Favourite amps - past and present.

MattG

I was very lucky as my dad plays so i started out with a marshal vs 30R which wasnt a bad bit of kit it was just pretty generic although as a first amp i feel i was spoiled with it TBH.
from there i borrowed another amp but i will get to that later...
My first amp was a laney LC 50 which i got in a sale for £300 and was bloody marvelous! great on high gain and with an awesome crunch, i also liked the cleans on it, deeply versatile and i dont think that there is a better value for money amp out there.
traded up to a single rec, great "liquid metal" sound with the ability to get crunchy, it was just too smooth for me surprisingly though the cleans werent bad, it managed a great ska tone
Finally that went for a TH30 as ive always wanted an orange as the distorted sound on them is frankly perfect for me! but this had the added shock of actually having a fantastic clean channel and i can dial in any tone i want in about 3 seconds flat, it is f%@*ing brilliant and just perfect for me.

However my all time favorite is the amp i borrowed briefly from my dad, an original competely standard fender super champ.
best cleans i have heard in my life and when pushed it sounded like it was ging to burst into flames and explode!
best sounding amp ive ever heard and a dream for a "musician" (punk) like me.

NervousJohn

Vox AC-30 for me. I've got a 64 non top boost with blue speakers that was the first amp I bought. 1989 and everyone wanted Marshalls and was £250! Used it through university after which it became a coffee table after I got some "fix me" smells out of it. About a year ago I set about repairing it, junked the diode rectifier in favour of a GZ34, replaced the electrolytics and power amp boarding resistors and sorted out the wiring. It now sounds glorious....

ICBM

MattG said:

However my all time favorite is the amp i borrowed briefly from my dad, an original competely standard fender super champ.
best cleans i have heard in my life and when pushed it sounded like it was ging to burst into flames and explode!
best sounding amp ive ever heard and a dream for a "musician" (punk) like me.

It's just such a shame that the new "Super Champs" have devalued the name so much. They're not even a pale shadow of the originals.

I've owned four original Super Champs (three at once! My gigging stereo pair and a spare), and only moved away from them when I wanted something heavier-sounding and less punky.

Evilmags

Several sshit practise amps then some no name valve thing with rl34s in it. Then a Peavy Butcher 120, then a Fender HRD and then a Twin. Now got a Laney .vc15, a Blackstar Artisan 15 (awesome amp) and a Vox valvetronix.

ThePrettyDamned

I really like my mooer for what it does (it sounds exactly like an ac30 - more so than some newer ac30s!). But it's not for me anymore, it'll hit the classifieds soon in favour for something with more gain, maybe a peavey bandit or 6505+. I doubt it'll sell though, might have to be a trade in...

Not many mentions of high gain amps, but plenty of fender! Most boutiques mentioned are fender clones, too... They must have got it right first time.

CloudNine

The Tweed Champ has got to be up there in the classic amp stakes, defo one of my favourites. As well as the obvious cranked tones, the clean sounds are also awesome, albeit at pretty low volumes as there isn't much headroom. And the one knob thing really does stop you from obsessing about EQ etc.  :-bd

dindude

After the success of the THR's I'm surprised that Yamaha haven't had more competition come through really, Roland brought something out similar recently but that missed the mark for me. All the others, Fender, Blackstar, Vox, Marshall etc, still put their digital amp tech into small black guitar amp shaped boxes with 5" / 8" / 10" speakers. Fail.

Grumpyrocker

There have been rumours for a while of Yamaha making a bigger entry in amp modelling given the quality of THR but nothing seems to have appeared yet.