BEST SOLID STATE

DarnWeight

Never tried one myself, but the Koch Jupiters got rave reviews when they first came out a couple of years ago....think they might actually be hybrids though, with a 12AX7 or two in there somewhere.  

ICBM

timmysoft said:

The trace was genuinely brilliant, I had three of them at one point! I always took a spare out because they were so compact and light. None of them ever gave me any issue and they were played through shit cabs in shit venues, loaded in and out of shit cars and leaky vans, stored next to a tumble dryer and treated with very little regard at all! I sold two of them to the same guy, as far as I know he’s still gigging them! Maybe I got lucky! 

Or maybe the head is actually more robust - since it would otherwise still be surprising. To be honest, I don't think I've ever worked on a head, only combos - and lots of those! If the head was designed to drive a lower-impedance load it might be significantly sturdier.

One very major problem with the combos was that they fitted 60W speakers to 80W amps - I actually spoke to the chap at Trace about it and questioned if that was sensible, after they'd sent some replacements which were the same. He said they "were meant to be like that so you got the sound of the speakers being pushed hard". Which is OK up to a point... and with valve amps. With a solid-state amp that gets turned up all the way it's just idiotic . Then the fried speaker would frequently cook the power amp as well. Doh.

Fretwired said:

I had a Supertramp that I gigged ... the solid state amps were OK in my experience. I never had a problem with mine. It was the tube amps that were unreliable.

The all-valve ones were laughably unreliable, yes - a combination of the same sort of "run it too hot" design fallacy and simple poor build quality.

Voxman

HarrySeven said:

Funkfingers said:

If @HarrySeven had a Mastermind specialist subject, it would probably be vintage solid state amplification. He is sure to have an opinion on this topic.

Ideed.

There's only one for me...

I'm with you Harry...completely forgot about this puppy and gigged an HH IC100 many times. Brilliant amp clean, really loud with tons of headroom, good speakers and nice green lighting too. As long as you stay clear of that awful sustain switch!  But its not exactly what you'd call lightweight.

HarrySeven

@Voxman - have a Wiz for that. Love these amps.

BintyTwanger77

JC40. With a Fairfield comp in front of it, the cleans are even better.

LuttiS

I agree Kustom are very underrated, just picked up a 36 Coupe recently. It's currently in hiding, but it will eventually make me a very happy puppy.

I also have a Marshall V265, which sounds excellent. Have quite happily gigged next to valve amps and has easily kept pace. It also weight half of a valve amp of its size and is open back so you can shove your pedal board and beer in the back.

ICBM

LuttiS said:

I also have a Marshall V265, which sounds excellent. Have quite happily gigged next to valve amps and has easily kept pace. It also weight half of a valve amp of its size and is open back so you can shove your pedal board and beer in the back.

There's a great trick with those, which is to turn the chorus on but set the rate and depth at zero - you get an automatic-double-tracking effect, perfect for hard-rock/metal rhythm. If I remember rightly you can get a passable Leslie effect with the rate high and the depth low too.

LuttiS

ICBM said:

LuttiS said:

I also have a Marshall V265, which sounds excellent. Have quite happily gigged next to valve amps and has easily kept pace. It also weight half of a valve amp of its size and is open back so you can shove your pedal board and beer in the back.

There's a great trick with those, which is to turn the chorus on but set the rate and depth at zero - you get an automatic-double-tracking effect, perfect for hard-rock/metal rhythm. If I remember rightly you can get a passable Leslie effect with the rate high and the depth low too.

Never tried that, thanks

ThePrettyDamned

Marshall mosfet lead 100  

Sporky

I still remember the JC120 at the third gig I ever played. Absolutely magnificent.

samzadgan

ive had a bunch, and if your talking about a pedal amp...i would get the most simple designed analog amps...i think on current amps, that would be Quilter, as some others have already mentioned. The Crush Pro is great, but i found that it didnt sound great with my fuzz pedals, but YMMV.

On the other hand you can go vintage and save a bit of money too...specifically thinking early 80's Peavey's like the Special 120w combo, which you can easily convert into a head. Or what I have now, an Acoustic 150...by far the best sounding solid state amp i have played and works perfectly with all pedals.

ICBM

samzadgan said:

Or what I have now, an Acoustic 150...by far the best sounding solid state amp i have played and works perfectly with all pedals.

Acoustic amps use a very unusual design for a solid-state amp, one that went out of common use in the 1970s - a single-rail (positive voltage only) power supply with an enormous coupling cap on the speaker output, rather than a split-rail (positive and negative) supply with the speaker directly coupled, as almost all modern amps have.

Interestingly this is much more similar to how valve amps are designed, although they use an output transformer rather than a cap of course. I've always wondered whether it's simply this similarity which makes Acoustics sound so good, but they really do - for bass too.

The one serious disadvantage is that if that cap ever fails, you can instantly say goodbye to your speakers - I know someone who had this happen with a quite expensive JBL cabinet...

TimmyO

There was a time when this would have become "The Peavey Bandit Thread" - have they been overtaken or not fashionable currently or ? 

ICBM

TimmyO said:

There was a time when this would have become "The Peavey Bandit Thread" - have they been overtaken or not fashionable currently or ? 

They're still great, but firstly the current models aren't quite as good as the older ones, and secondly you can pick up one of the old ones for a hundred quid... the OP's budget is a grand, and even I would have to admit that there are better amps for that much .

TimmyO

Ah yes, missed the (generous) budget aspect. 

ThePrettyDamned

Peavey special 2x12 chorus is pretty good, basically a massive bandit with stereo chorus, more power and more speakers.

But I still say look for a marshall mosfet lead 100 - looks and sounds the part  

Marktigere1

I think the quality of the SuperTramps from Trace Elliot were very hit and miss.

I had the SuperTramp Tube 100w version and it sounded great. 

Was totally reliable for the 12 years I had it and it is still going strong with its new third owner.

Horror stories just do not apply to my version so I must have got lucky.

thomasw88

Quilter.  

Ive had the yamaha thr100 and it was glorious but didnt cut it in a band situation.

Used the orange cr heads and combos at festivals and rehearsal rooms and they arent half bad. But the quilter pro block i have is better clean wise and takes pedals beautifully.  

Had one of the old yamaha G100  which I think was  a 2x12 in the 90's.  used it for 10 years with no problems and always sounded good with my ancient Korg a4 fx processor!!

Blueingreen

Another Quilter guy.  My Micropro HD combo is featherweight (21 lbs), very loud indeed, versatile, sounds as good clean as any other amp I've used, and takes pedals brilliantly.  Only downsides, they're pretty expensive in the UK and so far at least I've been preferring pedals to the amp's own dirt options . 

ICBM

thomasw88 said:

Had one of the old yamaha G100  which I think was  a 2x12 in the 90's.  used it for 10 years with no problems and always sounded good with my ancient Korg a4 fx processor!!

I had one of those a couple of years ago - the speakers were knackered so I put in some Jensen Mod 70s I had, and it sounded very similar to a Fender Twin! So much so that I sold it to someone who had been looking for one. (And being a quarter of the price may have helped...)