What is the worst amp you’ve ever played?

maltingsaudio

BillDL said:

I'm posting from work so I can't look it up, but one of the "worst" amps I had was in the mid to late 80s when I bought a 2nd-hand 30 watt 1x12 combo that was covered with fuzzy grey carpet.  Hughes & Kettner?  I remember the panel and/or buttons lit up in a blue or green and it was all pretty fancy, but it just sounded far too "processed" and clinical for what I wanted at the time.  I think it had a single valve in the preamp circuit and even though you could get some really saturated and fairly smooth lead sounds, I recall that I didn't like the clean or crunch sounds much.  I traded it in against one of the many Peavey amps I went through around that time.  I preferred their "roughness".  Perhaps if I had to try one again after all these years I might actually like the sounds.

Sounds like an HK ATS 30, I had one and had it repaired by a BBC engineer, gave him the circuit diagrams and waited. 2 weeks later got a call saying I can’t get rid of the distortion on channel 2! When I got it back it was an absolute sweetie , really liked what he did to it. Still hacker after it now so if anyone has it , it’s got a big solder burn by the handle , give me a shout!

HAL9000

Close call between Boss Katana Mk 1, and Blackstar ID:Core. I think the ID:Core takes it - impossible to get a decent sound out of the thing.

HAL9000

nick79 said:

Blackstar HT5 for me. Couldn’t get a sound out of it I liked and it kept breaking anyway. In the end I chucked out all the pcb stuff and kept the chassis and cabinet in the hope of one day using it for a diy amp build. 

I did have an HT1 some years ago though that I did like. 

Strangely the HT5 sounds completely different (to my ears anyway) to all the other HT amps. It doesn’t sound like it belongs to the same series.

ICBM

HAL9000 said:

Close call between Boss Katana Mk 1, and Blackstar ID:Core. I think the ID:Core takes it - impossible to get a decent sound out of the thing.

I found the Core unusably murky and claustrophobic, and the stereo effects sound like you’re wearing headphones wired out of phase… underwater.

Neither of them are as horrible as the Micro Terror though - that thing still gives me the shivers.

NicoAdie

Marshall AVT100 without a shadow of a doubt. Wee practice amps get a pass from me because they’re basically always going to sound shit, but at least they have the decency to do so in occasionally interesting ways. The AVT100 however, horrible shrill cleans, horrible fizzy distortion channel, couldn’t take a pedal to save its life.

ICBM

NicoAdie said:

Marshall AVT100 without a shadow of a doubt. Wee practice amps get a pass from me because they’re basically always going to sound shit, but at least they have the decency to do so in occasionally interesting ways. The AVT100 however, horrible shrill cleans, horrible fizzy distortion channel, couldn’t take a pedal to save its life.

I'll raise you the AVT150, which not only does all of that, it has a nearly unusable "acoustic" channel which the amp defaults to when powered up, so if you don't notice it's set to that instead of the normal clean channel - or there's a brief power-out for any reason - you spend a few minutes wondering why it sounds even more than usually shit.

Not only that, both have a lemming-like death wish and will set themselves on fire without much (or sometimes any) provocation. I've lost count of the number I've scrapped as being simply not worth the cost or hassle to repair.

Keefy

ICBM said:

NicoAdie said:

Marshall AVT100 without a shadow of a doubt. Wee practice amps get a pass from me because they’re basically always going to sound shit, but at least they have the decency to do so in occasionally interesting ways. The AVT100 however, horrible shrill cleans, horrible fizzy distortion channel, couldn’t take a pedal to save its life.

I'll raise you the AVT150, which not only does all of that, it has a nearly unusable "acoustic" channel which the amp defaults to when powered up, so if you don't notice it's set to that instead of the normal clean channel - or there's a brief power-out for any reason - you spend a few minutes wondering why it sounds even more than usually shit.

...

That was what happened to me on a gig where an AVT150 was the provided backline. I spent half a song frantically checking my pedals and leads before I realised the amp had switched to its shittiest channel of its own accord.

NicoAdie

ICBM said:

NicoAdie said:

Marshall AVT100 without a shadow of a doubt. Wee practice amps get a pass from me because they’re basically always going to sound shit, but at least they have the decency to do so in occasionally interesting ways. The AVT100 however, horrible shrill cleans, horrible fizzy distortion channel, couldn’t take a pedal to save its life.

I'll raise you the AVT150, which not only does all of that, it has a nearly unusable "acoustic" channel which the amp defaults to when powered up, so if you don't notice it's set to that instead of the normal clean channel - or there's a brief power-out for any reason - you spend a few minutes wondering why it sounds even more than usually shit.

Not only that, both have a lemming-like death wish and will set themselves on fire without much (or sometimes any) provocation. I've lost count of the number I've scrapped as being simply not worth the cost or hassle to repair.

My life is now quantifiably worse simply by having learned of this. Thank you.

Tex Mexico

For me it was an early Blackstar 100 head. I was in a store at a time the Blackstar guys were in to promote their kit maybe 15 years ago, and got chatting to one of the guys, who spent the entire conversation slagging off Marshall. I tried out his head and matching cab, with a Strat and a Les Paul, and it was probably just bland and unremarkable - I remember the British/American tone dial thing being particularly uninteresting - but following as it did twenty minutes of the guy telling me their amps were brilliant and Marshall were pish, it really soured me on that amp and the whole brand. Never owned any of their products.

slacker

Nerine said:

Some of these “awful” amps would probably sound absolutely killer micd up on a record. 

I’m getting to the point where I believe there aren’t particularly many flavours of amplifier distortion. 

A lot of amps sound VERY similar into the same cab with the same mics and positioning on it. 

Put that into a mix and the differences are lost even further. 

Which makes all these real high end amps seem a bit pointless to me. It’s the “shitty” ones mentioned in this thread which would actually sound interesting on record. Especially the real nasty ones. They’d sound heavy as fuck with the right pedals and stuff. 

Possibly “horrid” in the room, yeah. But probably amazing in a mix. 

A crap amp is a crap amp. It might be a subjective opinion but the fender HRD is awful imho.

So the first time I tried one was in Bristol at a harmony central jam. Nobody liked it. Someone demonstrated DAM pedals and they all sounded rubbish. Next day I heard a friend play in a band and I went to speak to him re his Cornford hurricane sounding off. He said look at my new amp a fender HRD. I played that thing often and never got it to sound good.

One day my friend sounded good with the hrd I went to speak to him and the hrd wasn't on and there was a Beringer modeller on the amp. Last time I played the amp it blew up and was replaced by a gorilla keyboard amp. It sounded better. 

Some amps just sound good some don't. I played a solid state marshall that was great fun. 

Nerine

Actually, I’ll add the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I’be never heard one sound good. All variants. Really dislike them. 

Stevepage

Pretty sure it was this

Most uninspired POS amp I ever heard. I can usually get at least 1 usable tone out of an amp but not this one.

nero1701

Kustom amps....all of them

uncledick

Latterly - the much hyped Katana, and in my youth , a Selmer TnB 50 that came with a Goodmans 1x12 cab and sounded flat and mushy on every setting.

ICBM

Nerine said:

Actually, I’ll add the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I’be never heard one sound good. All variants. Really dislike them. 

Out of interest, which amps do you like? I’ve always found Hotrods quite decent, including the much-maligned Drive channel.

I do dislike the earlier versions - up to Mk3 - of the Blues Junior though. Not just because they don’t sound great, but also because they’re quite poorly made.

Stevepage said:

Most uninspired POS amp I ever heard. I can usually get at least 1 usable tone out of an amp but not this one.

I found the clean and rhythm channels on those not too bad... the solo not so much. (But then I rarely like the 'solo' mode on any amp other than a Mark series Boogie with the graphic EQ set to the deep V shape.)

nero1701 said:

Kustom amps....all of them

I've always found them really good at whatever price point they are - even the very cheap ones outperform most of their competition.

26.2

I had an HRD mk ii that sounded good when it was working. It had the burned out resistor problem that they all did, but even after that was fixed it would switch channels of its own accord, so it was completely unusable. Good sounding amps on the clean channel though - maybe a bit ‘hard’ , but good with pedals. 

JCA2550

Fender HRD I had and gigged for a year or so. Sounded okay at home but just vanished in a live setting.
Micro terror awful base tone even with a valve change.
Biggest disappointment was the Blackstar HT60 Stage. Bought one after a glowing review in Guitarist. Loud, honky and lifeless. I spent a fortune on casters, slip cover  valve and speaker changes. Sold it at a massive loss just to get rid of it.

Yorkie

JCA2550 said:

Blackstar HT60 Stage. Bought one after a glowing review in Guitarist.

That’s one thing I have learned the hard way. I think reviews provide, at best, only half of the picture. They’re good for learning about features, but leave so many other factors unexplored, particularly those that would need much more time and use evaluate. And then there’s the differences between manufacturers, with some appearing to provide kit for free (e.g. Blackstar) in exchange for a review. 

Jon

Danny1969

i would have loved some of the ampos mentioned in this thread because at least they were intended for guitar. First amp I owned was a tape recorder amp. It had a 5 pin Din input so I had to hack a lead together to plumb the guitar into it ... sounded terrible 
Next amp was a Piano Mate amp. This device was kind of a mechanical midi attachment for a piano. In the back of the amp was a long piece which sat on top of 2 octaves of piano keys. When you pressed the piano key under it it allowed a switch to drop and the device played a note with you. You could select strings or organ I think. Very clever but again not a great amp sound for guitar. 



Then there was a string of hi fi amps ... ever played a guitar straight into a hi fi .. it's about the most bland uninspiring sound there is. 

The only truly awful amp I've ever heard is the little Orange thing, the terror or tiny terror thing. I was at a gig when my HT5 seemed to have died and I had this little Orange head in the van because my mate had lent it to me to try. I plugged it in, played a few chords ...  christ, I'm not that fussy about tone but that thing sounded horrendous so turned it off and hooked the HT5 up again. After a while it spluttered into sound, half a valve heater had died but after a while the whole valve is hot enough to make that an issue I'm guessing because it went on to do another hundred gigs or so and is still like that know, I've never changed it. 

slacker

ICBM said:

Nerine said:

Actually, I’ll add the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I’be never heard one sound good. All variants. Really dislike them. 

Out of interest, which amps do you like? I’ve always found Hotrods quite decent, including the much-maligned Drive channel.

I do dislike the earlier versions - up to Mk3 - of the Blues Junior though. Not just because they don’t sound great, but also because they’re quite poorly made.

Stevepage said:

Most uninspired POS amp I ever heard. I can usually get at least 1 usable tone out of an amp but not this one.

I found the clean and rhythm channels on those not too bad... the solo not so much. (But then I rarely like the 'solo' mode on any amp other than a Mark series Boogie with the graphic EQ set to the deep V shape.)

nero1701 said:

Kustom amps....all of them

I've always found them really good at whatever price point they are - even the very cheap ones outperform most of their competition.

I know the question wasn't aimed at me but as starter of the anti hrd league...

I own an early bad cat black cat, matchless lightning and Morgan dag which is sort of an ac15. I've owned an ac15  and an ac4 so it's pretty obvious where I'm happy. 

I played a jump combo at a fretboard jam and loved it. I've also played a twin amp rig with a blackface super for cleans and a plexi for dirt. Loved that. I played a 90s twin with an archtop for a funeral great amp not so great circumstances.

I did a rehearsals with a DSL and jtm 60 loved them. I always liked the jc120. Years ago I borrowed a Yamaha combo that was good. 

There's two types of amps. Those I like and those I don't.