What is the worst amp you’ve ever played?

Sassafras

ICBM

Sassafras said:

[Crate Powerblock]

Damn... I'd almost managed to blank that out of my memory.

This also belongs in the 'most unreliable amp' thread - I've seen three of them so far, two dead. After hearing the third one I would have preferred it dead.

Like the Micro Terror, it has a really nasty grating, fatiguing 'tone' that's like sticking something sharp in your ears.

TimmyO

Fender Champ 12 (red knob series)

Keefy

TimmyO said:

Fender Champ 12 (red knob series)

The red knob amps get (1) a lot of stick, (2) some revisionist love. So tell us more Tim…

ICBM

Keefy said:

The red knob amps get (1) a lot of stick, (2) some revisionist love. So tell us more Tim…

The clean channel isn't too bad - although like all the red-knob series there isn't a lot of 'valveness' to the sound, it's almost more like a high-quality solid-state sound - but the overdrive channel is an awful hornets nest of a sound... to start with there's far too much gain, if 4 was where 10 is it wouldn't be quite as bad. The reverb is odd too - in order to save the cost of driving it with a valve and a transformer, the tank is fed from the speaker output so it can get very weird when the power stage is overdriven.

That said there's a first-year snakeskin vinyl one in the shop I used to work for... it's actually very cool in a revisionist hair-metal type of way .

https://strungoutguitars.com/shop/fender-champ-12-snakeskin-made-in-usa-1990s/

(Don't know why the link says 1990s, it's definitely an 80s amp,)

Nerine

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.

I like:

JCM 800’s (2203) OG and reissue. 
JTM 45’s
Deluxe Reverbs
Dual Rectifiers 

Loads of other stuff too, but generally in the above wheelhouse. 

Love Soldano, Two Rock, Diezel, Friedman etc. 

jca74

I envied those with Gorilla amps...

Sassafras

I had a Champ 12 with an upgraded speaker (can't remember which) and it was pretty decent for cleans.
Certainly better than a Micro Terror and the others that have been mentioned.

gubble

6 pages in and nobody has mentioned the Marshall MA50? 

Ok the clean sound was ok and could possibly be a useable pedal platform - but that's not why we buy a Marshall.......

Drive sounds are utterly awful and it's reliability issues didn't help either.  the marshall fridge probably sounds better.

ICBM

gubble said:

6 pages in and nobody has mentioned the Marshall MA50?

I think I thought the Haze was worse… but I’ve lost track, they just released an endless succession of shit around that time.

Thankfully they then canned the lot and went to just the JVMs and the new DSLs.

Stevepage

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.

The AVT50h was my first “proper” amp, or so I thought. Got a couple of years out of it before I part exchanged it for a JCM900 2100 and realised just how bad the AVT was. Both my AVT50 and a friends AVT150 caught fire, so that should tell you everything about those. 

NelsonP

An observation about this thread. The amps that are shit  also look shit. That's all.

JamesSGBrown

Marshal MG100FX- ubiquitous in rehearsal rooms for some time. Just a super harsh, unpleasing sound that forced you to turn the treble down to muddying levels to stop your ears from bleeding. 
My bandmate has a Marshall Mosfet Lead 100 that can sound alright when blended, for some cutting top-end, but on its own my Lord it sounds atrocious. Like a chainsaw to the cranium. 
Honourable mention to the distortion channel of any Roland JC amp also. Horrid.

Secret_Sam

Any views on the rack mountable Marshalls? 9000 series or something like that.  You bought the preamp and the power amp separately.

ICBM

JamesSGBrown said:

Marshal MG100FX- ubiquitous in rehearsal rooms for some time. Just a super harsh, unpleasing sound that forced you to turn the treble down to muddying levels to stop your ears from bleeding. 
My bandmate has a Marshall Mosfet Lead 100 that can sound alright when blended, for some cutting top-end, but on its own my Lord it sounds atrocious.

I suspect the speakers with those aren’t ideal - they’re actually capable of sounding very good, the Mosfet Lead 100 especially, but the MG100 surprisingly so too… if the MG100DFX has a more serious fault it’s their unreliability.

Secret_Sam said:

Any views on the rack mountable Marshalls? 9000 series or something like that.  You bought the preamp and the power amp separately.

Excellent. Iron Maiden based their live rigs around them for a start…