Favourite amps - past and present.

JCA2550

Past

Blackstar HT-60
THD Univalve
Cornford Roadhouse 30
Marshall JCM600 (I had both the combo and head version)
Marshall JCM 2554 1 x 12 Silver Jubilee combo

http://s335.photobucket.com/user/JCA2550/media/23101137.jpg.html
http://s335.photobucket.com/user/JCA2550/media/THD May 2011/UniValve020511002.jpg.html
http://s335.photobucket.com/user/JCA2550/media/Roadhouse 30H/Roadhouse30H001.jpg.html
http://s335.photobucket.com/user/JCA2550/media/JCM 600 Stack/JCM600Head.jpg.html
http://s335.photobucket.com/user/JCA2550/media/Marshall2554packshot.jpg.html

Present

Martamp (MJW) V6-20
MJW Roadstar 36

http://s335.photobucket.com/user/JCA2550/media/Pedals etc 27 08 11/14Pedals270811.jpg.html
http://s335.photobucket.com/user/JCA2550/media/Nanonano002_zps50897edd.jpg.html

Cruz

Probably fargen's mini plex. Love it.

John_P

JCA2550 said:

John_P said:

I've owned this since I bought it new in 1987?    It really a 1x12 combo in disguise courtesy of roadkill cabs.
It still doesn't get gigged like I had planned when I converted as the fender twin is still doing it's job but I'll never part with it.

I wish I'd done this to my old JCM 2554 combo, instead I flogged it to a guy in Russia
(

I'm not sure I could sell it - the first proper amp I owned and I know I'd never justify buying another one if I decided I needed one again.  I had planned to make a headshell for ages - perfect solution to making it practical for gigs

DrBob

Favourite amps from the past ?

A Silverface Twin Reverb (actually only my second ever amp !)

Bought cheap from my old guitar teacher, sounded good on it's own. Sounded frankly epic when run in tandem with;

Marshall 2558 2x12 combo. I'm told it was basically the same as a Silver Jubilee but Black (don't know) but yeah, running the Twin on clean ish with the Marshall cooking was a frankly epic sound !

After that a Marshall JMP1 preamp into an ART Multiverb Alpha into a Marshall 9005 50 w per side stereo pwr amp.

Not great toanz in the classic sense but I was a bit fixated on Vernon Reid at the time, nuff said.

After that?

Rivera Clubster 45. Lovely thing

Currently :

Rivera Chubster 40
Budda SD 30.

The grown up in me that has learned that there's more to tone than just winding the gain up loves the Rivera.
The snotty teenager in me is given full rein on the Budda !

I'm a lucky man

Van_Hayden

I should create a list....

Favourites of the past were a Musicman RD50, a lot of Matamps (R28, 1224, S2000 to name a few), JCM800 2204 that did the original BKP demos, I quite liked my Laney GH100l when it worked, same with the Mesa Dual rec but that worked even less often! I've got a soft spot for the little Blues Junior for low volume clean. But I've had 5 and they've all gone noisy, eaten valves, transformers, you name it.

Currently still got the very first prototype Matamp C7 that I worked on with Dave Green, a really nice Marble Club Reverb from the Netherlands, a Super Reverb, a Marshall JMP 50 2204, and an AxeFX 2 rig. Marble is my favourite straight ahead plug and play take anywhere amp. I suspect my favourite next amp will be the Matamp triple when I get a couple of weeks to finish it....

Deijavoo

My Dual Rec was very reliable for me. Survived quite a few tours in varyingly good and shit conditions and never made a single pop. 

It didn't like the cold temperatures though, just sound seemed very thin sounding in freezing venues/outdoors. 

Van_Hayden

I think the main problem with boogies is how they've been looked after. Often they've been 'mended' by techs who know better than the designers.... Mine had issues with valve socket pins, and it kept eating screen resistors!

I am an amp killer - part of the reason why Matamp asked me to test for them about 12 years ago now!

Deadman

Fender Twin was my favourite, not much use in the house though. My current fave is my Fender Mustang 2. Horses for courses.

Kebabkid

I had an early ADA-MP1 preamp, supposedly the better-sounding ones, and as part of a stereo rack system at the time, that served me well with great sounds and MIDI versatility-a Marshall JMP1 later on failed to do it for me although always fancied a MB Triaxis.

I also have a fondness for my old Session amp which marked the beginning of small, loud SS amps-great cleans with a compressor for funk.

The Mesa Boogie Express 5:50 2x12 I had up until last year was also a fine amp but my current H&K Tubemeister 36 trumps it in the cleans, which is more important to me as my OD pedals can provide the rest.

My fave amp was my friend's 1966 Fender Vibrolux which was literally an amp you could just plug into or add an overdrive and delay for some added versatility and frosting. That sold for a pretty sum and I wish I had the dosh to buy it. The closest thing I've found to it is a Carr Sportsman owned by @Dindude and played through at SE Gearfest athough I'm happy with most Fenders (Deluxe Reverbs, Super Reverbs, Twins and Pro Reverbs) and have used these as hired back line.

I'm sure my next amp will just a single channel 30-50

Van_Hayden

I forgot about my rack years - still got an MP1, had a JMP1 and a Soldano preamp. Great at the time!! I remember the rack being so heavy I couldn't lift it with a 9200 power amp in it.

Forgot about the Sessions - really like the Rockette, great low power jazz amp. Especially when you get them for about £70-100

ICBM

Deadman said:

Fender Twin was my favourite, not much use in the house though. My current fave is my Fender Mustang 2. Horses for courses.

I love the Fender Twin in the house. And I do mean at low volume, not that I play loud in the house! It just has an effortless depth and spread of sound that smaller amps don't, even at a whisper.

Van_Hayden

ICBM;10785" said:

I love the Fender Twin in the house. And I do mean at low volume, not that I play loud in the house! It just has an effortless depth and spread of sound that smaller amps don't, even at a whisper.

It's amazing how many people don't get that point - a big amp barely on tickover can sound fantastic, I'd you're after big clean sounds. I like my Super Reverb for that. I had a Custom Shop Fender tweed deluxe in for a blown transformer, even with a new top spec mercury magnetics lump of iron it didn't sound nearly as deep or 3d as the super.

Kebabkid

dindude said:

Just this.....with pedals on top. Can't remember what amp gas felt like.

IMHO Dan, you need look no further with this beauty! A Prince amongst amps and the recent rehousing from head to combo looks sweet!

Deadman

ICBM;10785" said:

Deadman said:

Fender Twin was my favourite, not much use in the house though. My current fave is my Fender Mustang 2. Horses for courses.










I love the Fender Twin in the house. And I do mean at low volume, not that I play loud in the house! It just has an effortless depth and spread of sound that smaller amps don't, even at a whisper.

Don't get me wrong. I loved it at low volume. Some of my best times with it were had in the lounge! Its the best sound I've ever heard being a fender man anyway. It just felt a waste to me when I wasn't playing in a band. Having said that, I do wish I still had it and I don't play in a band now.....

ICBM

Nothing is a waste if it gives you the sound you want, you can afford to buy it and you can fit it in your house . And your wife/girlfriend doesn't give you 'the look' for it .

Go and buy yourself another Twin .

Deadman

Shit, stop it! You'll get me divorced!

ols

The best sounding amp I have played through was a Marshall jcm800 2205. A friend of mine at the time offered to sell me the head and matching cab for 400 quid as a job lot about 3 years ago. He played a bunch of thin sounding bc rich guitars and could not get a good sound out of it. He also owned a couple of les Paul's and an lp custom which he had never played through the jcm with. I stupidly suggested he kept it for another week, after which every single other amp he owned was up for sale. 2 years later he stopped speaking to me. I still don't know why, but I do know that I regret doing the friendly thing and just taking a jcm800 full stack for 400 quid.

Toe_Knee

Deijavoo said:

Not yet Si, very soon though.

c'mon you've been telling me that since you got it

Deijavoo

Toe_Knee;12177" said:

Deijavoo said:

Not yet Si, very soon though.





c'mon you've been telling me that since you got it

You got a clip, no video though....  ha ha 

Grumpyrocker

I've owned plenty of uninteresting amps. This is partly because I went a long time between uni and a decade and a half later not playing live and mostly recording via a computer. It is only in recent times - perhaps with the MR forum and others to blame - that I've bought and sold so much gear.

My first amp when I was 17 was really my Phillips boombox, a friend had showed me how you could get a cable from Tandy that would go from my guitar to the line-in connections of the stereo. If you turned it up loud it distorted too. Though my family weren't too impressed with that as I stumbled through Whole Lotta Love.

Within a year I had a small Squier solid state combo. It had two volume settings - off and too loud. But I then bought a bigger amp from a mate of mine who'd gigged it around his six form. It was a Hohner Marlin 50C. It was a solid state combo with two channels (or at least a clean and drive setting), chorus and reverb. I knew nothing about hear back then so I never did use the effects loop - wasn't sure what it did - though it would have been very handy at the time. And never realised I could have bought a very cheap footswitch to help me switch between clean and dirt - I used to run back to the amp and press a little button, same for the chorus and reverb. But I still have very fond memories of the amp.

It was the amp I was stood on playing Purple's Black Night at full volume in our halls of residence one night for a singalone when the porter gave me a bollocking. It was an extra seat in my uni room. It also occasionally served as a table for my kettle and coffee stuff. I used it a lot live at uni - including quite regularly at the Christian Union (don't ask - I'm trying to forget them) where teaming up with a noisy drummer of like mind we completely Van Halened it all up contrary to the leadership's wishes (the girls loved it though!). It's the amp that I used my forgotten school electronics skills on to replace knackered pots. And sadly it's the amp that was falling apart when I threw it away when I was in my early thirties and moving down to that London to move in with my fabulous new girlfriend (now dear departed late-wife).

So not a classic amp in any terms. But I remember it doing the job, back then I was more interested in playing and impressing girls than "tone". I don't think I ever even thought about "tone" back then. My guitar gear amounted to an Epiphone 435i superstrat, Korg G3, Jim Dunlop Wah and the Marlin 50C. And that was all the gear I had for a decade. And it did the job.