I am a convert to small wattage amps

shaunm

I recently picked up two amps. One a Tweed Harvard made by Dan Whitelock-Jones and the other a Supro 64 Super. I’m absolutely blown away by how great they sound recorded. The dynamics of big amps are there but it’s manageable. Using the two together I am sure I could play a gig (given everything is mic’s up). 

Recorded they sound like much bigger amps. In fact in a lot of ways I much prefer the sounds I’m getting. I think it’s impossible to tell on recordings that it’s a small amp. 

It’s such fun too as you can get that crunchy tone of an amp working hard but it’s comfortable.  

RickLucas

It's the way forward. Champs for me all the way.

susbemol

This has always been the case.

Absolutely lots of iconic guitar sounds in all sorts of genres were played/recorded through Princetons, Tweed Deluxes and smaller amps.

shaunm

@susbemol absolutely. I just didn’t subscribe to it. I have used louder amps (not plexi loud) to record but honestly, I prefer what I’m hearing on the smaller amps. 

Side note, the Supro 64 Super is brilliant

susbemol

Yeah, I know what you mean.

It was quite the revelation when I experienced this as well.

ICBM

susbemol said:

Absolutely lots of iconic guitar sounds in all sorts of genres were played/recorded through Princetons, Tweed Deluxes and smaller amps.

This. There are two main reasons why they don’t sound small on records - first, close-mic’ing a speaker, even a small one, accentuates the low-end and largely removes the ‘cabinet in the room’ sound. Second, even if you record with a big amp, it’s normal to for the engineer to roll off most or all the low-end at the desk so the guitar doesn’t fight with the bass - so the big sound in the room tends to get lost anyway. Result - small amps and big amps sound more or less the same on records. It’s also surprising how thin and small even apparently ‘big’ guitar sounds can be if you isolate just the guitar track (Classic Albums is very revealing!) - it’s often the combination of guitar and bass that makes the guitar sound big.

The difference is more obvious playing live - but that’s also why trying to get a live sound the same as your favourite album tone is usually doomed to failure. They just aren’t the same, even though association with what’s being played can fool your brain into thinking they are (see also ‘tone is in the fingers’ ).

ScreamingDave

Can’t argue with the general sentiment, here.  My favouritest thing in the world right now is a 1W Blackstar valve amp

rlw

Supro 64 Reverb.  Best amp I’ve owned.  All 5 watts of it.

Motionslife

Big fan of my Carr Mercury 8W. Will never let go of it.

TheBigDipper

Motionslife said:

Big fan of my Carr Mercury 8W. Will never let go of it.

Me neither. It's my "home" amp and sounds great when mic'd up and recorded. But too loud for a house even at 2W if you're using the boosts or have the amp at full whack. 

andyman

I haven't tried any of those £1k+ low wattage ones, but so far I'm finding that louder actually equals better at home. I had a 1/4 watt "Killer Ant" that was still way, way too loud for a flat; currently I play a 100W Laney through an attenuator and it's surprisingly great clean. Might just be the master on the particular amp but don't people say bigger transformers == better bass?
Just upgrade my attenuator too and it's actually worth every penny.

Edit: I should say this is all home practice, not micing/recording. YMMV.

Gomers

I’m very much enjoying my recently acquired Vox AC10C1.  Looks cute too.

Litterick

Hiwatt Custom 7. Loud and clear.

Danny1969

I did hundreds of gigs with the little Blackstar HT5. Most were rock gigs but also did some RockaBilly a lot of pop / funk stuff. 
There are times where a little amp won't cut it though. At some bigger festival stages, where the monitor guy is a long way from you and comms is impossible you often have no choice but to crank the amp and move around the stage to get a playable balance of monitoring. That's not really possible with a small amp. In theory all amps are mic'ed up and you can have what you want through the wedges, so amp size makes no difference.  But with 15 min turnarounds, with an act doing a turn onstage WHILE you setup all this goes out the window and you have to just fend for yourself. It's a case of hear yourself and the drums, then you know your in tune and in time. Anything else is a bonus. 

With proper monitoring amps like the little Vox AC10C1 work very well. 

noisepolluter

I’ve realised I can’t do without some kind of secondary, post phase inverter master volume control à la Marshall DSL40CR/JVM, or the Orange Rocker 15 headroom/bedroom switch.

Granted, I use preamp rather than power amp crunch, with delays and reverbs in the loop. 

It’s not just about taming the volume easily, it also keeps the noise floor really low. 

GuyBoden

But, small amps distort far too easily and that's not the sound I want. I want clean, clean, clean.