Laney Cub10 or VHT special 6 (+ Epiphone Valve Jr 1x12) ??

bigfuzz

Morning morning,

First up, two small clean tube heads have come up locally, just at the right time!

So what are the thoughts? There is a Laney Cub10 and a VHT special 6 (incl a epi valve jr 1x12) going for the same price as each other.. 

I'm looking for something to use at home, great fender-y cleans and can ''take pedals well''. 

What would you do?

Chuffola

Both are Fendery - 6V6s I seem to remember.

I've had both and either is a great little amp for not much cash. The VHT looks nicer aesthetically, in my opinion. And I'm all about style over substance!

bigfuzz

@chuffola the factor of the VHT being a head appeals but I'm concerned about the epi cab.. although I may feel the need to replace to speaker on the Laney anyway.. 

With the Laney i'm picturing vintage fender 'champ' style cleans through the 10"..

Chuffola

I found the Laney speaker fine but then I was only using it at home.

I'm always a bit nervous comparing amp sounds since I think so much is based on our own perception of what a "champ", "blackface" or "tweed" sounds like!  But, for what its worth, I found the Laney more refined than a Champ, the VHT was more like a Champ with the Drive pot engaged but very sparkly Blackface on clean (think its a push pull thing from memory). However, it was the VHT combo I had, so no idea what it would be like through the Epi cab.

Probably best to try both out if you can. The VHT is probably more versatile.

Both worked very well with any drive pedals I used - tubescreamer / fuzz.

samzadgan

personally I would go the VHT...mainly due to the head/cab option. I think 12" speaker sounds better to start with, and i'm pretty sure you would swap the speaker out in the Laney, those speakers aren't that great in my opinion.

they both take pedals well from everything i've heard and read...so i think you would be fine on that front.

Chuffola

Nowt wrong with a 10 incher! (oo-er)

Depends what you need it for, I suppose. 

bigfuzz

Well the sellers are being equally as slow to respond, so who knows! 

Seeming a VHT head new is only about £130... it could be an option regardless of the second hand sale. I have a feeling I'd have a hard time trying to get rid of the epi cab!

Alnico

Doesn't the Epiphone Cab use an Eminence speaker?

Are they not any good?

Dave_Mc

i haven't tried the cub

bear in mind the vht doesn't have a master volume if you need that EDIT: and also QC might be patchy.

^ not great... it's one of the OEM eminences. I swapped it for a legend 1258 for the sparkly fendery thing. sounds way better, in my opinion.

bigfuzz

so knowing the sound i'm looking for, any other options in this reasonably cheap budget?

samzadgan

What about a fender excelsior? You get fender cleans and they are really good with pedals

Nomad

Just so happens that I recorded this earlier today...

https://soundcloud.com/nomad-z/jazzy-jam-2

Laney Cub 10, guitar straight in, compression and reverb added afterwards. Settings...

Gain 1.5
Volume 7
Tone 6.5

Lowish output humbuckers into the High input. Mic was a Rode M3 (pretty neutral).

Find out which speaker the Laney has if you can. I think they were originally fitted with a Celestion Tube 10, but mine came with an HH something (there's a name ownership thing between Laney and HH, I believe). When I ordered mine, I expected to be changing the speaker on the basis of talk on forums about the Celestion, but I don't feel the HH is particularly lacking after 6 months. (That's not to say that there isn't a curiosity aspect about whether an alnico job would be better, but I don't feel the urge to drop 60 quid on something.)

Dave_Mc

samzadgan said:

What about a fender excelsior? You get fender cleans and they are really good with pedals

Yeah if you get a good one. QC seems to be all over the place with them. Also not sure how Fendery they sound if you want to absolutely nail that type of tone.

What is the budget exactly?

Voxman

Found this nice vid of a Cub 10 with a Strat where the guy goes through different amp settings that you can clearly see in the vid, plus different pick-up positions too.  Sounds really nice! 

Rich

bigfuzz

Nomad said:

Just so happens that I recorded this earlier today...

https://soundcloud.com/nomad-z/jazzy-jam-2

Laney Cub 10, guitar straight in, compression and reverb added afterwards. Settings...

Gain 1.5
Volume 7
Tone 6.5

Lowish output humbuckers into the High input. Mic was a Rode M3 (pretty neutral).

Find out which speaker the Laney has if you can. I think they were originally fitted with a Celestion Tube 10, but mine came with an HH something (there's a name ownership thing between Laney and HH, I believe). When I ordered mine, I expected to be changing the speaker on the basis of talk on forums about the Celestion, but I don't feel the HH is particularly lacking after 6 months. (That's not to say that there isn't a curiosity aspect about whether an alnico job would be better, but I don't feel the urge to drop 60 quid on something.)

This sounds lovely mate, I think the reverb helps it here. Interesting to hear about the stock speaker being up to the job. So far both sellers have been equally unresponsive - I'm getting serious GAS now..

bigfuzz

Dave_Mc said:

samzadgan said:

What about a fender excelsior? You get fender cleans and they are really good with pedals

Yeah if you get a good one. QC seems to be all over the place with them. Also not sure how Fendery they sound if you want to absolutely nail that type of tone.

What is the budget exactly?

Would definitely need to play one of the excelsiors first, not sold on them by the write ups.

Budget wise, sub 200 used for home use... I did look at pro jrs but they seem to go for quite a few quid compared to the Laney?

Dave_Mc

Yeah I really wanted to like the excelsior, and I did, but the rattle was just annoying. Didn't help that I was messed about by Music Store which just left a bad taste in my mouth too.

There are those yerasov pro junior clones (which I haven't tried), they might be over £200 by now too, though.

Nomad

bigfuzz said:

This sounds lovely mate, I think the reverb helps it here. Interesting to hear about the stock speaker being up to the job. So far both sellers have been equally unresponsive - I'm getting serious GAS now..

Hard to say how much difference there is between the earlier Celestion Tube 10 and the HH mine has. Who knows - maybe the HH speaker is the same unit as the Celestion with a different label on it? There is the possibility that some people are changing their speakers regardless, in the belief that the stock one must be crap and a new one must be better. Haven't found any before and after examples of speaker changes so I don't know how much difference something like a Jensen alnico would make.

You can read more of my thoughts on the amp here...

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/20293/

(I'd actually had it about 5 months when I wrote that, not 3 months.) If clean is what you want, then this will do that up to decent living room volume levels. I think it's a great little home noodling amp.

I'll upload a dry version of the above track a little later.

Nomad

Here's the dry guitar track, warts and all...

https://soundcloud.com/nomad-z/jazzy-jam-2-dry-guitar

Sounds weird without the backing track.