Are these little Ibanez valve amps any good?

Neil

Looking at another thread on here I came across this...

http://www.gak.co.uk/en/ibanez-tsa5-guitar-combo-amplifier/56910?gclid=COSKyPvRm7wCFQsCwwodjm4A6w

Looks extremely cheap for a valve amp with a tube screamer built in although I noticed it didn't seem to have a standby switch.

Any experience with these, any good?

57Deluxe

The Ibanez VALBEE line are a bit rubbish but the TA series sound surprisingly good - BUT they all suffer from buzzing circuits and some instrusively so - Google Noisy Ibanez amp etc... loads of moans

Yes - This looks as shit as sounds...

ICBM

A standby switch isn't necessary, just useful.

It's not really that cheap though - for a tenner less you could have an Epiphone Valve Junior and a Joyo Tube Screamer copy, which is a lot more flexible than having the pedal built into the amp… gives you the option to use them separately, or put other effects between the TS and the amp. (And includes the footswitch! which I bet the Ibanez amp doesn't.)

Dave_Mc

^ +1. I never understood getting it built-in. The vht special 6 would come in under budget too with the joyo od. some possible QC problems with them but out of the box (if you get a decent one) I'd say they're better than the valve junior (or at least the older version of the valve junior I have).

Neil

Thanks Gents, food for thought. 

jonnyburgo

I had the 15w version, Fendery flavour nice and punchy, stayed clean all the way to ten, If I had to criticise it I'd say the clean was so clinically clean as to be a little sterile. I'm not keen on TS's though.

dindude

Or you can have this new version that looks like an old TV set and costs a lot more! Does have reverb though which will help.

http://www.thomann.de/gb/ibanez_tsa5tvr.htm

jonnyburgo

I wouldn't even care if it sounded shite, I love it

Neil

dindude said:

Or you can have this new version that looks like an old TV set and costs a lot more! Does have reverb though which will help.

http://www.thomann.de/gb/ibanez_tsa5tvr.htm

It was actually a thread about those on here that got me looking at the TSA5