Am I mad?

digitalscream

I'm seriously considering going back to the Jet city amps. The Kraken's lovely - really lovely - but the Gain II channel just doesn't have that lovely fullness of the Jet City amps' lead channels.

If I do, this will be the second relatively high-priced amp I've ditched in favour of the cheap-as-chips Jet City units.

hubobulous

Not mad at all.

Might be worth really analysing what the Jet City isn't giving you though since you had your head turned by the Kraken in the first place.

digitalscream

hubobulous said:

Not mad at all.

Might be worth really analysing what the Jet City isn't giving you though since you had your head turned by the Kraken in the first place.

I think it was that Gain I has more gain available than the crunch channels on the JCA stuff. At the time, I was using mid-output humbuckers; that's not an issue any more.

The Kraken also has a more pedal-friendly loop, which attracted me because I wanted to try other delay pedals. Turns out I don't really want to try other delay pedals (at least, none of the ones that aren't line-level anyway).

guitarfishbay

Not mad...  if something works it works.

dindude

You're definitely on the road to madness but not quite there yet. If you want to attain to such dizzy heights, I think you should go well and truly down the Freidman rabbit hole and spunk a load more cash first.

Amateur.

guitarfishbay

...though if you do it 3 times...

hubobulous

Do you ever put pedals in front of the amp to give more gain on the 'crunch' channels?

digitalscream

Hehe...there is another point here. I've been using the Jet City gear for so long that I know the controls inside-out, to the point where I can make blind changes to the EQ in the middle of a gig and know exactly what the result will be. I've had the Kraken for nearly a year, and I'm still not there yet.

That tells me that I'm just more comfortable with the Jet City tone stack.

digitalscream

hubobulous said:

Do you ever put pedals in front of the amp to give more gain on the 'crunch' channels?

Only a clean boost - and the Jet City amps react much better than the Kraken does; they get more low-end as well as more gain, which makes it sound a lot heavier. The Kraken gets sorta fuzzy in the low-end with any kind of level boost.

hubobulous

So was it the fact that you wanted to ditch the clean boost that made you consider the Kraken?

webrthomson

Go with what works for you - currently my VH4 is losing out to my JCA22H in the house

guitarfishbay

digitalscream said:

hubobulous said:

Do you ever put pedals in front of the amp to give more gain on the 'crunch' channels?

Only a clean boost - and the Jet City amps react much better than the Kraken does; they get more low-end as well as more gain, which makes it sound a lot heavier. The Kraken gets sorta fuzzy in the low-end with any kind of level boost.

If it gets fuzzy there's probably too much low end hitting it... so something like a Tube screamer/anything that has some kind of low end cut/high pass filter on it would work better than a clean boost.

digitalscream

guitarfishbay said:

digitalscream said:

hubobulous said:

Do you ever put pedals in front of the amp to give more gain on the 'crunch' channels?

Only a clean boost - and the Jet City amps react much better than the Kraken does; they get more low-end as well as more gain, which makes it sound a lot heavier. The Kraken gets sorta fuzzy in the low-end with any kind of level boost.

If it gets fuzzy there's probably too much low end hitting it... so something like a Tube screamer/anything that has some kind of low end cut/high pass filter on it would work better than a clean boost.

Oh, I know. The thing is, I just want one boost on my board if I'm going to use one; with the Kraken, the lead channel is so mid-focused that a TS makes it sound worse rather than better (but the rhythm channel sounds OK-ish with a TS).

That's not a problem with the Jet City amps - both channels react in exactly the same way.

guitarfishbay

I had a similar problem when I had a Blackstar S1 104 EL34.  OD1 and OD2 didn't play too nicely on the shared EQ (or at least didn't work together the way I wanted them to), and using a boost had similar issues (OD1 was fat and warm and OD2 was scooped and aggressive).  I ended up using it as a 3 channel amp in the end.

Maynehead

I think you are very wise for recognizing that your old amp sounded better and very brave for going back to a "budget" amp. If I spent a lot of money on a new amp I would probably try my hardest to "learn" to like it, and tell myself that it's better.

digitalscream

Maynehead said:

I think you are very wise for recognizing that your old amp sounded better and very brave for going back to a "budget" amp. If I spent a lot of money on a new amp I would probably try my hardest to "learn" to like it, and tell myself that it's better.

Thank you...but I've actually been here before, which dampens the wisdom somewhat. I had a Soldano Decatone, which I convinced myself to love...then one day, because I couldn't be bothered unplugging the Soldano at home, I took the Jet City to rehearsal.

Soldano went in the classifieds the next day.

ennspek

Whatever works.

dindude

Just for balance, I recall how excited you were when you found the Kraken, and the subsequent posts (some weeks / months in) stating how much you loved it. I think this was different to the Soldano, which seemed more of a "meet your hero's" worship that didn't quite live up to expectations.

Reason I say this is that I recently had the same with one of my guitars that I often rave about, just one morning woke up and fell out of love with it - the neck was too skinny, the fretboard was too flat, the sound wasn't warm enough etc etc. Started pricing up how much I could get for it and what else I could buy. I PM'd a forum friend on here about it, and he quite rightly told me to get a blooming grip (he's played it and knows how much I love it).

I didn't touch it for a week, picked it up and realised what a near-miss I had, it's a belter, and I was being a twat.

Sleep on it is what I'm saying.

ICBM

There's nothing wrong - or 'budget' at all really - with the Jet Citys. They just happen to be cheap because they're made in China to a proven design and are actually pretty simple amps. It is true that the transformers aren't the highest quality, but even that doesn't make a lot of practical difference usually, and everything else is easily good enough for any amp.

digitalscream

@dindude - yep, understood, and you're spot-on about the Soldano. If I'm honest, the lead channel on the Kraken has been bothering me a bit since I got it. Nothing major, just a persistent itch.

The upside is that I already have a JCA50H, so when I get that back from @monquixote (schedules permitting) I can do a proper back-to-back test and see what suits me best.

Don't get me wrong - the Kraken is a phenomenal amp. I still love it, I just think I love the Jet City amps more.

professorben

Why not just skip the JetCity and jump straight back to the Eleven Rack? 
I might know someone who's selling one.