Amp reviews...

Drew_TNBD

Just doing this for my own reference really, and boredom... mostly from memory...

VOX Pathfinder 15 - nice little practice amp if you just want a loud signal. The tone isn't much to write about though, but the tremolo is quite nice.

VOX Valvetronix 30 - lots of options, but no stellar ones. Best avoided if you're after a modeller I'd say.

Hiwatt G40R 1x12 combo - this was pants. Had a high gain tone that sounded impressive to a 19 year old just starting out. But it really was crap.

Carlsbro 1960's PA valve head - Bought this when I was ultra cheap (read: poor student). It's quite a nice clean tone, and very loud. With the right pedals in front of it, it could be killer. If you're into pedal distortion... which I'm not.

Mesa Boogie Rectoverb combo - Bees.

Laney VH100r - Lovely. Everyone should own one. The side handles are the best invention ever. Kinda noisy, and the per-channel parallel effects loops are pretty useless in my opinion. Everything should be series. Two channels with a boost on each. Surprisingly, the EQ positioning works really well with the boosts, so it does feel like 4 channels.

Blackstar HT-5 - nice little practice amp. Sounds a bit crap at loud volumes though.

Fryette Sig X - lovely high gain and mid gain tones. Cleans can be a little ice-picky through Neo speakers, which is what I was using at the time.

Orange Rockerverb 100 MKI - Probably the nicest cleans in a valve amp in my opinion, and the built in reverb shits over stuff like the Axe FX and Eventide boxes. I really do think that! High gain tones are mushy and fizzy and don't sound very nice... at least not for me. Jimmy Root likes it though!

Orange Dual Terror - Not enough headroom. High gain tones are a bit meh, and clean tones are elusive.

Marshall JVM410HJS - Very nice clean and crunch tones. High gain tones are too loose though, which is why I sold it.

EVH 5150III 50watt - Very nice clean tones, but channel 2 is always louder than channel 1, which makes the claims of it being a 3 channel amp a load of tosh. It's a 2 channel amp essentially; clean and high gain, or crunch and high gain. All three channels sound very nice though, which makes me want to get the 100watter. 50-watter sounds great at bedroom levels though.

Laney Ironheart 120 - People have said the cleans aren't all that, but I really like Laney clean tones. It's nice, quite Fendery. The built in reverb is miles better than the VH100r. Three channels. Footswitching is a little odd, but you get used to it. Feels weird to have to run the tone knob so high, but it sounds really nice. There is something kind of missing with the tone, and I don't know if it's because the amp has an issue or not. I seem to have to run the gain a lot higher than everyone else does; regardless of guitar. Doesn't sound amazing at bedroom levels, needs to be cranked.

ddlooping

Thanks for sharing, it could be useful.

Wazmeister

Drew, great reviews...

Your overall favourite ?

ICBM

Mesa Trem-o-verb - sounds the best.
Best clean, best crunch, best vintage-style high gain, best modern high gain, best reverb.
Valve or solid state rectifier, 6L6 or EL34, built-in Variac, channel cloning, great MV, small enough to fit on any stage, loud enough to play any stage.
Downsides - the FX loop can be a bit tricky to set right, the tremolo is OK rather than great, and it weighs as much as a small planet.
Upside - keeps you fit. So good I bought another one just to be sure.

Peavey Studio Pro 110 - several people thought this was a valve amp :P.

guitarfishbay

I'm only going to review what I currently own.

Mesa Dual Rectifier Roadster head:

Probably the best amp I've ever played.  4 channels - 2 cleans (3 modes per channel, two cloned on each), two ODs (3 modes per channel, cloned except for presence pot value).  Gain, Bass/Mid/Treble/Presence and Volume independent per channel.  Valve/SS rectification, 50/100 watts, reverb level, and default FX pedal setting can all be set individually per channel.  The amp has a variac setting, footswitchable dual Master Volume, and can run EL34s or 6L6s.

It is also probably the most picky amp I've ever played with regards to speaker cabs.  Through my Mesa Rectifier 2x12 or 4x12 it really can do just about any tone I can think of and enjoy from clean to metal - including soft and warm mid gain sounds (something I've failed to reproduce in other high gain heads).  Through pretty much any other cab you'll probably pull your hair out trying to get CH4 Modern to sound right for metal high gain, or such was my experience!  For the sake of disclosure my test list of 'didn't work for me' cabs were - Orange PPC412, EVH412, Marshall 1960B, Blackstar S1412B, Zilla Super Fatboy V30 2x12.  Through either a Stiletto sized or Rectifier sized Mesa 4x12 this amp is a beast, it also sounds great through a Rectifier 2x12 too.

Caveat for Drew - if you have Reverb enabled there is reverb lag between channels, probably about a second (never timed it). If you have the FX loop in the circuit there is lag switching between channels unless you have reverb on.  Ergo, to get seamless switching you need to have reverb on - but since you can set it to zero per channel it can be dealt with if you want to switch to a dry channel.  This would mean you would need an external FX pedal for reverb if you wanted to add it to a channel that normally would have reverb off.  To avoid pops when switching I just press a few buttons on the footswitch while the amp is in standby and I have zero pop issues.  If I don't press a few switches in standby sometimes I get pops, sometimes I don't.

Laney Ironheart IRT120h head:

To me this amp punches well above its weight.  The clean is decent, but it only does a clean clean - in fairness that is what most rock/metal players want anyway.  The rhythm and crunch channels sound different but can be EQ'd fairly close if you really want them to be.  I like this as sometimes I just want one main rhythm sound and then a lead sound that is fairly similar but with a higher volume, but also with slight gain and EQ tweaks.  This amp is pretty tight doesn't really sound complex or get saggy - but that is probably its best attribute.  It seems to sit right where a 'cutting' rock/metal rhythm/lead guitar needs to be in a band mix through a V30/Greenback cab.  Plenty of clarity, mine has plenty of gain.  I find it really easy to dial in quickly.

It also seems to not be very picky at all with cabs, within my test list.  Which for the sake of disclosure has been - Mesa Rectifier 2x12, 4x12 OS (Recto) and Traditional (Stiletto), Orange PPC412, Marshall 1960 A and B, EVH412, Blackstar Series One 412B, Zilla Super Fat Boy (V30), Laney TT412 (Seventy80 & V30 X pattern) and Harley Benton G212 Vintage.

The switching is really not an issue in terms of performance.  Rhythm/Clean is a mode switch, it switches whether your rhythm channel is clean or distorted.  Lead button takes the amp to the lead channel regardless of where Rhythm/Clean is.  You can change the mode of Rhythm/Clean while in Lead mode and the channel will not change until you disengage Lead.  This allows you to line up changes.

Roland MIcrocube

I have two of these.  Best mobile practice amp ever, don't care what anyone else says!  If you can find another amp that is this small and light, has this many sounds in it, can survive being chucked in car boots with no protective cover, and can run on batteries for around 20 hours at a lower price I will sell both my Microcubes and buy two of them instead.  Even the strap design is genius - they used guitar strap buttons.  So I replaced my smaller Roland straps with cheap guitar straps and dunlop lok straps - this way I can sling it over my shoulder when moving gear from A to B.

Drew_TNBD

It's cool that people are adding! Everyone, please do!

Wazmeister;108053" said:

Drew, great reviews...



Your overall favourite ?

Out of this list, the Fryette Sig X followed by the EVH5150III 50watter. I basically like high-gain American tones, mid-gain Britishy tones, and very clean clean tones. 

digitalscream

@Drew, you forgot the Jet City

Let's see...

Jet City JCA50H - Great high-gain tones. Cleans are a bit meh, and if you have high-output pickups you can basically forget crystal cleans. Has a great party trick in that the crunch channel on full gain cleans up to a nice bluesy clean when you roll off the volume, as long as the resulting output volume drop fits with what you do. Sounds amazing with KT66s (can't do EL34s). Beware the effects loop, which is both before the tone stack and line level.

Jet City JCA22H - Very Marshall-esque. Has more gain on tap than the JCA50H/JCA100H, apparently due to the positioning of the effects loop (after the master volume on this one) - according to @ICBM. Not really enough headroom to get clean tones on its own at a mid-sized gig.

Randall NB King 112 combo - Don't. Sounds absolutely nothing like the 100W Nuno head. Cleans are pretty good, but the crunch and lead channels are shocking and scratchy. The EQ is also practically ineffective on the crunch and lead channels, meaning that there's no reasonable way to get a full-sounding drive...while the clean channel is the exact opposite and you have to run it with the bass on almost zero to get usable tones.

Marshall Haze 15W head - worse than the NB King 112. I simply couldn't figure out what this amp was for, because I could get a single usable tone out of it. I guess the reverb was OK, but that was irrelevant since I never use it.

Drew_TNBD

Oh yeah!

JCA100H - Great high gain tones, but if you set the normal channel to a clean tone, you get some cross channel bleed. It's a bit annoying. I found it best to keep the presence low.

ecc83

ICBM said:

Mesa Trem-o-verb - sounds the best. Best clean, best crunch, best vintage-style high gain, best modern high gain, best reverb. Valve or solid state rectifier, 6L6 or EL34, built-in Variac, channel cloning, great MV, small enough to fit on any stage, loud enough to play any stage. Downsides - the FX loop can be a bit tricky to set right, the tremolo is OK rather than great, and it weighs as much as a small planet. Upside - keeps you fit. So good I bought another one just to be sure.

Peavey Studio Pro 110 - several people thought this was a valve amp :P.

So, you quite like them then? 

Is the FX loop not amenable to modding?

Dave.

ICBM

ecc83 said:

Is the FX loop not amenable to modding?

Easily, if you want - although I haven't found it necessary with the effects I'm using now. It's a rather crude parallel loop with a send level and a mix control, both are passive and unbuffered. It just doesn't play well with some digital effects because the mix control won't go to 100% wet, or with things like the Fender valve reverb unit because the impedances are wrong and the direct path isn't buffered either so too much dry signal gets through. All you need to do to fix it is remove one wire, to convert it to series.

guitarfishbay

I really would love to try a Trem-o-verb.  But functionally it won't top what I get from my Roadster which already has a series loop that can be hard bypassed by a switch if necessary.  A lot of people do seem to feel it has something 'special' compared to the sound of other Dual Rectifiers though, which is always intriguing!  I just don't want another combo, and the heads seem to be increasingly rare and I don't think I need two DRs (read I can't afford two DRs  ) ).

ICBM

Nor me, really. I'm thinking of selling the second one - I only bought it to help out a friend and because it worked out cheap, and now the hilarity of owning two stupidly heavy identical 100W combos when I'm not even in a gigging band now has worn off a bit, I can't really justify keeping them both.

Flanging_Fred

Marshall JCM800 4010 combo
Simple single channel 50w EL34 valve amp. EQ knobs don't do a lot. Plug into the high input and turn up the master volume so it is audible and you are already on the edge of it being too loud to use at home. Ive never played it with the master volume above 3.5. Loud!

Wonderful classic crunch tone to it and I don't feel the need for any reverb or delay. I find most amps too dry without any reverb at all but this is fine. I could spend all day cranking out simple Malcolm Young rhythms on it. Makes you grin :oD

The low input is MUCH quieter and gives a pretty nice base clean tone. Good for working with pedals but doesn't always take to them. Loves a Marshall Guvnor or a Cochrane Tim. Didn't like my POG2 much though.

Heavy for its size.

Simple. Classic. RAWK!

Marshall JCM800 5503 30w bass combo
A bit archaic in these days of light tiny powerful bass amps. A relatively large 1x12 combo (same size as the 4010 above) with relatively little power ( 30w solid state). Too big for just a practice amp, too quiet for a gigging bass amp.

However, it has a Celestion 75 in mine and if you turn up the mids, it makes quite a nice base clean sound to use with a guitar modeller (I use a Yamaha DG stomp) and sounds rather good and can cope with pub gigs.

Also does a job as a bass practice amp.

CHEAP! Well built. Heavyish.

Mesa studio .22
Single channel EL84 combo with a boost and graphic EQ. Very nice clean tone. Reverb is quite small so is more like ambience than anything else. Mine is the early model and not the .22+ so the gain on the boost is preset and is pretty brutal. Can be hard to balance the clean with the boost. 

Loud pop! when engaging the EQ which is a pain in the arse. FX loop prone to going wrong but easily fixed by putting a patch cable in If not using the loop.

Some days this amp sounds brill, other days, without changing any settings, can sound a bit meh. I have no idea why.Maybe it's just my ears or mood?

Takes pedals very well.

Light weight (Yep, a light mesa!)

Roland Microcube
Wonderful little practice amp (see previous review). Lasts AGES on a set of eneloop batteries. Such a useful little amp.

ddlooping

If you guys don't mind I'd like to edit some of your posts (yes, I have that power ) to add some styling to them (bold, italics...).

digitalscream

Flanging_Fred said:

Some days this amp sounds brill, other days, without changing any settings, can sound a bit meh. I have no idea why.Maybe it's just my ears or mood?

Could even be where you're sitting in the room, in relation to the speaker's position and direction...

samzadgan

Guitars used have been primarily HH configuration. Playing style is primarily rhythm guitar and playing metal - not modern metal, more classic stuff like Black Sabbath, and also a lot of Stoner and Doom metal.

With regards to pedals...i never use Effects Loop...all my pedals go to the front of the amp with all the amps below.

Peavey Transtube studio 1x12 60w
solid state but amazing volume, clarity and thick tone. Still have this amp after 20 years. Has great clean and great distortion tones, never tried it with pedals, but given it peavey heritage, it should take them well.

Vox Valvetronix 15w (12AX7 preamp)
ok sounding amp, but way too many knobs and getting a standard tone was not easy. Its a tweakers dream, as there are so many knobs and tones to be had. The cleans are quite nice, a little dull but passable...the high gain I found very thing and weak

Peavey Valveking Royal 8 (EL84)
This is the small 5w amp, with simple controls. Very nice clean tones, open clear with a touch of sparkle to it. Took pedals really well, but the speaker couldn't handle the much bass and would start farting as the volume increased.

Blackstart HT5 H (EL84 - Orange 2x12 V30's)
Used this with a Orange 2x12 V30's. Not a bad sounding amp, but for a valve amp, i didnt feel that it had the tone of a valve amp, in fact my Peavey Studio killed it for tone. It is very versatile and can be used for multiple purposes, so it has its uses and is quite loud for 5w amp especially through a cab.

Orange Rocker 30 Combo (EL34 and single V30 Speaker)
Hands down THE BEST AMP i have ever had. One knob on clean channel...and thats all you need, the nicest clean sound i have ever heard, its thick and warm but clear on the low end with a touch sparkle on the high end. Dirt channel goes from break up to rock to mid/high gain and turns wooly and fuzzy...to me this is a template to what orange amps should sound like, but they don't anymore! The EQ are extremely effective and mid control can really yield some nice results. It will never do modern metal, but it takes pedals like a champ so can be anything you want really. If i ever find a head version, i will buy it on the spot!

Laney IRT120 (6L6 - Zilla 2x12 V30's)
Amazing sounding amp, with a really nice clean tone. 3 channels gives you basically all you need, so no need for dirt pedals with this one. The additional Boost also serves really well for high gain and pushing it into OD. The global controls i find have more impact on the tone than the EQ or the Push/Pull functions, i see those as being more for fine tuning the tone. The reverb is very nice and a lot of tap as well. The clean channel also takes pedals really well from fuzz/dirt to modulation...and its very very loud!

Jet City 50w H (6L6 - Zilla 2x12 V30's)
Surprisingly great amp. Simple controls with 2 channels. The clean is exactly how i like it, not clean...you can get a really nice slightly dirty clean using the pre-amp and master volume inversely. The High Gain channel is very well voiced, very thick and full. It takes very little time to EQ the amp as the controls are very responsive and the voicing of the amp is great to start with. The presence control is a little meh, but kept low it works well.

that's all i can remember...

Grumpyrocker

Drew_fx said:

Laney Ironheart 120 - People have said the cleans aren't all that, but I really like Laney clean tones. It's nice, quite Fendery. The built in reverb is miles better than the VH100r. Three channels. Footswitching is a little odd, but you get used to it. Feels weird to have to run the tone knob so high, but it sounds really nice. There is something kind of missing with the tone, and I don't know if it's because the amp has an issue or not. I seem to have to run the gain a lot higher than everyone else does; regardless of guitar. Doesn't sound amazing at bedroom levels, needs to be cranked.

Have you contacted Laney about that issue with the gain? It certainly doesn't seem right. Sounds like there's a problem with the amp, as mine doesn't have that issue.

ICBM

samzadgan said:

Orange Rocker 30 Combo (EL34 and single V30 Speaker)
Hands down THE BEST AMP i have ever had. One knob on clean channel...and thats all you need, the nicest clean sound i have ever heard, its thick and warm but clear on the low end with a touch sparkle on the high end. Dirt channel goes from break up to rock to mid/high gain and turns wooly and fuzzy...to me this is a template to what orange amps should sound like, but they don't anymore! The EQ are extremely effective and mid control can really yield some nice results. It will never do modern metal, but it takes pedals like a champ so can be anything you want really. If i ever find a head version, i will buy it on the spot!

This is exactly why I think the Rocker 30 is the best modern amp Orange have made. OK, it uses a different tone stack from the originals so it's not exact, but it comes the closest to capturing the character of the 70s ORs in a less overpoweringly powerful amp. I don't really like any of the other ones I've tried (including the Rockerverb), but this one is great. It's a real shame they discontinued it.

If it matters, the guitarist in my band had one - sold a long time ago unfortunately - and it sounded even better through Heritage G12H-30s.

xSkarloey

Agreed on the Microcube. I've had mine for 7 years and have never got bored with it. 

The only problem with it is that on the Fender Twin setting it goes all bassy and rattles.   

firepaulmusic

Carr Slant 6 V 1x12, 4 6v6 combo
Clean channel is silky and sounds absolutely wonderful, I would say my perfect Fender tone on full 40 watts power.
Two other power settings for fixed bias and half power which make it break up earlier and sound more Tweedy.
Dirty channel has a certain edge right at the top end, hard to describe but def not Marshall sounding as some say.
Gain boost switch adds great girth to the tone on ch 2.
Fx loop is pants, totally sucks tone, good job it can be hard bypassed.
Reverb is lush.

Two Rock Exo head and cab Single channel, 15 watts with tube rectifier
Big fat smooth clean sounds, loads of headroom.
Push the gain for great edge of breakup then into overdrive.
Fx loop works great.
Everyone should have one!

Marshall JMP1 preamp
4 channel voicings, sounds fab straight to a big PA or with a Boogie 50/50 power amp and decent cab.
Have the effects control on 12 for fx loop to work best.
Listen to Def Leppard for the tone of these units.  

ThePrettyDamned

Okay, from the start.

Marshal mg15dfx. Massive amounts of gain. Taught me how to keep string noise down. That's about the only good thing I can say...

Vox ad100vt. Brilliant. Actually miss it, great for practice and gigging. Took a while to dial in, but either 2 channels and switchable effects or 3 settings with one effect left on. Newer ones were a bit shitty in comparison.

Laney lh50 - fecking amazing cleans. They just sounded so 'right', quite fendery in character to be honest. Got nice crunch when wound up. The drive was vintage 70s style Marshall. Sounded nice, but quite loose, which is fine for some. Led Zeppelin all the way. Use a ts to tighten it up for heavy stuff.

Mooer little monster ac. Hands down the best sounding 5w *ac* style amp I've heard. Just volume and gain. I liked gain at 1/3 up, the volume at 2/3 up. Bright switch was neat, but I preferred warm. Top boost was excellent - massive gain in crunch. Shame it wasn't switchable but it's a practice and recording amp really. Arrived in Spain today

And lastly, my Bandit! Silver stripe model. Cleans are typical solid state, warm and super clean. Takes pedals great - I use a vs route 66 with comp always on (it hardly compresses at the settings used, but it makes everything sound better on the clean) and use the ts side to add dirt with bass boost on, which gives a smooth, musical breakup. Bright switch makes great noises, but I use quote bright pickups and it does not like taking overdrive pedals when the bright switch is on, it sounds like breaking glass. 

Drive channel is excellent. Engage the thrash button, turn the gain down to 4 and eq right and you have a tweedy fender clean - drive. Take the thrash off, gain at just over 6, mids at 3, treble at 4 and bass at about 7 and you get a ballsy rock drive with high output buckers, classic rock with lower output buckers (I add more mids for that) and a dirty clean with single coils.

I use a tubescreamer to add drive for solos. It doesn't tighten the drive up like it would on a valve amp, but it does put the preamp section harder and gets more drive and compression for smoother soloing.

Spring reverb is nice, but can get clangy when maxed (well, it is spring...).

That's my lot! I can say that the amp most suited to me so far is the Bandit. If only the gain boost switch was switchable (like it is on the super rare revolution amp...). Still, beggars can't be choosers! Also, needs Re equing as the volume goes up - less gain needed, less treble (goes down to about 2 and a bit for me) and a little less presence (I keep it about half way, same as t-dynamics, which gets overly bright when maxed and totally flat when set to minimum). Has 2 effects loops, one line level which is always on, and one at instrument level which is switchable and has a level button. My delay and phaser both sit in the switchable one.