What Amp Did You Expect To Be Rubbish But Surprised You?

hotpickups

I'm hoping for the new Roland blues cube that's out in January to surprise me. Sceptical about it but it could just be amazing

Voxman

dilbert;433052" said:

Marshall Valvestate 8240. I know it is de rigeur to hate these but I loved it.

Me too! I bought my Marshall Valvestate 1x12 mk1 '80v' 8080 when it first came out, and similarly it was my gigging amp for many years. It still sounds really good even today and wasn't Marshall's top selling amp of all time for nothing. I still have it and was even playing it this afternoon. Built like a tank, superbly reliable, loud, and with a nice two channel layout plus fx loop and spring reverb. Only thing that ever had to be done on mine was some pot replacements. Its still my go to backup amp and the Celestion G12-T75 speaker really suits it well. And its actually pretty light for its size.

The 8240 was I think the 40w stereo version with chorus. The mk1 Valvestates were the best versions Marshall made; the later versions just didn't sound as good.

p90fool

randomhandclaps said:

This is a bit harsh as I didn't expect it to be completely rubbish, just 'meh', but the Jet City 22 head. I saw one for sale locally for £130 a few weeks back and thought what the hell, and grabbed it with the intention of modding it. Fuck me though for a low budget valve amp there are so many great rock tones to be had as standard. It an epic little amp that in my opinion kills everything else in it's price category even purchased new.

I bought a new JCA20H just for a bit of modding fun too, and I haven't bothered either, other than chucking in some old Mullard 12ax7s.
It sounds great, and now that my Princeton is in the "gigging pile" in the hallway I now have a beefy-sounding halfstack as my main practice amp!

JayGee

Youngest Son's Fender Frontman 65 DSP - Nice Fendery cleans on the clean channel and some of the sounds on the modelling channel (the Tweed based ones in particular) aren't too shabby either...

FX_Munkee

Voxman said:

dilbert;433052" said:

Marshall Valvestate 8240. I know it is de rigeur to hate these but I loved it.

Me too! I bought my Marshall Valvestate 1x12 mk1 '80v' 8080 when it first came out, and similarly it was my gigging amp for many years. It still sounds really good even today and wasn't Marshall's top selling amp of all time for nothing. I still have it and was even playing it this afternoon. Built like a tank, superbly reliable, loud, and with a nice two channel layout plus fx loop and spring reverb. Only thing that ever had to be done on mine was some pot replacements. Its still my go to backup amp and the Celestion G12-T75 speaker really suits it well. And its actually pretty light for its size.

The 8240 was I think the 40w stereo version with chorus. The mk1 Valvestates were the best versions Marshall made; the later versions just didn't sound as good.

Yup me too, I bought an 8080 as a stop gap. I think it was around about when they first came out 1991?
I still have it. Have replaced all the pots and treated it to a shiny new valve and that's about it.
Also Marshall kindly sent me (gratis) a new switch for the front panel, when it broke during the pot change.