Need New Guitar Amp: brutha's recommend!

[linus]

The solution is a Fender Silver-faced Vibrolux-Reverb. Vibrolux Reverbs are one of the sweetest amps ever made. Great power level ~ 40 watts from a pair of 6L6s into a pair of 10" speakers. Great clean sound, breaks up nicely when you crank it a bit (mine starts to growl if you hit it hard with the volume at about 4 or 5), and can do the Neal Young (my amp is going to explode) if you put some pedals in front of it. Very versitile.

The black-faces are wicked expensive (thank you SRV ) but the Silver faces are a relative bargin. Clean ones tend to go for $600-$700 but ones that are a little beat go for less, definitely in your price range. And honestly, the vibrolux reverb is one of the only circuits that CBS didn't really mess up. They pretty much left it alone. The differences between the black-face and silver-face Vibrolux Reverbs are pretty small. (The "reissue" Vibrolus Reverbs that have black-faces and white knobs are cool but a different beast all together. Not the same amp AT ALL.)

Trust me on this one...

[Meriphew]

Find yourself a used Mesa Blue Angel head. It sounds like a blend of a Bassman and an AC30. Great amp.

quite possibly the only Mesa I like.

Same here. I've had mine for about 8 years now and I've NEVER had any problems with it at all (still has the original tubes in it), and it's my main amp (other amps = Vox AC30 TBX, Bad Cat Mini Cat, Music Man 65 Reverb head). I can dial it in to sound very Voxy, or very Fender'ish. Great reverb on it too. There's a couple of 'em on ebay now.

[Meriphew]

Oh yeah, and the Blue Angel is very pedal friendly as well. Sorry if I sound like a Mesa sales person but I just really dig this amp.

[rabbidears]

look for an el84 based amp. bedrock made a cool 2x12 combo that i based on a ac 30 but has a o/d channel. i see them on ebay all the time for 450.00 they are 50 watts.

[gog]

look for an el84 based amp. bedrock made a cool 2x12 combo that i based on a ac 30 but has a o/d channel. i see them on ebay all the time for 450.00 they are 50 watts.

i agree... if you dig the vox thang, el84's are the ticket. actually, the fender pro junior is the only el84 based fender i know of, and it is 15 watts with tone and volume controls and 1x10. it sound great for recording and is loud enough to gig with a band with reasonable volume. they also make a blues junior (1x12 with reverb) that sound good too. great tone, 300-400 bucks new, i got mine for $150 used.

[covert]

Second the Hot Rod Deluxe. Also worth looking for some of the Mesa mark series. A mark II or III might be just the ticket.

[Catoogie]

Man, you've had a bunch of really great suggestions. I am a former amp snob and I think only one really, great, cool amp hasn't been mentioned, and that is Crate. Their Vintage Club series amps are way cool and come in a bunch of speaker/power/tube configurations. Crate has a new line that is getting a lot of great talk. I saw Billy Gibbons using their new VFX5212 amps. Oh yeah how about this.I almost forgot, Peavey Delta Blues: EL84's, 40 watts, reverb & tremolo.

Good Luck!

[mjau]

I've had three Laney amps, and while they all had an overdriven sound more like a Marshall or a Hiwatt (but not quite), as a clean amp they definitely had a Vox-ish charm (which is why I like them). As a recording amp, I love the LC15.

A used VC30 from ebay should leave you enough $ to put in an upgraded Celestion.

And in somewhat different direction, I had a small Orange 15 watt combo for a while, which was incredible but not quite Vox-sounding.

[kronosonic]

We just got through recording a THD Univalve at the University of MO and it sounded killer -- and you can get all sorts of sounds out of it due to the ability to put any kind of power tube in it.

It could be right in your budget and good for both live use as well as recording.

It's on my ever-expanding short list.

[comfortstarr]

I have a Peavey Classic 20 that's at least 10 years old. Great little amp. I mean surprisingly great.

As for ideas, has anyone played the Tech 21 Trademark 60? I know it's not tubes, but I've always dug the sansamp pedals. I wonder if it's good.

[tateeskew]

i will also recommend the Peavey Classic series amps and also the Peavey Delta Blues. i really cannot believe that peavey made such a great line of amps.

i also love my sovtek mig-60, but it's definitely in the marshall master volume amp soundstage, but it's dirt cheap.

oh, and there are a shit ton of mods for the peavey amps and they are well documented all over the web.

good luck!

[ottokbre]

my bass player is pretty loud, so I need to push a little air. 2x12 or there abouts should be fine.

I've played the Crate VC5212 and it was amazing sounding for the size/money. But again, I dont know if I want cut-corners PC board amps. The Peavy Classics could be the same, although I've literally shipped one around the world and it was fine, so I have a vote of confidence on that one.

I love the THD stuff, and if I can find a great deal on it, I would. I saw one the other day for 750. Not bad, amazing company too.

Anyone know of some good Gibson or other brand amps from the 60s 70s that might work?

[markee2004]

Well the 2 best amp companys are obviously Nailer, and Cornford.

I'd personally recommend the Cornford 'hot cat' as that's what i use. It's a really great amp with a very inspiring sound, it has a lot of harmonic overtones, that you can steal hear even when using heavy distortion. It's by far the best amp ever made in my opinion. For the clean sound alone it's worth the money (wich is quite alot).

If you're more into playing just riff stuff, I would probably get a different cornford amp. Or maybe a nailer, or mesa boogie.

[markee2004]

Well the 2 best amp companys are obviously Nailer, and Cornford.

I'd personally recommend the Cornford 'hot cat' as that's what i use. It's a really great amp with a very inspiring sound, it has a lot of harmonic overtones, that you can steal hear even when using heavy distortion. It's by far the best amp ever made in my opinion. For the clean sound alone it's worth the money (wich is quite alot).

If you're more into playing just riff stuff, I would probably get a different cornford amp. Or maybe a nailer, or mesa boogie, or a jcm 800 (even though it has a piss poor clean sound).

[Antero]

If he can swing a Cornford for $500 to $600, I'll be very impressed.