Buying my first valve amp.

YellowLedBetterMan

Just so people are aware. I have no idea what any of these words mean.

BeardyAndy

YellowLedBetterMan said:

Just so people are aware. I have no idea what any of these words mean.

Don't know about you but i'm also looking for a new amp with similar criteria to you and the options are starting to make my head hurt, I think I'm just going to jump in the car, try as many as I can and let my ears decide!

ICBM

YellowLedBetterMan said:

Just so people are aware. I have no idea what any of these words mean.

They mean 'try to avoid buying this amp'. Really. Anything with any onboard system called 'valve monitoring', 'auto biasing', 'tube saver' or anything like that.

The idea that valve amps need extra complex circuitry to make the valves run reliably is not only nonsense, it causes much worse problems when something goes wrong with the unnecessary circuit, up to and including writing the amp off because it's too expensive to replace the entire burned-out PCB it's on and too difficult to rebuild it in a simpler way without it. I've had to do that recently with a Peavey Valve King MkII, and I'm pretty sure one of the other techs here has as well with a Fender of some sort.

Mark1960

I have a peavey Classic 30 in very good condition I am looking to move on. Good clean channel, great drive channel with spring reverb. Recently had new valves fitted and balanced.

I was looking for £300, but would accept £250.00, if you are interested. I am based in Leicester

YellowLedBetterMan

Mark1960 said:

I have a peavey Classic 30 in very good condition I am looking to move on. Good clean channel, great drive channel with spring reverb. Recently had new valves fitted and balanced.

I was looking for £300, but would accept £250.00, if you are interested. I am based in Leicester

Thanks for the offer. Need some of my gear to sell first and want to do all my due diligence in the mean time. I did play a Valveking at Guitar Guitar not too long ago, and I thought it sounded ok but ear splittingly loud. Will keep it in mind though.

Mark1960

YellowLedBetterMan said:

Mark1960 said:

I have a peavey Classic 30 in very good condition I am looking to move on. Good clean channel, great drive channel with spring reverb. Recently had new valves fitted and balanced.

I was looking for £300, but would accept £250.00, if you are interested. I am based in Leicester

Thanks for the offer. Need some of my gear to sell first and want to do all my due diligence in the mean time. I did play a Valveking at Guitar Guitar not too long ago, and I thought it sounded ok but ear splittingly loud. Will keep it in mind though.

OK no problem. Thanks

YellowLedBetterMan

BeardyAndy said:

YellowLedBetterMan said:

Just so people are aware. I have no idea what any of these words mean.

Don't know about you but i'm also looking for a new amp with similar criteria to you and the options are starting to make my head hurt, I think I'm just going to jump in the car, try as many as I can and let my ears decide!

You'll have to let me know what you end up going for.

I'm currently very much leaning toward the Laney VC15. My dream guitar setup is a Gibson 335 and Vox AC30 a la Dave Grohl, Caleb Followill, countless blues players and others.

I suppose my Levin 335 copy and an amp that sounds sort of Voxy is a good place to start.

susbemol

It seems that quite a few Laney models are known to have high failure rates (judging by forum posts, etc) but if people like ICBM who handle this sort of thing think they are OK,  you'd probably be alright.

darthed1981

Im going to be the guy who comes in and says "why a valve amp"?

If you are mostly playing at home volumes, and i mean proper home volumes like I have to, then you will never get the lovely cooked tone of a valve amp, volume has a tone of its own.

Perhaps at least consider a Katana 50 or 100?

Cols

I’ve had a Laney LC15R for yonks and it’s great.  Loud enough for small gigs, small enough for practice and can drive an extension cab for a bigger sound.  Apart from periodic valve replacement and one service, it’s not needed anything.  Replaced the stock HH speaker with a Jensen, which did improve the sound.

Alternatively, I could suggest a Jet City 20w combo, which is excellent; Soldano design, EL84 based with a proper valve reverb.  If you can nip up to Manchester @jonnyburgo has one for sale for a scandalously low price (link below)

http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/141901/for-sale-trade-jet-city-20w-combo-100/p2

jonnyburgo

Cheers for that @Cols If you don't buy my Jet City though, I would really recommend a Traynor YCV20, its compact, all valve and sounds lovelyand fat on the clean channel with a bit of top end sparkle. Great amps and should come in at your budget.

ICBM

susbemol said:

It seems that quite a few Laney models are known to have high failure rates (judging by forum posts, etc) but if people like ICBM who handle this sort of thing think they are OK,  you'd probably be alright.

They’re OK - not brilliant, but not bad either, although there are better-made amps. They are cheap for a reason - they do cut corners quite a bit, but mostly in ways that don’t affect reliability too much. There is one model I would avoid, which is the LC15 - despite the similar name it’s not at all like the VC15, and is prone to problems.

One of the biggest irritations for techs is not actually a reliability fault, it’s that the vinyl cabinet covering is poorly stuck down - it always peels off inside and snags on the chassis when you’re trying to get it in or out... that might not sound like a big deal, but when you’ve worked on a few of them it becomes extremely annoying - it’s time-wasting and frustrating if they get really stuck.

YellowLedBetterMan

darthed1981 said:

Im going to be the guy who comes in and says "why a valve amp"?

If you are mostly playing at home volumes, and i mean proper home volumes like I have to, then you will never get the lovely cooked tone of a valve amp, volume has a tone of its own.

Perhaps at least consider a Katana 50 or 100?

In truth I have considered a Katana too. My gear is though that to get the best out of it you need to hook it up to a computer and piddle around with it, which all seems a bit too much of a faff for a simpleton like me.

Duppy03

YellowLedBetterMan said:

darthed1981 said:

Im going to be the guy who comes in and says "why a valve amp"?

If you are mostly playing at home volumes, and i mean proper home volumes like I have to, then you will never get the lovely cooked tone of a valve amp, volume has a tone of its own.

Perhaps at least consider a Katana 50 or 100?

In truth I have considered a Katana too. My gear is though that to get the best out of it you need to hook it up to a computer and piddle around with it, which all seems a bit too much of a faff for a simpleton like me.

It does make sense to think of some sort of solid state or hybrid if its mainly for home use. And if you like Vox tones check out the Vox AV30. Valve hybrid and all analogue, no software and modelling business to deal with.

YellowLedBetterMan

I have a rare free day today so headed into my local PMT. They have a used Peavey Valveking 212 for £195, a Fender excelsior for £250 and an Egnater Tweaker 15 head and cab for £300. They also have a load of used Black Star HT1s for sale.

NelsonP

darthed1981 said:

Im going to be the guy who comes in and says "why a valve amp"?

If you are mostly playing at home volumes, and i mean proper home volumes like I have to, then you will never get the lovely cooked tone of a valve amp, volume has a tone of its own.

Perhaps at least consider a Katana 50 or 100?

Yes, for the 'solely in the house' use case this would be a better option I think.  For home use even a 1 watt valve amp can be way too loud.

A Katana* also has several advantages:
- Built in effects (from Boss, so they are very good)
- It has various different selectable power ranges down to 0.5 watts and you can even plug your headphones into it if needed.
- It has an aux in so you can play backing tracks into it and jam along to them. Much more fun and a better challenge than endless noodling.
- You get much more flexibility than with a valve amp - cleans, crunch, dirt
- You can also use them as an acoustic amp (or even an FRFR for a modeller if you plug your modeller into the FX return)

I'd go for the 100w version, rather than the 50w, as it has more preset slots and an effects loop (which may be useful down the line).

*Other modelling amps are available - e.g. Fender Mustang, Line 6 Spider, Blackstar ID, Marshall Code, Vox AV.
However the Katana seems to be the most highly rated.

Edit: One for sale on here for £130....
http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/147850/fs-boss-katana-100w-reduced#latest

simonk

YellowLedBetterMan said:

I have a rare free day today so headed into my local PMT. They have a used Peavey Valveking 212 for £195, a Fender excelsior for £250 and an Egnater Tweaker 15 head and cab for £300. They also have a load of used Black Star HT1s for sale.

The Excelsior is an oddity with the stock speaker and without having had the tone switch mod done. By the time you put a better speaker (more efficient) in there it’s brutally loud. So, I’d rule that one out unless you’re keen on the stock sounds.

YellowLedBetterMan

So in PMT, I explained the situation to a lad working there. He helped me pick out a few amplifiers and allowed me to play whatever I liked the look of. I took notes in my phone of everything I played:

 - Fender Bassbreaker 007 - took 10 minutes trying to get it to work. Concluded one of the valves had blown, put it in the back with a note to send back to Fender. Grade N/A.

 - Blackstar HT1 Combo - First impressions were good, but I put that down to it being the first amp I heard. Did medium crunch quite well, but clean not so much. Seemed to also clip/compress quite heavily when I put a Boss BD-2 into it and it lost a lot of definition and sounded muddy. I don't think the tiny speaker did it many favours in sounding like an organic amp. Not the worst, but not the best either. Grade C.

 - Blackstar HT5 Combo - A considerable step up from the HT1. Sounded pretty big and the clean tone was usable, if a little uninspiring. Again, it's strength came when putting gain into it, and I particularly enjoyed the clean channel with the gain near max, and the OD channel with the gain around half way. Let down by it's crap built-in reverb and general dark sounding nature. Grade B-

 - Albion something or other - Sounded OK. Looked horrid though, and after the experience with the Fender I worried about how much of a ball ache it would be if something went wrong with it. Plus they wanted £340 for it, and nowhere does them second hand. Grade C.

 - Peavey Valveking 212 - I loved the sound of it. Sounded exceptionally good when I put the BD-2 into it. I know for sure though that I wouldn't be able to keep it at home without a noise complaint from the rest of the village. Grade B.

 - Orange Tiny Terror Combo - Hated it. Too much gain and shredtastic for me, played 4 chords and put it back. Grade E.

 - Vox AC15VR - Sounded ace, got very close to that Vox tone, but there was something different in the way it sounded. Until this point was the nicest amp I tried. Grade A-.

 - Vox AC4TV - Sounded sort of Voxy, but felt like the 4w mode was too clean and the 1w and less than 1w settings had absolutely no headroom at all and especially the less than a watt setting I could hear the guitar louder than the amp. Tiny speaker sounded tinny too. Grade C

 - Marshall Origin 5 combo - Uninspiring. It didn't sound Marshall-esque gainy, nor Fendery clean. Better than some of the amps I tried, but still not super. Grade B.

I didn't try out the Tweaker, although the lad in the shop showed me a picture of him using the tweaker 30 combo and he said he loved it. To be fair to him, he also said the Excelsior wasn't really the best and some of the other amps in the shop were more worth the money.

So, I thought I was done and settled on one of the Vox amps, until Mr PMT man threw in the curveball many of you here have. I tried the Boss Katana 100. As expected it took me 10-15 minutes to find a sound I liked, but once I found it I was set. Clean channel, gain just over half way, built in Blues Driver effect, little bit of reverb. Awesome. No it didn't sound like a Vox, and some of the built in effects were a bit underwhelming (particularly some of the drives and modulations), and it did a weird noise gatey thing, but still the tone from the amp was killer. On the 0.5w setting It had all the volume I would want for home use, I could crank it up to the 50w if I was home alone and should I ever go mad and decide to join a band, the 100w I can imagine being loud enough for pretty much any venue. Grade A.

Moral of the story - Maybe it isn't a valve amp I want, but a really good digital. My only concern would be whether it took pedals well, as I don't want the little collection of effects I have bought to go to waste.

Also - I'd like to take this opportunity to recommend PMT Birmingham. Their staff are incredibly helpful, passionate and I've never in my 6 years of shopping there for bass, live equipment and now guitar, felt pressured into buying anything there. They're very happy to allow you to try anything you like and let the gear sell itself.

uncledick

Top write-up.  Always good to see.

BeardyAndy

So, I thought I was done and settled on one of the Vox amps, until Mr PMT man threw in the curveball many of you here have. I tried the Boss Katana 100. As expected it took me 10-15 minutes to find a sound I liked, but once I found it I was set. Clean channel, gain just over half way, built in Blues Driver effect, little bit of reverb. Awesome. No it didn't sound like a Vox, and some of the built in effects were a bit underwhelming (particularly some of the drives and modulations), and it did a weird noise gatey thing, but still the tone from the amp was killer. On the 0.5w setting It had all the volume I would want for home use, I could crank it up to the 50w if I was home alone and should I ever go mad and decide to join a band, the 100w I can imagine being loud enough for pretty much any venue. Grade A.

Out of interest, what guitar were you using?