What's the amp you owned that you thought would be GREAT, but it was actually PONY?

Nerine

For me, it would have to be the Budda Super Drive 80 II head.

I was expecting a large Marshally, brute. Lots of chewy tone, biting top end, big bass response, lots of gain, nice feel under the fingers... Etc etc.

Instead it was horrid.

I thought it was broken.

Raspy, Harsh, yet difficult to dial in enough top end presence as there is no control for it. Not that much gain, a very harsh voicing, nearly impossible to use quietly or even at loud TV volumes, "rhythm" channel was laughable.
The channel switching was dire and completely useless.
I'm struggling to find any positives about it.
It wasn't even THAT loud. People bang on about Buddas being hellishly loud. It isn't. It's just the volume taper is crap. There's about three volume settings on the amp.

"Pin drop with no bass, just treble"
"Uncomfortable practice"
"Full"

The whole amp was just a complete basket of waste.

So pleased I got rid of the poxy thing. Bullet well dodged.

The CAA that replaced it, OH MY WORD!!! It just gets better and better!! Absolutely in love with the thing!

Nerine

I should add that I found the Bogner Ecstasy a bit of a disappointment and subsequently returned it to the shop, and the Mark V was also pretty bland and dull if I'm honest. I've had heaps more that I've liked, and some that have left me cold.

I'd sooner take 1 or 2 exceptional channels over loads of options and excursion switches and rectifier options etc etc.

The CAA, to me does everything beautifully.

Flanging_Fred

I thought a 50w JCM 800 would be great but when I got it I was disappointed to find that I STILL couldn't play like Michael Schenker

chrishill901

Marshall DSL50 for me. Really don't know what fuss is about. Why they made one channel unusably bad and so different to the other channel that it's pointless switching is beyond me...

digitalscream

Randall NB King-112 30W combo. It was supposed to be a 3-channel, perfect-for-me amp since I'm a total Nuno fanboy...turned out to be absolutely useless. Granted, it had the best clean channel I've ever encountered in an amp...everything else, though, was bloody awful. The crunch channel was thin and scratchy, fizzy and nasty or boomy and muddy depending on how the EQ was set, and the lead channel - sharing the EQ with the crunch channel and not voiced particularly differently - was exactly the same.

I was gutted.

Turns out that rather than being a 30W version of the NB King 100 head, they're actually randomly different depending on when they were made. Ugh.

ICBM

Mesa/Boogie Mk III.

It was about the most high-end amp in the world at the time (late 80s). They said "the three great guitar tones - Fender Clean, Marshall Crunch and Boogie Lead, with flawless footswitchable accuracy" … or some such marketing BS.

Because it's actually a one-channel amp with switchable gain levels and all the controls are massively interactive, it's impossible to set it up for more than one great sound at once - two good ones is tricky, and three is impossible even using the graphic EQ. You can just about get a decent clean and lead at the same time. Not only that, the Fender clean tone isn't really very Fendery, and it can't do anything like a Marshall crunch sound at all. It does do a great Boogie lead tone… but I quickly found that I don't like Boogie lead tones.

Luckily I was able to return it before I'd fully paid for it. It put me off Mesa as a brand almost permanently… it was only much later after the Rectifier series came out that I discovered those were the best amps ever for me - but I never even tried one for about five or six years because I assumed they would be like the Mark.

vasselmeyer

Orange Tiny Terror. All the reviews were great so I took a punt on one SH and moved it on after a week. I really didn't like the sound at all and because it was single channel, that's all it did.

timmysoft

So many amps! Peavey 5150, ultimately bland and made all my guitars sound the same. The biggest let down for me was the Blackstar series 1, waited ages for the release and all I saw was bad build quality and horrible lifeless tones.

crunchman

Brunetto Maranello - harsh sounds, difficult to fix.

Si_

Marshall JVM410.. the ultimate marshall, but I found it harsh, VERY noisy, and a pain to work with.. I've had 2 of them and hated them both.

ecc83

timmysoft said:

So many amps! Peavey 5150, ultimately bland and made all my guitars sound the same. The biggest let down for me was the Blackstar series 1, waited ages for the release and all I saw was bad build quality and horrible lifeless tones.

Yes, those pots on the early runs were a big mistake! Better now I assure you.

Tones? Well many, many people seem happy, even "OTM" with the S Ones. Maybe give one another chance?

Dave.

Si_

You can say that about any amp.. it's all down to personal preference.. Loads of people love JVMs, Mark Vs and both are mentioned in this thread.

timmysoft

ecc83 said:

timmysoft said:

So many amps! Peavey 5150, ultimately bland and made all my guitars sound the same. The biggest let down for me was the Blackstar series 1, waited ages for the release and all I saw was bad build quality and horrible lifeless tones.

Yes, those pots on the early runs were a big mistake! Better now I assure you.

Tones? Well many, many people seem happy, even "OTM" with the S Ones. Maybe give one another chance?

Dave.

I have tried a lot of them, i tech'ed for a band that were Blackstar endorsees and found the gear pretty unreliable and just very bland. The series 1's are not a cheap amp, for the price of one you can get far superior amps from Orange, Marshall, Laney, Jet City etc. I'd rather play a valveking than a series 1, thats how much i dislike them.

bertie

three guesses ?

ICBM

bertie said:

three guesses ?

Fender?

Blues?

Junior?

keithf

marshall 6100 i think,3 channels of really bad marshall tone,Also a tsl 100.Neither really sounded like

a marshall to my ears,

Meh.:(

 

p90fool

ICBM said:

bertie said:

three guesses ?

Fender?

Blues?

Junior?

Lol me too, but mainly because it sounds like a worn-out Vox rather than a Fender, and it's 200 quid too expensive.

I also couldn't stand Mk111 Boogies either, I had to use them as part of a some deal years ago and they beamed like a friggin' laser. The two audience members EXACTLY in front of it would have a "I want you to die, Mister Bond" session while neither I nor anyone else could hear it at all. Nasty, nasty, nasty.

ThePrettyDamned

Technically didn't own it, but very nearly did - I paid for it, just needed to pick it up.

Went to the store, and the brand new EHX 44 magnum was ready for me to test. Plugged a pod in, powered it up, and... It broke.

Oh well, says the shop assistant, let's try another one.

That one didn't even power up.

I love electro harmonix as they are a quality company that innovates, but I wouldn't touch one of their amps now. Shame really.

guitarfishbay

vasselmeyer said:

Orange Tiny Terror. All the reviews were great so I took a punt on one SH and moved it on after a week. I really didn't like the sound at all and because it was single channel, that's all it did.

PGS Andy's demo convinced me to buy one of these.  It didn't work for me either and I moved it on as quickly as you did.  Looking back I'm not sure why I bought it because the spec doesn't really suit what I need!

monquixote

I've never owned a bad amp, but I've played a few where I thought WTF?

The studio I used to practice at had all JCM900s which were alrightish and the guy who owned it made a big deal about how he was getting some JCM2000s which at the time were brand new (I can't remember if it was TSL or DSL which ever came first). 

We came in the following week to find an amp with about 50 knobs on it none of which seemed to make it sound anything other than dead and muddy. We asked him if we could have the JCM 900s back and he was really pissed off. 

He also got a load of AVTs which were just fucking horrible things. 

We ended up using the JC120s they had with a RAT and a Guvnor+ in the end. This baffled the bloke at the studio who considered it a "keyboard amp"

axisus

I got an H&K switchblade from eBay without even trying one out. Reasonable price, and one of my heroes, Thomas Blug, uses H&K. Plus it had built in effects (which I like) and lots of save slots. It wasn't actually bad, I just never bonded with it. My son liked it but it had to go. 

PX'd it for a Blackstar ID head and cab which I absolutely love to bits. Perfect for my needs!