Boutique Amp Question

asimmd

Hi guys Wife,bless her says paying £2000+ for my Strat and nearly that much for my Gibson then buying a cheap amp doesn't make sense. So,is this true,do Boutique Amps give Expensive guitars a better sound. And which a one is recommended for clean sounds. Alan

ThePrettyDamned

Sometimes.  

From what I know, *most* (although not all) just take a classic vintage circuit and modify it a wee bit for things like an attenuator and a nicer layout to reduce noise and improve reliability.  This is all very good.

However, if you want a fantastic, and in my opinion, up there with some boutique type amp's clean, there are plenty of more affordable choices that are also reliable, including Mesa, Fender, Blackstar (no, really, they have a lovely clean tone!) and, my personal favourite clean tone ever (Cornell, eat your heart out), the Laney L50H.  I've never owned the Laney (I had an LH50... Such confusion) but the L50H is a beautiful sounding amp that runs 5 EL34's for 50 watts - so that's pretty much as close to class A as guitar amps probably get.  

That said, offerings from JPF, MJW etc are not as expensive as some and offer excellent, home grown build quality.  They'll stand by their products, too.

I've never been super bowled over by boutique amps, but then again, most of the ones I've heard have just been a Marshall or Fender with a minor twist.  Also, I lean towards driven sounds, but my fave clean sounds are from a Fender Twin Reverb Reissue or that Laney (when I first heard it, I couldn't believe my ears, but sadly I'll never afford it). 

I think the main thing to take away is your amp will sound like what it is - it's a bunch of resistors and capacitors and pots and stuff, all soldered in a certain order, and connected to a speaker or two.  Some people prefer a different circuit, others prefer a different speaker.  It's all taste - try them all out! 

asimmd

Thanks for the reply,I must say I am surprised to see Blackstar in the same sentence as Boogie. I was expecting names like Two Rock - EvilRobot - Mesa Boogie etc,and maybe Fender. Close 3rd or Fourth. In a way I am glad you mentioned Blackstar,I have had GAS for one since I first heard them. Thanks Alan

ThePrettyDamned

asimmd said:

Thanks for the reply,I must say I am surprised to see Blackstar in the same sentence as Boogie. I was expecting names like Two Rock - EvilRobot - Mesa Boogie etc,and maybe Fender. Close 3rd or Fourth. In a way I am glad you mentioned Blackstar,I have had GAS for one since I first heard them. Thanks Alan

For me, buying boutique is more about supporting home grown products, rather than a foreign brand. I would buy a UK built amp over a USA built one if it offered me the sound I liked at a price I could afford.  Sadly, no UK boutiquers have any interest in tight, high octane rock tone, instead focussing on everything up to Plexi gain.  Even if they did, I wouldn't be able to afford them (besides, if it ain't broke, why fix it? The Peavey 6505/5150 is the best amp in the world *runs away*).

Blackstar amps sound great - some people (me) love the sound, some people hate it.  But they are well built and well designed - and good looking.  Definitely try the whole range - the HT, Series and Artisan range all sound very different!

Two Rock amps are famous for Dumble clones, and maybe Blackface Fender (which are sterile sounding things in my opinion, but a lot of folks have changed opinion and they're desirable).  If you like that sound, you'll like them.  If you don't, you won't.  The Marshall JTM45 Reissue is a bloody lovely sounding amp, but if you don't like the way it sounds, there is no point in recommending it  

I would take the approach of listing a few artists here - we can suggest the amps and effects they used, and when you've worked out the sound you'd like (and the volume you'd like it), people will suggest off-the-shelf items as well as boutique jobbies.

Basically, follow your ears and use reliability reports on here - find the sound you like, then make sure it won't blow up if you LOVE the sound of a Fender Deluxe Tweed, you're in lucky - pretty much every boutique guy can make you one exactly as it was, but quieter and more reliable than the vintage ones ever were.  But it'll sound basically identical to the original Fender - there is no 'magic tone' from a hand built amp.  

ICBM

Mesa/Boogie are a bit of an odd one in that they are a mass-produced amp, but which is sold (and priced) almost as if it was a 'boutique' amp in the UK. Originally, they were - but they are definitely a mainstream amp in the US now.

Blackstar are well-made - not as good as Mesa (mainly due to the crappy PCB-mounted pots they use, sorry Dave!), but definitely not 'boutique'.

There is no clear definition of 'boutique' though. To me it means something that is built in small numbers in an unnecessarily (though sometimes justifiably) labour-intensive way. So something like a Victoria tweed Champ copy - hand-built to the highest standards, and extremely expensive for something with such limited power and features, but with great tone - is definitely 'boutique', but something like a Fender reissue is not - not even a custom-shop one, since they're still relatively mass-produced even though they use some of the same construction methods. But other people might disagree.

Personally I detest the whole idea of calling something 'boutique' and deciding whether to by it or not on that basis. It's good to know the differences between construction methods and how that affects tone and cost, but I certainly wouldn't buy an amp *just* because it was 'boutique' over one which wasn't.

You need to have some idea of what clean sound you want before anyone could really recommend anything. A Marshall JTM45, a Vox AC30, a Hiwatt DR103, a Fender Twin Reverb, a Mesa Mark series and an Ampeg Reverb-o-Rocket all have great clean sounds, but all very different… and that's even before you start to get into variations and derivatives of them.

It would be useful to know what you need in terms of:

Power (are you only going to play at home, or might you want to jam or gig)

Price (you don't *have* to spend a lot, although you can)

Size (where in the house does it need to live)

Weight (does it need to go upstairs! Or be carried to a car)

Appearance (really )

Not all these questions have obvious answers. For me, the best clean sounds even at very low volumes come from fairly big, heavy amps. Other people don't agree...

Moltisanti

i'm not really a clean amp player, but of all the stuff i've heard i would start at Two Rock and see if anything sounds better, feom what i've heard they are amazing sounding

EricTheWeary

The Guitarist boutique amp edition ( few months ago) might be worth a look as they did some blind testing that was quite interesting.
Anyway, tell me how you get a wife like that...

asimmd

Excellent answers,thank you.Now for some info. Power- Playing at home so low power, say 5/15watt Price - No price in mind,open to suggestion but I'm getting there. It will live under the desk in my music room,spare bedroom. No going out or upstairs,I live in a bungalow. When I was gigging years ago,I had Fender Twin Reverb and Vox AC 30. After the conversation here I am leaning towards a Blackstar,I record everything via DI,so the Blackstar would fit in perfectly,I can't wait to hear my new Gibson ES-339 through a real amp and not through Waves GTR3 Amp Sim. A larger Wattage,up to 25 would be fine as I have an Attenuator which would allow recording,though playing at low volume would be difficult,as running a larger amp at barely minimum volume would not give a realistic tone. All there is to decide now,is which one. Thanks Alan

dindude

I too hate the term boutique, but I see it as meaning small volume, usually hand wired, usually US or UK made amps built to obsessive standards. Do they sound better? Only you can decide. 

I took the plunge on a CARR a year ago and do not regret it one bit, it sounds phenomenal.

I would say this though, it depends what sound you are going for. If you go for a lot of pre-amp gain and compression, then a lot of them are probably not for you. If you go for something lower gain, with high dynamics, then maybe. Just my opinion. 

P.s. I dislike the Blackstar sound, haven't used many but when I have they seem to normalise every guitar plugged into it and make them sound similar, I want an amp that puts the guitars personality centre stage.

ICBM

If you're going to use it mainly for recording via DI and like Blackstar, you should maybe consider a Blackstar ID - I know it's not a valve amp, but for those purposes it's debatable whether that matters. I'd still probably go for the 60 even though you don't need that much power, because it has features that you don't get on the smaller models which (on the one I tried) I think made a big difference to the tone.

If you do want valves you probably want a HT series of some sort, but again the slightly larger models are better than the smaller ones if cost (and to some extent size) is not an issue.

Don't be afraid of running a big amp quietly - for clean tones in particular it can actually sound better than a small amp. Some of the best low-volume sounds I've ever got have been from *really* powerful valve amps such as the Marshall Major and Hiwatt 200, which are genuine 200W amps! At whisper volume they have an effortless depth and space to the tone that you just don't get with smaller amps. Whether that would be really apparent in a DI recording I don't know though.

ThePrettyDamned

I didn't find that at all with Blackstar - I just found the amp has a 'Blackstar' sound.  I'm guessing you won't like a Peavey or EVH 5150 either, as they have a very definite 'stamp' of tone (though not more than, say, a Marshall Plexi or Tweed Bassman).  

As far as wattage goes, don't worry - think about volume (you've said home, so fairly low).  A lot of high power amps have amazing master volume that sound (in my opinion) better than lower power amps.  Some people love the low power sound (typically 5-12 watts), and it does work for a lot of styles, but not all (doesn't suit me).  I would rather hear a 100 watt valve amp with the master at 0.1 than a 5 watt champ with the master at 1 or 2 (both would be home volume).  On the other hand, lots of people would prefer the sound of a smaller amp.  Taste!

So, go to a music shop, and try them out.  Don't look at brands - just tell the people in the shop you want a great sounding clean amp.  Don't give them a budget if they ask for it - tell them you want to hear several and judge for yourself where your budget lies.  You might try a blackstar and instantly hate it.  You might try a Cornell and love it.  You might try a Peavey Bandit and love it, and not a valve in sight (I know I prefer my Bandit over a few valve amps, just because it's closer to the 6505 sound that most valve amps!).  Don't let brand name sway you - it's largely meaningless.  Try them at a few volumes - if it sounds great at low volume, great.  It might not - typically, smaller wattage amps (IMO) need a bit more volume to sound full than a larger amp at whisper quiet volume.  

Try them with a USA strat and Gibson LP so you can have a fair comparison to your own guitars.

And, if your budget allows for boutique, take a road trip to a known, large store.  It'll make it much more worthwhile - forumites can recommend the best places for a range of amps and friendly staff it'll help you an infinite amount more than us lot!

If you want great cleans, a few at a range of prices: Fender Mustang - modelling amp, might be overkill for you

Fender Hot Rod Deluxe - Beautiful sounding, might have a hair trigger volume though

Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue - the amp on Pro Guitar Shop demos.  Nuff said.

Blackstar artisan/series one

Peavey Classic 50

Marshall JTM45 Reissue

Victory amps? These are supposed to be really nice sounding, but new brand could mean reliability issues early on

And any boutique amps they have in stock - Cornell, Victoria etc.  

It sounds excessive, but after trying a couple, even just 2 (say, a fender and a Marshall) you'll have a much better idea of the sound you want.  The shop staff will guide you better from there.

JPF do a wonderful sounding amp that, to my ears, is a bit different to the norm - it's compact, beautiful and sounds wonderful.  It'll likely do home volume, too, and at 30 watts, it's powerful enough to sound big and full.  You won't get drive without more volume or an attenuator though, although he might do some kind of power scaling that'll help a lot.

ToneControl

Boutique is a bit of a wanky word, it's true, as ICBM implies, all he says is correct, you also need to state what guitar, pickup you use and who you like the sound of

Anyway "mostly" is the answer. The best amps are not the cheapest amps, but as with guitars, you can pay top dollar for shite if you are careless or wreckless

The same as with guitars, if you spend extra and shop around properly, you get better amps that feel better and sound better

Most of them are handwired, which would be an arcane concept except for the fact we are talking valve amps, which WILL need surgery during their very long life, PCBs are very hard to maintain, and PCBs are much more susceptible to heat damage. Also lead dressing is more effective when using separate wires

I have pretty much reached the end of several years in which I bought lots of amps, and tried them out at length in my own time, rather than during 10 minutes in a shop, and my conclusion is, rather unsurprisingly really, that the best sounding ones are the hand built amps that all the pros have been using for ever, and that appear in the top 20 all time list of amp designs. In my case this means DC30, Dumble HRM clones, JTM45 & Tweedy clones and an old Blonde Fender. I also buy UK-made boutique designs, but obviously there is less in the way of reviews to assist in these decisions

I know lots of people who run £2k or £3k guitars into cheap amps. I've tried it too, and it doesn't work for me at all.

It's supply and demand, the best designed and built in-demand amps cost more, same as the best guitars. If I asked you to put cheap pickups in all your guitars you would object. Avoiding the best amps is the same kind of thing. 

btw I tried all the Blackstars I could, including the Artisans, and the best were only quite good, i.e. a score of 7/10. If you are spending £2k on guitars, you want 9/10

When paying  £1k or more I want more than that - I want 9/10 amps. None of the Blackstars do cleans like a Twin or Dumble HRM AFAIK, have they issued a new more fender-like amp?

The cleanest amps you will get are Dumble SSS clones, Dumble HRM clones, or Hiwatt, run into an EVM12 speaker. Many people will play a Marshall-type clean into Vintage 30s, Greenbacks, etc, and tell you it's a great clean sound. It might sound nice but is cannot be clean, all guitar speakers add loads of distortion, the EVM12 does not, and Marshall-type amps run quiet are not clean anyway

I don't like the ultra clean amps with my gibson humbuckers, the DC30 is the only amp I have that seems good with SCs and HBs, other than MJWs Roadstar 36

so, where are you planning to play, what with, and who do you want to sound like?

dindude

ThePrettyDamned said:

I didn't find that at all with Blackstar - I just found the amp has a 'Blackstar' sound.  I'm guessing you won't like a Peavey or EVH 5150 either, as they have a very definite 'stamp' of tone (though not more than, say, a Marshall Plexi or Tweed Bassman).  

stamp of tone, or character, is exactly what I want in an amp too, and a tweed or plexi will absolutely let a Strat sound like a Strat and a les paul sound like a les paul. To be fair to Blackstar, I have a similar issue with most two channel amps, clean as a whistle on channel one, cascading gain that overtakes the sound on channel two.

I guess I'm just happier with single channel "dirty" clean and pedals.

ThePrettyDamned

dindude said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

I didn't find that at all with Blackstar - I just found the amp has a 'Blackstar' sound.  I'm guessing you won't like a Peavey or EVH 5150 either, as they have a very definite 'stamp' of tone (though not more than, say, a Marshall Plexi or Tweed Bassman).  

stamp of tone, or character, is exactly what I want in an amp too, and a tweed or plexi will absolutely let a Strat sound like a Strat and a les paul sound like a les paul. To be fair to Blackstar, I have a similar issue with most two channel amps, clean as a whistle on channel one, cascading gain that overtakes the sound on channel two.

I guess I'm just happier with single channel "dirty" clean and pedals.

Can't argue with that at all! Just goes to show how very important it is to try them all.

@tonecontrol makes a lot of good points, especially regarding the servicing of the amps.  But tone is tone - and taste is taste.  A tweedy style amp might sound awful to you.  It's important to find the tone and sound you love.  For me, ultimate clean tone was, hands down, that Laney L50H.  Honestly, Two Rock lose to that to my ears.  Some would disagree, though, and they're not wrong nor right.

57Deluxe

...if you have Tinitus then all of this spiel is redundant of course...

asimmd

How do you get a wife like that. Well,we just had our 25th wedding Anniversary,so I guess we did something right. I did read the Guitarist Boutique reviews,more than once,and the Morgan AC20 would be the one I would try first. I was brought up playing Country stuff in the 60's and 70's as well as covers of chart stuff at the time. The Shadows were the reason I learnt to play,and I have played a lot of their stuff when I was gigging. I still like to play instrumentals,not so much Shads though,and I am going to be learning Eagles stuff. I had forgotten about Laney,I had a VC30, excellent amp,also a Cornford Harlequin,that did nice clean tones. I am not chasing the early Shads sound,never have,maybe the answer lies not in a boutique but one of those forgotten gems I used to have. Alan

crunchman

One thing that hasn't been mentioned about "boutique" amps is that they probably won't use the standard, off the shelf components that the major manufacturers use in mass produced amps.

In some cases, they will go for the "mojo" that old style carbon composite resistors will supposedly give you.  Whether these are better is a matter for (heated) debate in some quarters.  Whether they go for vintage style components, or high end modern ones, the odds are that the components in a "boutique" amp cost more than the ones that go into a mass market amp.  The makers will tell you that the better components will give better tone.

One advantage of the old syle hand-wiring is that it might be easier to maintain than a PCB amp further down the line, although some of the boutique guys use PCBs as well.

I'd recommend trying out a Lazy J 20 if you can.  I know it's based on a Tweed circuit, but it has an amazing clean sound at lower volumes, and if you do turn it up it is great fun.

ToneControl

OP:

how clean do you mean?

Robert Cray? or something less crispy?

bobblehat

asimmd said:

I had forgotten about Laney,I had a VC30, excellent amp,also a Cornford Harlequin,that did nice clean tones. I am not chasing the early Shads sound,never have,maybe the answer lies not in a boutique but one of those forgotten gems I used to have. Alan

I use a VC30 and the cleans are stunning.May be a good starting point and you would then have something to compare everything else to.

asimmd

ToneControl

If you read my post just above i think i have explained it quite well.

Not familiar with Robert Cray,but cleans like Knopfler maybe.

Alan

ToneControl

asimmd said:

ToneControl

If you read my post just above i think i have explained it quite well.

Not familiar with Robert Cray,but cleans like Knopfler maybe.

Alan

I'd recommend trying a DC30, a Tweed Twin, a JTM45 clone, a clean-Dumble clone, e.g. Two Rock Studio Pro 50. Fuchs, Ceriatone HRM, and some good blackface/brownface Fenders, like a bias-tremolo Tremolux, into jensens