Laney LG20R

ecc83

Son has been offered one in France for 550 euros second hand! Andertons want £119 NEW!

It only has an 8" speaker and AFAIK there are very few good for guitar? Your thoughts chaps. His main interest is jazz a la Jango.

Dave.

ICBM

To be honest I've never been very impressed with Laney. I know that won't make me popular. To me they're a just-get-by type of brand, nothing is really made properly, they'll never use a better part when a cheaper one will do, and although the failure rate isn't huge, they're usually a pain to work on.

Some of them do sound good, but in my opinion still not *that* good either. I just don't get the rave reviews about them. Even the Lionheart series, which I think is their best-sounding, just isn't that well-made really.

I'm sure a lot of people will disagree, this is just my opinion and experience with them.

ecc83

Good enough for me IC. I shall warn him off.

Dave.

ICBM

There's certainly no way I would even entertain paying €550 for one! That's completely crazy. £119 is fair enough if you actually like it… although I agree with you that the 8" speaker is a major limitation.

To be honest if he wants to play old-school jazz and does want a valve amp, something like an Epiphone Valve Junior head and a 10" or 12" cabinet would be a much better bet. I'm not a huge fan of them either (and the Mk1 version sounded dreadful, because it had a mistake in the circuit) but they aren't bad if you're using them clean through a good speaker.

And if he's thinking about a Laney at all, try a Cub10… much better than the LG20.

ThePrettyDamned

Point him to the lh50. 

Probably not the best built amp in the world, but a more portable head, lots of volume but controllable, great warm cleans. 

@ICBM will hate me for recommending mine was reliable and great sounding, available quite affordable here - not sure in mainland.