What's good in the world of guitar practice amps

[rob_gould]

I've been playing (acoustic) guitar more and more recently after a break of ten years or so and now I'm thinking about picking up my electric again but I sold all my gear a long time ago and guitar world has moved on a long way since then.

This is a bit of a Gearslutz type question but I know I'll get a more measured response here so please indulge me...

I'm looking for something which can do clean, crunchy (bluesey) and into distorted (more Van Halen than Metallica) though I can use pedals for distortion if necessary.  There are so many options that I could do with some guidance.

Question 1 : What can I buy for cheap that will get me going?

Question 2 : What's the money-is-no-object option?

Question 3 : What's available in the DIY world that could satisfy the above criteria?

Looking forward to hearing some thoughts and opinions

Cheers!

 

[ln76d]

I would suggest low power jet city for cheap, mod it and have fun.
Only disadvantage is clean channel like also in soldano brand amps.
You can always build new clean channel.

 

[john12ax7]

1) For cheap I always liked the Peavey Classic 30 combo. Takes pedals well too so you can get a variety of distorted tones.

2) Bogner makes good versatile amps, an Ecstasy covers a lot of ground. (For mid priced you could get a Classic 30 with a Bogner pedal).

3) DIY I'm not sure.

 

[Seeker]

I also like the peavey classic amps, (had a 30w still have a 50w) they are good stock, but best when modified in my opinion, somewhat 'fenderized'...  Good clean sound, good bluesy crunch, and like the previous poster said they do take pedals well.  Kinda fits cheap ish and DIY.  A quick google will give some great info if you take that route.  And really a 30watt amp will fit most gigs as well...

 

[kosi]

As small practice amp I really like the Yamaha THR series.
They are "VERY" small and for this size, they sound phenomenal. Headphone out, and you can use it as USB interface.
Comes with built in effects.

 

[Gene Pink]

And really a 30watt amp will fit most gigs as well...

Truer words were never spoken.

But a guitar player with an ego and no sense at all of a proper stage mix, will never buy that over-controlling nonsense.

If any of you ever find yourself in a band with one of these  arsehoals that insist on playing icepick-in-the-ears  loud, only for their own ego, run away, and don't look back. I wasted most of the '80's on one of these types.

Gene

 

[DaveP]

Last year I made this very simple 3 tube amp based on a Vox AC4 for a friend.  It was ideal as a practice amp and driven hard it broke into crunch.  Speaker was a Celestion super 8 , but they are no longer available, but any full range 8" will do the job.


It was much louder than you might think, he uses it for small gigs and it's certainly loud enough to annoy the neighbours and the wife

DaveP

 

[ubxf]

Fender Champ

 

[JohnRoberts]

Take my comments with a grain of salt (or a bucket of salt) because I do not play.

The peavey classic amps are good sounding but afaik mostly clean and louder than you would expect from modest power. It seems a good practice amp would allow you to get different sounds without a lot of volume.

Back in the day the old rockman was used to put efx on guitar for practice even using just headphones.

A probably cheap(?)  practice amp is the old peavey "transtube" series these were solid state amps with passable tube emulation, some models allowed you to introduce tube-like saturation distortion adjustable down to modest loudness levels. Another feature of that series (IIRC) was an adjustable LF and HF damping factor so you could artificially raise the amps output impedance to mimic tube like speaker/cabinet interactions common with tube amps higher source impedance.

or not... like I said I do not play... The classics were very well regarded but perhaps too loud for practice IMO.

JR   

 

[kambo]

for the $$$
Bogner Atma
1-5-18 watt... saving money for it myself

 

[Whoops]

I recommend the Fender Blues Junior:

http://www.thomann.de/gb/fender_blues_junior_iii.htm

 

[rob_gould]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Plenty to chew on there!

Bognor Atma looks like a lovely choice!

Dave - Many thanks for the schematic!

 

[Whoops]

Why don't you build your own?

 

[midwayfair]

30W is insanely loud for a practice amp. There are very few venues where an amp of that size is actually of a useful size without being miced anyway.

The best ways to get all the things on your list are either modelling -- e.g. the Fender Mustang III (which is actually pretty good as modelling goes) or one of the Line 6 things -- or a two-channel amp like the Fender Blues Junior or Engater Tweaker. If you don't want to use a multi-channel amp that's overdriving the preamp tubes, then the only thing really smaller than those is single ended. If you can find a Fender Champion 600 used (they stopped making it), it's really easy to convert to tweed specs and an upgraded speaker from Weber is $50. The Vox AC4 is a really good sounding tiny amp with a couple upgrades. Unfortunately all the off-the-shelf single ended amps really don't sound that great without changes.

I regularly gig with this 5W thing through a 1x12 -- and it's too loud at full tilt for my house (a duplex) and loud enough to keep up with a respectful drummer if I'm not worried about playing clean, it's loud enough for most of the smaller bars I play in, or it just gets miced if we're in a bigger space. I use pedals if I need more distortion. I've used it as the only amp on multiple albums now as well.

But building almost anything will cost more than a used Blues Jr., and anything tube will not do heavier distortion at very low volume levels and still sound good.

I also don't think there *is* a "price is no object" answer to this. Expensive amps tend to be high wattage and fewer channels.

 

[Lagrange]

A friend of mine was just telling me good things about the Blackstar's miniamp "Fly 3". Of course it's a digital amp, but seems like it's extremely portable. It could probably serve as a great travel companion. For a bit longer trips I do usually pack my stratocaster to my suitcase, but until now I've just played either through an audio interface or a mini plug-amp through headphones.

I also own Blackstar's HT-1R, which is a 1 watt tube amp (the 'R' stands for the version with built-in reverb). It's definitely a nice amp to play with in an apartment building. I think the clean tones are ok too, but it is especially useful in playing a bit heavier music. Again, this amp is really small and portable.

 

[beatnik]

Mesa Boogie Caliber

50W too loud ? has a master volume

they sell sooo cheap considering the quality

regarding distortion, forget about pedals imho

 

[L´Andratté]

Hey, diy-wise and as far as preamps go I can really recommend the Runoffgroove designs Azabache, SupreauxDeux, Peppermill and Ginger (the latter bass-oriented but also nice with guitar), probably the others too, but these I built and they are very tasty.