Am I mad?

digitalscream

professorben said:

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

Ahhhh....your history is lacking, my friend.

I had the Jet City before the Eleven Rack, and it was the reason the Eleven Rack went. Well, the first one, anyway. Here's a list of all the things I thought were better than the Jet City, but turned out not to be:

ADA MP-1
Rocktron Piranha
Eleven Rack
Bogner Ecstasy Red + MJW 18-watter (althought the jury's still out on the first half of this bit)
Framus Cobra
Soldano Decatone
Victory Kraken

You'll note they all have one thing in common - they're all far more expensive than a Jet City amp.

MattBanshee

Sounds like you need a two-amp setup to me 

Cirrus

The problem we sometimes have is that we remember the price paid when we judge the total worth of gear - so if you have a great expensive thing and a great cheap thing doing the same job, you'll probably not unreasonably believe that the more expensive one is *better* in some hard to define feel-good way.

Really, once you've bought it and used it and the money is gone, all your left with is the box of electrical gubbins and it has to stand or fall on its own merit.

Endemic in the pedal world. A boutique Rat clone isn't better than a rat because it costs more. It's just different, for better or worse or sometimes both.

digitalscream

MattBanshee said:

Sounds like you need a two-amp setup to me 

Don't start :P Seriously, though, I've considered it. It's just too much hassle for the kind of gigs I play - when you only get five or six minutes to set up, two amps is a step too far.

Plus there's the fact that my rig is designed to be lightweight. I can handle an extra couple of kg to go from a Kraken to a JCA22H; another amp and cab on top of that, and the benefits significantly outweigh the drawbacks.

monquixote

Amplifire into the FX return of a JCA22H is a pretty unbeatable lightweight rig.

DesVegas

By asking if you are mad proves that you are not mad

ThePrettyDamned

Not crazy . You like what you like . 

I'm mostly happy with my ac15 alike but I haven't gotten rid of my bandit yet because it does quite a lot of stuff far better than the ac15. Yet one is a turret board, vintage style hand wired jobby and the other is, well , a bandit . 

professorben

Tone is in the ears of the beholder. 
Not the bank balance. 

If the JetCity worked for you, do it.

or to put your quandary into another frame of reference. 


"I play in an SRV/Hendrix covers band, but I found my Mexican Strat sounded much better than my Les Paul Standard, am I mad? the Les Paul is much more expensive than the Strat"

ICBM

Have you tried an SLO?

Not the same as a Decatone at all. Really it's just a massively expensive Jet City, so it sounds like it should be the very thing for you .

english_bob

How long until the new Amelia hits the streets and muddies the waters further by giving you more Jet City amps to choose from?

digitalscream

professorben said:

Tone is in the ears of the beholder. 
Not the bank balance. 

Well, yes. And the Jet City amps are probably the most extreme example of this in action.

ICBM said:

Have you tried an SLO?

Not the same as a Decatone at all. Really it's just a massively expensive Jet City, so it sounds like it should be the very thing for you .

Once, and to be honest I wasn't all that impressed. There certainly didn't seem to be enough there to justify it being about 20 times the price of a Jet City.

english_bob said:

How long until the new Amelia hits the streets and muddies the waters further by giving you more Jet City amps to choose from?

Probably a month or two. It won't muddy the waters for me, though, because it has a clean channel and a drive channel - I need crunch and drive.

p90fool

I've gone over completely now to a pair of Jet City Custom 22 heads into wide bodied, open backed 1x12s with 20 year old Celestion Classic Lead 80s, run in stereo. 

One with a clipped C6 cap on the gain channel, one without. 

From conversation volume to a big stage roar, I've never heard anything better in my 37 years of gigging. 

digitalscream

p90fool said:

From conversation volume to a big stage roar, I've never heard anything better in my 37 years of gigging. 

I haven't tried a Custom 22 yet, but...that's how I feel about the JCA22H and JCA50H.

I really don't understand how their brand isn't absolutely huge. I suppose it could be something to do with the misstep in the design of the effects loop on the JCA50H and JCA100H, or it could be the rumour some retailers started about them being unreliable (when it was actually that they got shafted by the distributors, but couldn't say that in public without looking petulant).

monquixote

What are the specs of the Amelia?

Actually just found the specs:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/jet-city-amplification-amelia-50w-tube-guitar-amplifier-head#productDetail

digitalscream

monquixote said:

What are the specs of the Amelia?

Depends who you ask. If you ask Doug, it's nothing like the Cornford MK50 Mk II.

If you ask the guys who've played the prototypes, it's very much like the Cornford MK50 Mk II.

Aside from that...50W, EL34 (I think), two channels (clean and drive) with independent EQ, dual footswitchable master volumes.

Somebody spotted a pre-order page on Musicians' Friend a while back, $499.

monquixote

@ICBM or other clever folk

Might be a stupid question, but how hard would it be to mod a JCA to have the Lucky 13 clean channel?

digitalscream

monquixote said:

@ICBM or other clever folk

Might be a stupid question, but how hard would it be to mod a JCA to have the Lucky 13 clean channel?

The JCA5212 2x12" combo already has the Lucky 13 clean channel. Unfortunately, it and the prototype FLEX are the only amps that do, ie no production heads or reasonably portable combos.

richardhomer

ICBM said:

Have you tried an SLO?

Not the same as a Decatone at all. Really it's just a massively expensive Jet City, so it sounds like it should be the very thing for you .

I have; one of those amps which 'really' needs to be cranked to sound right.

But at the right level - a glorious sounding thing. And I'm not generally a Brit based amp/high gain fan.

monquixote

I think the Amelia might be perfect for me, but I suspect it will have the loop in the wrong place and so not be good for running with an external preamp.

digitalscream

monquixote said:

I think the Amelia might be perfect for me, but I suspect it will have the loop in the wrong place and so not be good for running with an external preamp.

Nope. The only amps with the loop in a stupid place are the JCA50H and JCA100H. The others all have them after the master volumes; as to where the loop is on the Amelia, I can't say exactly, but it definitely won't be before the tone stack.