One amp to rule them all?

BigBearKris

I had DT25 and I think it's brilliant, brilliant amp. That comment about spending most time tweaking - I didn't get variax and HD pod and the amp itself was great. Gives You fender cleans with fair amount of headroom, marshall (park) broken tone and mesa high gain. Of course owning three of those original amps (there's also vox chime mode, but never used it) would probably (!) sound better, but portability and price is worth considering. From what you're saying You should be satisfied with DT series. Give it a go anyway. Other amps might be versatile, but here you've got 4 different voicings, and then You can play around with them. Once You'll find oity what you need You can consider going boutique.

koneguitarist

Carr slant v 6 combo is compact, sounds great clean or OD, loud enough to gig with noisy drummer, but still sounds sweet at home volumes. One for sale on here.

Drew_TNBD

For your needs, the DT25 gets my vote. They are really nice amps, with a lot of sounds in them. Couple it up with a Pod HD and you could have a pretty great rig for fairly little.

jd0272

Fusionista said:

JTM45.

Tho' I do fancy the Tremoverb.  And the Bad Cat Black Cat.

Even though I've already got more amps than I need.

I've had 2 JTM 45's, and at least 2 Bluesbreaker combo's. Loved them all and will prob's and up getting a clone JTM 45 with MV or summat.

At full flight they both offer the sound I want. But I found the reality of gigging them was that one couldn't achieve that sound in a decent sized boozer. And the THD Hotplate just killed 'em. So off they went.

Try an Egnater Rebel 30 head. My main squeeze and I'm nowhere near falling out of love with it. The Tweaker is too tweaky for me, but the R30 does the job, esp' mated with good pedals, tho I rarely use the pedals. Just my opinion.

ICBM

jd0272 said:

I've had 2 JTM 45's, and at least 2 Bluesbreaker combo's. Loved them all and will prob's and up getting a clone JTM 45 with MV or summat.

At full flight they both offer the sound I want. But I found the reality of gigging them was that one couldn't achieve that sound in a decent sized boozer. And the THD Hotplate just killed 'em.

The Hotplate is definitely the wrong attenuator for a JTM45/Bluesbreaker - the impedance curve goes in the wrong direction and the amp doesn't like it at all. A Marshall Powerbrake or a DrZ Airbrake works much better with them. Hotplates are best with Fender and Mesa-type amps, or later Marshalls.

jd0272

A wee bit too knowledgeable a wee bit too late! I'll lodge that in my grey matter tho, so thank ye.

Fusionista

jd0272 said

I've had 2 JTM 45's, and at least 2 Bluesbreaker combo's. Loved them all and will prob's and up getting a clone JTM 45 with MV or summat.

At full flight they both offer the sound I want. But I found the reality of gigging them was that one couldn't achieve that sound in a decent sized boozer. And the THD Hotplate just killed 'em. So off they went.

Exactly what I've got: MJW orion 4xKT66 with London Power Scaling. It's the cleans which do it for me.

firepaulmusic

Bogner Shiva 1x12 combo. If you can find a used one for around £1300-1500. EL34 but with great clean tp pushed on ch1 and superb drive with boost on ch2. Fx loop works great and reverb is really nice. Listen to 'Pink' live, her guitarist uses Shivas.

koneguitarist

If I had a choice of getting best sounds I could I would start with a fender, something like a sf twin or pro reverb, as it's difficult to get a real good clean sound from a high gain amp, then trawl through all the pedals for your OD and distortion tones. There are so many pedals available that you just have to find the right one for your guitar amp setup. With my old twin and tele, I used a Blackstone OD which was superb, but when I changed to a tweed bassman reissue,it didn't sound right.

ICBM

It does depend on the exact high-gain amp. Some use the same high-gain circuitry modified to give a clean sound, which is never going to give a great super-clean tone, but some use a completely separate signal path - basically a different preamp - and can be just as clean and just as good-sounding as a dedicated clean amp.

(Just to confuse things, an example of the first type is the original 2-channel Dual Rectifier, and an example of the second is the later 3-channel Dual Rectifier!)

I also don't think you can ever quite get the sound of a great high-gain amp - or even a great medium-gain amp - from even a truly outstanding pedal through a clean amp. There's more to it than feeding an overdriven signal through a power amp. To use the Dual Rectifier example again, one of the critical things about the Modern High Gain mode is that it turns off the negative feedback in the power amp - which is what gives that huge chunk and resonance - and you can't simulate that with any pedal in front of an amp with negative feedback no matter what you do, because it cannot change the power amp response. It's even true trying to get a classic Marshall sound through a Fender with pedals - you can get close, but it's never the same.

It depends how fussy you want to be though - I'm almost as happy using my Mesa V-Twin pedal though a provided Fender Twin, if it means I don't have to carry my Trem-o-verb. It's probably about 90% of the way there.

ThePrettyDamned

Ooo, how about those modular Randall amps? You plug in preamps.

So you can have a fender silverface clean channel, a Marshall jmp for dirt and a hot rodded Randall high gain.

Or just 3 different clean amps

Or anything you like

guitarfishbay

The cleans on my Roadster are great IMO. As far as I'm aware they are taken from the Lonestar amp.

Aidanspaghetti

No mention of Matchless yet?

Cannot go wrong with a 30W model (35-40 whatever!). 

Fan bloody tastic amps that can do almost everything (except metal).

Just another level to pretty much most things ive played (except a lovely old plexi and a nice old blackface fender).

Another option (plus you wont lose much on the resale if its not for you)

TheDarkLord

Aidanspaghetti said:

No mention of Matchless yet?

Cannot go wrong with a 30W model (35-40 whatever!) ......

I can't image that's gonna be an amp for all seasons though?  Remember, I'm after an amp that I can use at home without too many complaints plus play at small to medium-sized pub gigs.

IvisonGuitars

TheDarkLord said:

Aidanspaghetti said:

No mention of Matchless yet?

Cannot go wrong with a 30W model (35-40 whatever!) ......

I can't image that's gonna be an amp for all seasons though?  Remember, I'm after an amp that I can use at home without too many complaints plus play at small to medium-sized pub gigs.

I think @TheDarkLord is right here. A Matchless is one of the greats but a DC30 is a formidable beast for even medium/large gigs and the master Volume isn't that great for bedroom/home levels. Slinging one of those in and out of the back of a car/van very soon becomes tiresome. The SC30 would be a slightly move manageable size but even they are heavy lumps.

I'd be seriously thinking about a Hot Rod Deluxe, which seem to be the 'standard' these days for regular touring/gigging bands - reasonably priced, reasonable weight and a small pedal board of versatile stomp boxes. That'd be my suggestion for a medium budget, cover most bases rig.

*Just noticed your comment in the OP about having no budget - in that case it'd be a Lazy J40 and some choice boutique stomp boxes! :-)

ICBM

Aidanspaghetti said:

No mention of Matchless yet?

Cannot go wrong with a 30W model (35-40 whatever!). 

Fan bloody tastic amps that can do almost everything (except metal).

Just another level to pretty much most things ive played (except a lovely old plexi and a nice old blackface fender).

Another option (plus you wont lose much on the resale if its not for you)

They are fantastic amps, but they definitely won't do everything, not even including metal. I don't actually like them really - there's an upper-mid characteristic that jumps out too much and sounds too strident when I play them.

It is very much down to personal taste though - a friend of mine who has definitely found 'his sound' in the Matchless DC30 borrowed my Trem-o-verb recently, because he was possibly interested in an amp with more clean headroom... he hated it. When I got it back I plugged it in and tried it with his settings - horrible! I've never got such a bad sound out of it before. But when I listened more carefully, it was obvious he'd tried to make it sound like the Matchless, and it didn't want to. But the same is true the other way round as well - I can't get the Matchless to sound how I want, because I'm trying to make it sound like a Trem-o-verb. and it won't.

TheDarkLord

I have just noticed that the AC15 Hand Wired has a half power switch?  Hmmmm.  This could be an option.

A guitarist in a band I was in once had an old AC 30 ..... and it was so loud it hurt my head.  He couldn't really get it on its mojo without cranking it, which was never really suitable in the pubs we played.  So he put pedals in front of it and/or used an attenuator - which negated the tone of the amp a bit.

So ..... I'm figuring an AC15 hand wired might be an option?

Fusionista

Artisan 15 has some character and cuts through well.

Wazmeister

My amp journey has reached a new height this year, after many a trial, purchase and subsequent sale...

Carr Slant 6v - best BF of any that I have heard or played

Carr Sportsman - sweetest 6v6 tones ever Both stunning live, AND can be used at home volumes.

RichValentine

How about the Imperial 20th Anniversary model with the attenuator built in?