Favourite Valve Amp

Yorkie

Got my DSL40 for £200, so it’s almost infinite value for money. It’s taken me a year and a half to find a minor inconvenience. 

nero1701

Gassage said:

Tone King Imperial Mk2.

Absolutely wonderful, light and very versatile.

I bought a Mk2 head from Thomann, it had to be returned, So i bought a Falcon Grande to do me until anothe imperial turned up at the right price. and in the end I prefered the falcon.

Supportact

'Favourite' is hard to define as i have different amps for different purposes.  'Bang for buck' though, I'd say any of the Blackstar 'Artisan' range. You can get them for very little second hand, and they're on a different level from Blackstar's other stuff (not saying their other stuff is bad,  just that these are very high quality). 

Also my gigging amp is a Vox AC15CC1 which I got second hand for £200. Upgraded the speaker and reverb pan, and had it serviced by a tech  (under £150 in all). I've done loads of gigs with it and I think it sounds great. So definitely 'bang for buck' as well.  

Schnozz

How often do you get these serviced, just out of interest?

TheMarlin

Best cheap, I have to agree with @dazzajl, the Kustom Coup can be had for silly money, and it’s a fab little amp.  Great valve reverb too!

I just picked up an Engl Classic Tube 50 for …..£200!!!!

it’s a german built all valve 50w Bassman 2x10 combo, which can do anything from sparkly Bassman cleans through to Marshall nastiness. Fabulous reverb on each channel, dual master volume, valve buffered effects loop, and loads more features.  Can do 80’s rock at bedroom
levels if you want it too, or blow your windows out with a clean tone. It’s all there.  Huge headroom, and loves pedals too. 

It’s the second one I’ve had, I think I sold that last for for £400ish. 

These are awesome amps, really under the radar, and not much known about them.  For £200, bargain of the century!!

webrthomson

Mesa Boogie DC5 Revision B:

Not particularly expensive, light (weight wise) as a head, much louder that the 50 watts suggests. Pretty dark so I use Marshall V30 loaded cabs, other than that it’s a great little amp which will go from clean to blues to metal!

HAL9000

Just to throw a spaniel in the works… My most recent amp purchase is a solid-state Award-Session 5E3-Extra. Still in the honeymoon period but certainly better bang for buck and more responsive than a number of valve amps I’ve played.

ElectricXII

I love my Marshall Bluesbreaker combo which I bought used for £600, which is less than half the new price. It’s a fantastic pedal platform and the cleans are wonderful, so a lot of bang for buck. 

Practical though? It’s heavy, awkward to carry and very loud, and for most gigs I use my Vox AC15C1. 

I’ll be gigging the Marshall on Saturday night though.  Hurray!

Petepassion

Revolutions said:

Bang for buck? Gonna have to be Laney. VC30 & GH50 are 2 models that deliver way more their price suggests.

Just picked up a VC30 210 this evening.
   Must say, at home levels sounds bloody great. Looking forward to cranking it at the rehearsal room soon.

Jazzy_Jake

Best bang for the buck impractical amp has to be a 70s Twin Reverb - you can get one for under 800 quid if you shop around on eBay. They actually work well as a home amp at low volumes and obviously get very loud too. Easy to repair, epic reverb and trem.

They also give you a free workout every time you need to move them!

Dontgiveupyourdayjob

After years and years of only ever playing pretty budget solid state stuff, the first proper valve amp I ever played was a 68 reissue Princeton Reverb. Ever since then I've always just had it in my head that that is what a 'proper amp' is supposed to sound like.

Knowing that I love that Fender sound, my current amp is the nearest thing I can afford and that is practical for my uses - a Tonemaster Princeton Reverb.

munckee

My 65 princeton reissue, better than tone king gremlin, better than my 70s champ (due to reverb and tremolo and bigger speaker) previous blues juniors, have a super champ x 2 and have tried many other amps.  Hard to beat a princeton, especially with an attenuator for home.

Ultimately I'd like to get a 70s princeton so all hand wired for longevity plus older stuff>newer stuff.

Nerine

Schnozz said:

How often do you get these serviced, just out of interest?

When they sound bad. On the whole, so long as you don’t abuse them (and you don’t have an amp that has known reliability issues), valve amps are pretty reliable. I’m not sure “servicing” them is the right term really. There isn’t a schedule and it depends how much you use it. 

Occasionally you may need to change the output valves but even when I’m gigging often, I’d say that’s only once every 18-24 months and maybe longer if there are no issues and it sounds fine. 

This is in normal use cases. I’m not that guy that believes the amp has to be “cranked” or “dimed” or on ten to sound it’s best. 

Lebarque

5E3 with Celestion Blue

stylesforfree

Hard to say, over the past couple of years I have been through a few amps and kept a few......fender 68 deluxe reverb, supro saturn, supro jupiter, fender blues junior, supro black magick, supro amulet and a panama conqueror. I borrowed a Marshall DSL head for a short time too.

It depends on my use case and what I feel like recording. If I am using time based effects i'll go with the blues king, it's got a fair bit of head room and sounds very nice clean and the tone stack is usable but it's anything but modern sounding, which is fine because I hate modern sounding amps.

If I want to run overdrives and fuzz into the front i'll go with the 68 deluxe reverb or black magick.

If I want to just use the amp on it's own but need some tremolo and reverb for some weird trippy psychedelic stuff i'll go for the supro amulet.

If I want the small blown out speaker and fuzzy, raw spluttering sound then it's the panama conqueror.

One of the best amps I have heard was a marshall bluesbreaker that I tried out at my local store, incredible.

Supportact

Schnozz said:

How often do you get these serviced, just out of interest?

Not sure if that's a general question or for me (as i mentioned 'servicing'). The answer is I don't really,  not on any regular basis. If I buy one and it's a bit old, been modded, or has some problem,  then I'll get it looked at.

The AC15 if I remember had some slight issue with one of the knobs that control the tremolo, so I had that looked at and the tech I took it to also had a check over and cleaned the insides and so on while it was apart. 

I've got a couple of larger amps with a lot of valves in that need rebiasing when the valves are changed, but that only needs doing very rarely.  

Rowby1

Egnater Tweaker 15

Bought mine 13 years ago, gigged regularly ever since. 

I know they had a bit of a “smokey” reputation but mines been faultless. 

I’m of the firm opinion that if you can’t get a good sound out of one you’re doing something wrong. 

I paid £270 for it. 

InactiveX

stylesforfree said:

One of the best amps I have heard was a marshall bluesbreaker that I tried out at my local store, incredible.

They sound great when played clean - a BB doesn't just have one good sound which requires cranking. Very expansive and full-bodied. I love mine.

JayGee

On the grounds that I’ve owned it forever, never felt remotely inclined to trade it for anything, and it’s still the first thing I reach for to play outside the house it’s got to be my Mesa Express 5:25…

Schnozz

If you don't crank it and use it at home with pedals, would it need to be serviced less frequently or more?

I went looking for a Champ/Deluxe in Cardiff and I came away with a Blackstar HT5R.

Interesting to Mesa Boogie come up a few times - Looks like they pack a lot in there. 

Also interesting to see no AxeFX and Rivera etc.