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A question that’s been asked a 1,000 times. Lower wattage amps with good cleans loud enough for a band situation. Maybe this just isn’t possible?
I play an Orange Dual Terror, and use a 1x12 cab currently. It’s a Harley Benton cab, with a Celestion. Not great, but does the job.
It's not heavy metal I'm playing, so it's not as if I'm fighting for volume all the time. It gets loud from time to time though.
The Dual Terror has plenty of volume when I need it, but I’m kind of *meh* about it, and I never go near the 30watt setting, and never use the distortion, which, to be fair, is very good, if that’s what you want.
I had been thinking of a Blues Junior III / Pro Junior III / AC15 , one of those, and I’d get a cab to have on hand.
Weekend just gone, I played a gig with an Orange Tiny Terror 15w combo. It was near impossible to get a clean sound out of it. It just didn’t seem to have the headroom. Not sure if it’s the small speaker or it’s just not meant to do cleans. I just couldn't get it to project properly.
When I turned the gain down low enough, there was no real “poke” in the sound. It was weak.
I remember I had a Fender Blues Deluxe and a Peavey Classic 30 yrs ago, and both had a lot more body with their clean sounds. (obvious reasons for that)
To end a long rambling post. I guess I should maybe abandon my Blues Junior III / Pro Junior III / AC15 thoughts and go for something that’s at least 20 watts?
I’m aware of the Laney Lionheart 20, and some of the higher end Fender options etc.
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Comments
Switchable from 5, 15 or 25w. I regularly play on 15w at rehearsal and it easily gets over the drummer on the clean channel . I play it through a 1x12 MJW cab with an Eminence Wizard in it and the volume knob never gets even halfway.
An efficient speaker can really help - the Wizard is rated at about 103db sensitivity and is ' kin loud.
I did have a solid state Orange Crush head which sounded decent, but was WAY too heavy to lug around...
A more efficient speaker might also help squeeze out a bit more volume/bass
Exactly, depends HOW loud and HOW clean. IMHO 30W into 100dB/W/mtr speakers (and 2 is better than one) is the minimum for most venues and drummers etc. That said, much depends upon amplifier design. Big output traffs and a meaty power supply is needed. You can get a jeeust clipping at 30W/1kHz amp but it might not sustain that power if you want a thick, ballsy sound. Voicing and pre amp design can also be a factor.
No accident that those amps known for clean but loud have a "60" somewhere in their sobriquet! (ICBM likes 'em big!)
Dave.
I'd mic the amp almost always in the bigger venues.
Some nice SS combos out there from Roland, Quilter, Peavey, DV Mark,etc.
If you need valve, then try a Laney VC30-210 - it's smaller and lighter than the 2x12 version, it's 2 channel and it has glorious bell like chimey cleans with lots of headroom - and its loud! You can pick up a used one for around £250 (the ones with the 2 x 10 Jensen C10Q16 speakers are excellent).
I have a Laney Cub12R (15w) that I've upgraded with a JJ re-tube and a Celestion Vintage 30 (100dB) - and although this is only 15w single channel, it's darned loud (probably the equivalent of a 25-30w amp with a 97dB speaker) and has a lovely bell-like clean up to a pretty respectable volume before moving into crunch territory. I've gigged with it, using the amp for cleans and pedals/MFX for distortions etc and I've had plenty of volume & headroom.
Of course, clean also depends on your guitar - as you know, humbuckers will break-up a lot quicker than single coils with any amp.
Hmmm, The Laney cubs look interesting.
My Princeton Reverb is loud enough and has great cleans, but needed a speaker and transformer upgrade to get there. But even with just the speaker it held up better than most 15w EL84 combos I've used (Laney VC15, Blues Junior etc).
This one was with a Strat, clans at the beginning: