the Blues Jr. is a good choice. I've had one for quite some time. I've got a couple of Strats and a Les Paul. I've also got a 100 watt Fender Pro Tube Series Twin which I love even more but whenever I go out and play with others it's alwasy the Blues Jr. that goes with me.
I've heard it said that tube watts produce much more volume than the same solid state watts, and while I have no scientific evidence, I truly believe it from experience.
The Blues Jr. is loud for 15 watts and can produce some really nice tones, but like anything else, experimentation is key. It won't give realy clean tones except at low volume, but can give quite a range of tones at the same volume depending on the Volume and Master Volume knobs.
Nothing beats the tone of amps using tubes for both the preamp and for power amplification, and the Blues Jr. is economical, light weight, loud, and a tone monster for its size. |
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Posts: 6268
Location: Florida Central Gulf Coast | Originally posted by Joyful Noise:
much more volume than the same solid state watts I think tubes handle enriched/complex harmonics much better than solid state. Maybe that's the perceived difference. Vic or Paul can 'chip' in if I'm incorrect... |
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Electric guitar amp question...
