Recommend me a compact valve head and cab for under £1k

ricorico Frets: 1220
edited March 2017 in Amps
The endless GAS for stuff continues, this time the focus is on amps.

I have been doing a bit of research and have a budget of around £1k for a valve head and cab but obviously the less I can spend the better.

I have been looking at the various Victory and Jet City offerings but some of the real life reviews I have seen are less than favourable shall we say. There is a Countess available near me for about £650 which leaves some money for a nice used 2x12.

The reviews for the 20w Jet City heads are mostly good but then there are some bad ones too. So I don't know what to believe!

Choices for the moment are:

Victory BD1
Victory Sherriff (max I would spend new)
Victory Countess 
Jet City (any of the small heads, not the 5w one) however I am not sure of the differences between them!

I play heavy rock mainly with LP's and use pedals for drive and all that so I am mainly looking for a pedal platform but can be open to using amp gain and boost pedals - if this is the case then a good loop is required. 

Should be loud enough to gig with un-mic'd and reliable.

Cabs wise I have some good recommendations from another thread so the main focus here is on compact heads - I am pretty naive here as I have never properly owned anything other than combos.

Cheers!
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Comments

  • rossyamaharossyamaha Frets: 2439
    The Yamaha THR heads are killer. Well worth checking out. You could pick one of those up and a cab fr about that. 

    I play guitar and take photos of stuff. I also like beans on toast.

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  • RichardjRichardj Frets: 1538
    As above, does it have to be valve?  DV Mark could be worth a look too.
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  • ricorico Frets: 1220
    @Richardj yeah I will only consider valve amps - should have made that clear. I'll edit the original post.
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  • DopesickDopesick Frets: 1507
    edited March 2017
    Somebody is selling a Ceriatone 2204 (their own take on the Marshall) on these classifieds for the utter bargain price of £450. Shouldn't have to go back too far to find it.

    With that and a second hand Marshall 4x12 you're laughing.
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  • not_the_djnot_the_dj Frets: 7306
    I'm in love with my Jet City 20HV.

    I originally bought it as a back-up head but as my main amp (Fender HRD) has been making funny noises recently I've been using the Jet City....and it's flipping great, and an absolute bargain.

    I run it into a Zilla 2x12 with Greenbacks and it's the perfect classic rock tone I need. Then a few pedals to suit and it's a great rig.
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  • MickeyjiMickeyji Frets: 108
    I'd get the Ceriatone. Those are seriously good amps.
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  • If you do heavy rock with pedals, you're missing out. 

    You could get a jet city head cheap and run it into a really nice cab with quality speakers. Would sound immense. 

    I like high gain pedals, but they don't come close to the real deal (in my experience - @digitalscream has had luck with a bogner pedal, though!). 

    Another option would be a used peavey 6505+ or 6534+ head. Absolute beasts. Not compact though. 

    Left field suggestion - if it's heavy rock and not tight metal, the Laney lh50 is fairly compact (fits lovely on a 1x12), has a sweet clean channel, bright switch, a crunch channel with a "modern" switch, a global tone control as well as a dual 3 band eq and sounds excellent. It uses a toroidal transformer so it's not horrendously heavy either, though not exactly a lunch box. 

    It's got 50 watts, and is loud. Mine was reliable, too - Laney gets mixed reports on here but faults are generally small rather than "pcb caught fire" or "it is a write off". 

    The global tone control makes it so easy to dial in at gigs - I'd set it at 5 for rehearsals then at gigs I'd just tweak it to the room. 

    Available for very little money second hand. Takes pedals great, too. 
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  • newi123newi123 Frets: 850
    I'm in love with my Jet City 20HV.

    I originally bought it as a back-up head but as my main amp (Fender HRD) has been making funny noises recently I've been using the Jet City....and it's flipping great, and an absolute bargain.

    I run it into a Zilla 2x12 with Greenbacks and it's the perfect classic rock tone I need. Then a few pedals to suit and it's a great rig.
    Same here - gigging band playing 80s, 90s , 00s rock - from the Who to Buckcherry. The Jet City is great. Run mine into an open back zilla with a V30 & a G12h. 

    Bought a H&K puretone that was around locally, but after gigging that decided I much preferred the JCA.

    Playing it this week for the first time with a Les Paul (usually a strat guy)and pedals were barely needed...........
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