For playing at home would you buy...

57Deluxe

Dominic said:

I'm lucky......my practice/studio space is a soundproofed ex-milking parlour on our farm

Bet you don't have a Badger in sight then...

Dominic

Actually we have loads of Badgers..........the herd was destroyed during the BSE crisis 20 years ago and it hasn't been a dairy farm since (hence ex-milking parlour )although we had a short spell with 4500 Goats when it was let to a tenant farmer producing cheese. Their surname was Geddy and it was known as The Geddy Goats.Badgers Welcome although we do have a feisty Dachsund called Pretzel ...(Dax were traditionally bred to that shape for going down badger warrens ) so we have to keep an eye on her.

jacksparrow

Princeton reverb for home use.

Logie

Boss Katana 50. All you need for the home and practise and it's pretty small and unintrusive.

57Deluxe

@Dominic

Dominic

I knew that was the pun

shaunm

So I may be on my own with this but I don’t plug my guitars in as a rule because I have a baby in the house and when she is asleep regardless of which amp I use or even the iPad at a volume where I can hear it clearly over the strings of my guitar it’s too loud.

So I play unplugged in the house. 

Limehouse_Blues

I use a boss GT1 with headphones and a brunetti Singleman in 1W mode when I want to wind up the neighbors 

57Deluxe

This  II  and have whatever I wanted!
          \/

jacksparrow

^ Are you one of them Legal Gypsies.

Phil_aka_Pip

A Powerbrake for the 100W head

dindude

Valve amp and pedals of your choice with UA OX. Expensive but the amount of time and money I’ve spent on inferior headphone/low volume solutions over the years......

Alvin

  I have a couple of valve amps , both 5w both (one ridiculously) to loud to use properly in the home .  The one can be used-  and i did for a couple of years but i always thought i wasn't using it's full potential . 

  I had bought a Crate Powerblock when they were selling them off and thought i should actually try and use it (it had sat in it's box for about 5 years unused) .  If you read reviews of the Powerblock they do seem to get slagged off , but they are a poweramp they are not meant to colour anything (unless you go through headphones) .  

   I have now been using it for about 3-4 years and on the odd occasions i have used the valve amps again ,but  i have just thought - what's the point .

    But it is not an amp to be used on it's own so i use either a Boss VF-1 or Roland  Gp100 with pedals going in to them for the drive  . The rack units are just to give it an amp flavour and also a bit of delay and reverb .

   It works for me , i really don't want to be loud at home i would just find that tiresome and i do think of the neighbours .   Pedals work really well in this set up (for me) even though there are no valves .

     The Powerblocks are not supposed to be reliable - i have had no problems so far but i guess it won't last forever so i will probably get something like a Katana 50  ,  i was also thinking the DV Mark Micro 50 but not sure how well that one would do low volume .   

  

munckee

I've just been playing my Princeton 68 custom in the lounge of my 70s semi with drive pedals. Fine for home volume. Maybe not with baby asleep of course!

MentalSharps

Best option: used valve amp (depending on your taste + budget) + reactive loadbox (depending on your budget) + Monitor speakers or high quality headphones. 

For home use, at £200 Two Notes Captor is seriously good value for money as you can either use it as a loadbox into your PC/IR loader to listen on monitors / headphones, or if you want to play through your cab you can use it as a -20dB attenuator (or play un-attenuated).

If you need more variety of tones, a Fractal or Kemper + monitors / headphones.

If those our are out of your budget, then Scuffham S-Gear or Helix Native + monitors / headphones.

Both offer a 15 day free trial so you can compare and see if you want the extra features that make Helix cost 3x the price.

rico

I’d get a good valve combo of your favourite flavour (Marshall/Fender/Orange etc) with a decent master volume and some good drive pedals. 

Alvin

  I have also tried my valve amps with an attenuator , but you do loose something , using them like that didn't seem to work for me .  It is probably something to do with a certain volume required for us to hear properly and for all the gear to work together well . 

  For the volume level i use the rack units and Powerblock have been my solution , these can kick out some volume but work fine very low .  I know it's not the best sound but it works.       I guess i am doing what home Kemper users do just with older less sophisticated gear .

Alvin

  This has just reminded me ,  i used to have a Johnson Millenium 2 x 12 combo amp , i still have the cab , i use everything through that but the amp section itself packed up long ago so i chucked it .  They sounded pretty sweet but were ridiculously heavy .  I used that low also , the big problem with that though as it was completely silent , you could turn it on and if you were on the wrong patch and didn't know it  the volume could almost knock you over .   Clean Fender type sounds were great on that though but it wasn't really practicle to big and to heavy.

bugileman

Since I found my Maine amp I just can't get enough of this cracking amp. Very versatile amp clean through to overdrive. There was a 2x8 version but yet to see one. Mine is a 2x10 version 'stage' series. I quite like the Yamaha THR C too for its compact size.

Lodious

Boss Katana.

If your wife doesn't like the asthetics, buy the half stack first, she will then be fine with a Katana.