Hi looking at getting a valve amp as I'm returning to gigging it's gonna be micced (miced? cant spell lol!) so volume doesn't matter too much just a good sound. I've got pedals so I don't really need a drive channel. I was thinking a Fender blues jr but was wandering if the couple of cheaper amps I found would do the job as well (or better!). I found a peavey valve king ii on offer for £339 and a blackstar HT club 40 deluxe for £449 so was just wandering if anyone has had any experience with these amps or had any other suggestions around the £500 mark as unfortunately I can't stretch my budget much further. Wedding band music so need to be fair versitile but pedals will cover most stuff
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I've been gigging this rig recently and it's superb:
https://m.thomann.de/gb/jet_city_amplification_jca20hv_bundle_2.htm?o=17&search=1495964989
Plenty of change in your budget to uograde the speaker too. I put a Jensen Neo in mine.
Some people do like the Blues Junior, but most don't. It's also not particularly well-made and is one of the less reliable Fender amps, and is hugely overpriced for what it is. The Peavey is reasonably well-made but I've never come across anyone who really likes the sound of it.
Blackstars are a bit 'Marmite' too, but a better bet than either of those.
If you want a Fender, get a second hand Hotrod Deluxe, you can easily find them in perfect condition for well under £500, and they're in a totally different league from the Blues Junior for tone, versatility and reliability. The only slight disadvantage is that they're a bit bigger and heavier, but still quite manageable.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
What about a used Mesa Rectoverb 50 combo? Very versatile, very loud if you need it to be. They usually go for around £600ish but if you look around you may find one for less.
A jet city custom 22 is really cool, cleans and high gains covered. There is a bigger one but can't remember the name if you want more headroom. Nice small head.
@ICBM won't like this suggestion but I had a Laney Lh50 for a while. It was a medium size head so nice and portable, a wonderful clean channel, excellent classic rock dirt channel, good eq, bright switch, global tone control (probably a presence control, but very useful).
It has a smaller style of transformer to the norm, a toroidal one, so it's quite a bit lighter and smaller than a normal 50 watt head. Mine was reliable, just needed new valves once and was played most days and weekly at high volume. Brilliant amp, available used very cheaply and probably around £500 new.
This does come across as me hating Peavey - nothing could be further from the truth! I'm a big fan of their products in general - they're mostly well-built, well-priced, reliable and sound good. But the Valve Kings and the Classic 30 are among their worst amps, in my opinion. The C30 runs too hot, rattles, eats power valves, and if it does go wrong it's a pig to work on. The Valve King doesn't have those faults but sounds lifeless and quite 'solid-state' - ironically, more so than many of their actual solid state amps, most of which are really good. (The Classic 50 is also very different from the C30, in the same way as a Hotrod is much better than a Blues Junior.)
They aren't bad, it's true. As you know I'm not a big fan of Laney due to their 'just good enough to get by' build quality, and a few really daft bits of design, like the worst FX loop on any modern amp… but they're OK really. I've never been inspired by the sound, I have to admit.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The lh50 is a brilliant sounding amp, especially the cleans. The crunch is... Sort of like an average of classic 70s and 80s crunch sounds, bit of a jack of all trades.
Can't comment on build as I never had a problem, but I really liked it. The effects loop on this one was, iirc, switchable from series or parallel and you could pad it - 10db too. Could be wrong... I'll look for a pic.
Edit: it's an "insert" loop, not sure what that means... It can be hard bypassed, 0db or - 10db.
So not the worst in the world, but if it's parallel someone needs sacking.
You could get a used Laney Lionheart within £500 (despite IC's reservations ) which would probably be a better choice if you wanted (non metal) drive from the amp itself. There were UK and Chinese made versions (I think HRDs were US then Mexican made? Peavey production also went primarily to China)and the UK version had a slightly better speaker and proper spring reverb although, I think, the fx loop problem was fixed by the Chinese.
£500 is reasonably bottom dollar for a valve amp although that Jet City set up that @simonk posted a link to seems to be the exception. If you only want to buy new that must be the best deal going.
If volume isn't much of an issue a Fender Pro Jr is just over £500 new and seems to be better regarded than the Blues Jr(Jeff Beck for his rockabilly stuff for example) or the Yerasov GTA15 which is based on the Pro, somewhat cheaper and gets a lot of love ( although you'd have to buy sight unseen and resale value might, I'm guessing, be a bit dodgy).
I've only once, IIRC, played through a Blackstar Club. I thought it looked nice but seemed to have a truly terrible clean sound - the classic Joe Bonamassa blanket over the speaker tone. But YMMV.
At the risk of listing every amp on the market - wild card would be the bigger Orange Crush amps. Under £400 for the 60 watt combo.
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/97544/fs-genz-benz-black-pearl-30-1x12-combo#latest
The yard is nothing but a fence, the sun just hurts my eyes...
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/91407/fs-mesa-express-5-50-1-x-12-mark-i-600#latest
*Whistle*
The amazing thing was that they didn't use amps, they used Line 6 Pods into their PA and only had a few pedals on the floor.
So I'll throw out a weird suggestion and say, maybe a Line6 HD Live floor unit into the PA.
What more do you need?
I'm a big fan of the Kustom Coup 36 (and 72). Great cleans, excellent drive channel, fab reverb, and can be had as cheap as chips. I've had two, paid under £200 both times.
Smaller and lighter than a HRD. Just as powerful, built in boost for lead, excellent build quality. Looks great too! Upgrade the speaker to a Cannabis Rex, deep joy.
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifiers-effects/kustom-36-coupe-guitar-combo-amp