More Amp help needed (Page 2 of 2)

Ok, not to hijack this thread but here's my 2 cents. Sorry if it's a bit wordy

I've spent a pile of cash chasing tone and I'm still not there yet but I'm getting closer. I've tried the headphone thing and I still use it at times but it lacks the feel. You know, when it's loud enough that the guitar interacts with the amp, almost on the edge of feeding back. Even with a slightly gritty clean tone the guitar is more lively and easier to play. It's hard to create this at lower volumes but it can be done.

If you're not going to play out, at least for a while, spend your money on a good low watt tube amp. Take your guitar and go shopping. Test drive amps until you find what you like. I settled on a modded Valve Junior for a low watt practice amp, actually two of them. I used a Guitar Amplifier PCB board and built them myself...
http://guitaramplifierpcbs.com/PlexiSE.aspx

Plenty of info on the Sewatt forum...
http://www.sewatt.com/forum

They can be built as a 5 watt Super Lead or a cascaded preamp like a JCM800. I did one of each.

Here's a link to the photobucket album...

http://s497.photobucket.com/albums/rr33 … %20JCM800/

I picked up the Valve Juniors used for cheap ($65) and flogged the leftover parts on eBay. I have less than $400 into two heads and that iuncludes shipping to Canada and premium components like Sozo caps. If I'm only running one head I use a Blackheart 1X12 with a 25 watt greenback in it. If I want both heads I use a stereo 2X12 cab. I use a Tube Screamer clone, some delay, a wah and an ABY pedal. This isn't an amp building forum so I'll leave it at that.

More important than the amp, you need a place to play where you won't offend anyone. I like to play loud and I have a cop that lives in the house behind me. After he came to the door for the 3'rd time  asking me to turn down, I decided to move to the garage. If you have a basement family room or a garage that's the place to play.

Then you need to box in the amp on all sides but one with gobo's. Used office partitons work well for this and can be had at auctions or clearing houses for cheap. Or build your own with wood and foam. There are many company's out there that make acoustic solutions for studio's. Face the opening away from the people you love and play right in front of it.

I have a garage that goes into a laundry room and then into the house and the master beedroom backs onto the garage wall. With the doors from garage to house closed I can play at night and not wake up the wife or two year old.

RP

This is a really hard question to give advice on because ultimately you should buy the amp YOU want for what you're willing to spend.  Yes, Tube amps will have a better turn around if you decide to sell them later, but you're going to have to pay more for a good one than if you'd rather go with a solid state.  I'd honestly pick the amp I thought sounded best and that I could afford regardless of wether or not it's solid state or has built in effects.  NPB and AD3 are also right, that some solid states are pretty good sounding amps and regardless of what anybody says, you don't NEED to have a valve amp to be a guitar player.

The class 5 to me sounds great and is a good tube amp for not a lot of cash.  I think if you have a good sounding amp, you'll probably want to play more.  An OD and reverb pedal would complete the shopping experience for me.  Hope you find something that you're happy with.  -Seth

So

my mate bought a marshall class 5 I tried it and really liked it classic Marshall tone at 5 watts but dont be fooled it is loud you would  def need a od pedal to get low volumes out of it .

So he wanted low volume tube tone and next he bought the BLACKSTAR 1W amp
I went up for a jam and he used the blackstar while I used the class 5 with OD pedal . and I have to say the Blackstar was awesome sounding def way to go as is probably the Bugera.

"Everybody's entitled to my opinion.

Well last night i went to guitar center and tried out some more solid states and just was not real happy with any of them, but i did play a VOX AC-4-TV tube amp and i really liked the tone coming out plus it has a power selector switch from 4 watts down to a 1/4 watt, now the one thing i did not like was no control knobs for bass and treble, but other than that i liked it, any thoughts on this guy, and is the a way of adding a pedal or some sort of control for the bass and treble (a pedal or something)

I forgot to ask
How much $$$ are willing to spend for the amp setup you are after?
Just curious , maybe youll get more suggestions if we know what the limit is.

I have rushed into buying the latest and greatest amp/pedal/etc for what appears to be a good price and regret not having gone with the tried and true ( which can be more pricey ) methods from the start.

Do as much research as you can. Dont rush into buying and DO NOT let the sales guy at GC tell you what sounds good. ( You Tell Him )

Good luck

Ok, the Vox TV-4 amp that you tried is a good little amp for $200.  I think if your playing humbuckers you'll love it, but me being a fender guy I think they make the pickups sound thin and cheap.  They also have some upgrades you can have done that will make that thing scream.  My dad owns one of these vox amps and he plays a couple of Les pauls, a telecaster and a stratocaster.  I played my stuff through it (I no longer have humbucking guitars) and was thinking at 4 watts this thing is a monster, 1 watt gets you there, and single coils at 1/4 watt is when I said it sounded weak.  Dads Gibson Les Paul Traditional Pro (BB3 Bridge, 57' Classic Plus neck) could make that thing cry at any wattage, I even backed off the volume a bit to keep the distortion down.  Like I said earlier don't use boost pedals on a low wattage amp thats cranked, it could blow.

If your looking for a amp thats under $1000 you really have a ton of combos and cheaper heads at your finger tips.  The new Hot Rod III fenders sound great and with a master volume you could keep the volume down any of these amps.  I could see using an attenuator with the HRD III on the clean channel, 40 watts and you'll get the natural tube distortion your wanting which is as fat a sound as any new marshall maybe not as distorted.  Have you checked Ebay???  As long as you buy from someone with good feeback and has a higher score then you could get a palete full of amps at your disposal used.  I've sold amps (Custom viberlux reverb, Laney LC30, Fender Hot rod deluxe, Pevey classic 2-12, Epiphone valve jr.) and I kid you not the average price I paid for the amp I will take about a 20% loss on the item when I sale it.  Hot rod deluxe I spent $600 on it, and got about $380 out of it plus shipping so about $400 is what the guy bought it for.  Its a buyers market on ebay right now.  Their are people just like me that will get in a bind and decide they have to part with something in order to get back on track and Ebay is where they do it at, its better then a trying a pawn shop!  Look around you might find a Class 5 marshall for 20% off just because somebody used it and needs to either sale it or didn't like it.