Jet City Amp - help me decide!

digitalscream

fastboy said:

I've owned both and still have the 22H. 

I personally prefer the 22H. It has more gain on tap and sounds a lot smoother than the 50. In terms of clean headroom, obviously the 50 will win but the 22 is incredibly loud (don't think I've ever had the volume beyond 3!)

I have - I played one gig where I had the volume up at around 5. It sounded absolutely glorious for dirt, but there was no clean at all. That's what you get for taking a 20W amp to a gig in a big hall with no PA reinforcement (in my defence, they had promised a full PA we could run everything through).

They're actually louder than the 50H at equivalent points on the volume control up to around 3.5 - 4, where the 22H starts to run out of headroom. By 5, the headroom's gone and you're just getting more saturation, whereas the 50H keeps going up to about 6.

Dave_Mc

digitalscream said:

Dave_Mc said:

With decent speakers they sound very good indeed.

Excellent point - I forgot about that. I use mine with a Jet City 2x12", but I replaced the speakers with a G12T-75 and a V30. This is because the stock speakers are shocking. I could forgive anybody buying a combo for wondering why people talk about JC amps in glowing terms.

I thought the stock speakers were... okay-ish, i.e. I've tried much worse OEM ones. But agreed, I swapped mine for eminence v12s and it sounds way better, the stock speakers were pretty shrill and thin-sounding. It also sounds better with v30s, g12h30s etc. as well.

(I'd say though that I'd differentiate between USA-made ("real") Eminences and the OEM Chinese-made ones. The OEM ones I've tried have been guff, quite frankly. I like the USA Eminences I've tried, to me they're the equal of Celestions (though they don't sound quite the same either).)

I thought my jet city sounded pretty good when i tried them with my broken-in v30s. I seem to remember it sounding really good with my heritage 55Hz g12h30s (I normally just use my v12s with it, I'm lazy and can't be bothered switching cabs all the time). that's probably overkill, though, I wouldn't suggest buying a lionheart cab for use with it unless you got a crazy good deal like I did (I already had the cab, anyway, I didn't buy it to use with the jet city).

But yeah agreed. I've heard of people saying a valve swap really helps too, and I haven't got round to that yet, but for me the speaker swap made a really big difference. Enough that I'm with you and ICBM regarding companies putting cheap speakers in amps- I realise it costs more money but it's got to be a false economy and will eat into sales, surely?

I agree with ICBM about putting v30s in everything (though as I said, I think v30s actually *do* suit the jet city), but I disagree about the v12s. At least, the v12s I have, and with the jet city. I tried a load of speakers (including a ton of celestions) and I like the v12s best. That's not to say they're the only speakers I liked with the jet city, a few celestions sounded good too.

Granted I only play at home volumes, so maybe at gig volume things sound different.

Fez

I have the JCA50 Head (recent aquisition) and use it through a Harley benton V30  2X12 Cab used it at 2 rehearsals and one gig so far and it suits my needs. I am still getting to grips with it a bit but it sounds great.