Best modelling amp for bedroom

AndrewM

I've got the king of all digital amps (in my opinion of course) in the Kemper in my dining room.

I want something for upstairs in my spare room. Mainly I like to play clean or slightly pushed but I do like to riff out with something like a dual rectifier or bogner uberschall type sound.

Is the Boss Katana (50 or 100) the best or are any of the other options worth looking at too?

mr-mac

Leftfield

Gsp1101 and any old amp, powered monitor, powered pa speaker, headphones, whatever you have to hand.  If an amp one with pre out power in amp works better.

some great heavy tones with tripple rec or 5150, some lovely crunch in Marshall, brown tone, fender, matchless and others, some cracking cleans too.

Jalapeno

Yamaha THR5

JohnCordy

Like you I have a Kemper, but also I have a Vox Adio which I like for the living room/ if I go away somewhere....

I think the Vox Top Boost model in particular is really great, plus the flat setting is nice for jazz...

Here's a little demo of some stuff

hywelg

First world problem . Move the f***ing Kemper....

darthed1981

Katana 50 if you want something big, Vox Adio if you want something small, Blackstar ID Core if you want something cheap (which you probably won't if you have bought a kemper).

I actually fired up my ID Core for a noodle this weekend, was surprised how nice it still sounded for a low-volume noodle.

Alnico

I bought back my Katana 50 and recently fallen back in love with it again.

Can't rate the Katana range highly enough really and value for money is off the scale.

So much so that I'm seriously considering dropping plans to re-acquire another Blackstar Series 1 in favour of a Katana 100 head.

The 50w Katana is (to me) the modern day equivalent of a Peavey Bandit.

Cheap, easy to get and gives instant access to great sounds.

They're currently between £100 and £120 used, which is just insane for what you get.

The 0.5w setting is perfect for home and leaves the volume controls lots of range to work with, without getting all 'Hair-trigger' about it.

Tone studio is so easy, my 9-year-old niece can use it no problem and it really opens up what even the 50w Katana can do.

Properly hooked on these amps now and later this year I'm going to try a speaker upgrade to see if I can improve the 50w even further.

AndrewM

hywelg said:

First world problem . Move the f***ing Kemper....

Move it up and down stairs every day or so?

darrenp

+1 for the Katana. I have Katana 100 1x12 and it's outstanding, particularly for the cost. Not difficult to get good useable sounds and possible to get some great sounds with a bit of fiddling. I use it at home and have also rehearsed and gigged with it on occasion.

guitargeek62

Alnico said:

They're currently between £100 and £120 used, which is just insane for what you get.

Properly hooked on these amps now and later this year I'm going to try a speaker upgrade to see if I can improve the 50w even further.

Agreed - the Katana's are incredible VFM, and to me they were easily the best sounding of all of the sub-£500 amps in that market*.

I would say it's worth spending the extra ~£50 when possible on a KTN100 combo, as you get a better speaker, and the extra channels, fx loop, etc too.

*The Vox Adio is surprisingly good, but is let down by the lack of a footswitch for me, otherwise I'd have been very happy with one of those too I'm sure - oddly enough, I didn't like their combos with the same modeling tech!

JMP220478

ipad / pc / mac - and any one of a number of apps ... 

rossyamaha

THR all the way for me. Never played at home till I got this. Gonna pick up a relay g10 as well for ultra quick practice. 

Alnico

guitargeek62 said:

Alnico said:

They're currently between £100 and £120 used, which is just insane for what you get.

Properly hooked on these amps now and later this year I'm going to try a speaker upgrade to see if I can improve the 50w even further.

Agreed - the Katana's are incredible VFM, and to me they were easily the best sounding of all of the sub-£500 amps in that market*.

I would say it's worth spending the extra ~£50 when possible on a KTN100 combo, as you get a better speaker, and the extra channels, fx loop, etc too.

*The Vox Adio is surprisingly good, but is let down by the lack of a footswitch for me, otherwise I'd have been very happy with one of those too I'm sure - oddly enough, I didn't like their combos with the same modeling tech!

I agree.

That's why I'm looking at a 100w Katana now but that said, it's *very* difficult to think of selling the 50w again now.

The 50w is more basic but it's so good for what it is and £100 is FA. Keeping the 50w just seems to make so much more sense and it's always going to be a backup which is 98% the same as the main amp will be.

At home, the 50w on the 0.5w setting is perfect (Even though it never gets off the 0.5w setting) and I honestly think it can be improved at louder volumes.

I want a tech to look at this and see if a speaker extension socket can be fitted. I reckon through a 4x12 this will sound immense.

I also want to try baffling the back of the amp and make it half or even fully closed back. Again I reckon there's more to be had from this amp in this way.

Lastly, I'll look at the speaker itself and try to find some improvement there.

I reckon I've found "My amp" and definitely found my sound with the Katana, it's just a case of landing on the right format for my main amp now.

I LOVE the Katana Artist 100...

In honesty, I think that's the one I'll end up with as my main amp and they're currently £480 at Andertons which isn't exactly eye-watering money.

My 50w, however, remains the best 'Small' amp I ever had and to me, it's the modern equivalent of what the Peavey Bandit was back in the 80s.

Cheap new, even better VFM used and plenty of them about.

They're so popular right now you could buy a used one, decide it's not for you a month later and probably get all your money back selling it on, plus they sell quickly at the moment.

Beginners don't even know they're born these days

Boss have nailed this.

Even bought brand new, the entire Katana range is amazing value for money.

AndrewM

What's that line 6 one with a built in g10 wireless?

Jalapeno

Yes but, .... 50w/100w is hardly a bedroom modelling amp, that's a gigging amp !

AndrewM

Yeah but you can turn them down to 0.5/1w

octatonic

Katana 50W is what I bought as a temporary amp here in Singapore until my other amps turn up.
It is a fantastic product- excellent at bedroom levels and you could gig it too.

munckee

rossyamaha said:

THR all the way for me. Never played at home till I got this. Gonna pick up a relay g10 as well for ultra quick practice. 

Yup THR5 £155 gets terrific sound at home volume, takes up no space and looks good enough its allowed out in my lounge.  For nighttime early morning playing when kids/family in bed I cannot fathom how an amp could be any better.  If I can make more noise during the day I play my princeton.

markj

JohnCordy said:

Like you I have a Kemper, but also I have a Vox Adio which I like for the living room/ if I go away somewhere....

I think the Vox Top Boost model in particular is really great, plus the flat setting is nice for jazz...

Here's a little demo of some stuff

I bought a Vox adio just over a week ago. It really is superb, kills the Yamaha Thr I had completely.

PolarityMan

hywelg said:

First world problem . Move the f***ing Kemper....

You know how some people these days do runs of cat5 or cat 6 all round the house.......

Sparky

Another +1 for the Katana 50. Mine hardly ever gets off 0.5W mode either.