best small valve amp for home/practise use?

Hootsmon

not your very small teeny weeny jobs but something with a 10" speaker say.....

TheBigDipper

Got a budget in mind? I have a Cornford Harlequin at home and really like it, but it isn't for everyone, apparently. 

Sassafras

Princeton Reverb.
Still bloody loud though.

Hootsmon

any love for the CUB 10?

Jimbro66

I tried a Vox AV30 when I popped into a local music shop and was impressed for the price. 10" speaker, fairly light and compact, sounded good. (The AV15 less so). It could also be attenuated down to bedroom levels AND has a headphones socket. Ideal for home practice.

kreggs

Laney vc15 has a 10 inch speaker i believe

Chuffola

Try the Fender Bassbreaker 15 combo. 12" speaker but I love mine for home use - great sweep on the volume so goes quiet to loud smoothly, unlike most Fender amps.

Great reverb, clean to fairly high gain. FX loop. 

Easily the best home valve amp I've had. Definitely worth trying out - although not particularly small, its not huge.

AndyR

hootsmon said:

any love for the CUB 10?

Fantastic amp, I bought the CUB12R though, was a lot more versatile for what I wanted. Ideally I'd have bought both. 

kreggs

hootsmon said:

any love for the CUB 10?

Cub 10 has the 6v6 output valves for that blackface  type vibe. I hear it sounds really nice.

merlin

I have a Blackstar HT5R for sale. It has a 12" speaker and IMHO the best sounding Blackstar out there! 

Wazmeister

Carr Sportsman

Babones

For what tone? Fender/Marshall?

Clean? Almost anything. Dirty? Something with power scaling. I'm a fan of Cornells - Romany/Plexi, depending on which vintage sound you're going for. Otherwise you have the popular MJW stuff which also comes wth power scaling.

I had a Cub 10 once. It wasn't bad for it's price, especially with some better valves. Very little break up though, quite clean. Nice and portable.

ICBM

kreggs said:

Cub 10 has the 6v6 output valves for that blackface  type vibe. I hear it sounds really nice.

It does not sound anything like a Blackface amp. Power valve type has almost no bearing on the type of sound - the Laney AOR 30 also used 6V6s, as did the Marshall Studio 15.

The Cub 10 is a good little amp… that sounds like a Laney.

Best small valve amp for home practice use - ZVex Nano. I should probably never have sold mine.

kreggs

Ah sorry my apologies  

ICBM

kreggs said:

Ah sorry my apologies  

Not needed, it's a very common myth/misunderstanding .

Power valve type has a very small bearing on the final sound, far less than almost any other part of the amp design. There are some slight characteristics that some types do bring out more than others, but essentially you can get any type of amp sound with any power valve if you want to.

pintspiller

ICBM said:

kreggs said:

Cub 10 has the 6v6 output valves for that blackface  type vibe. I hear it sounds really nice.

It does not sound anything like a Blackface amp. Power valve type has almost no bearing on the type of sound - the Laney AOR 30 also used 6V6s, as did the Marshall Studio 15.

The Cub 10 is a good little amp… that sounds like a Laney.

Best small valve amp for home practice use - ZVex Nano. I should probably never have sold mine.

I had an aor30 and can concur sounded nothing like a fender amp of any sort. 

xSkarloey

I've got a Marshall DSL5c. Versatile amp. 

Loud though. 

DanR

I have a Gretsch G5222 for noodling around with.

I will admit I bought it mainly because it looked cool.

ArchtopDave

Rift Vibro '63.  It's got two 10 inch speakers.

JezWynd

hootsmon said:

any love for the CUB 10?

I have a Cub 10 and I like it very much. My previous amp was a Fender Recording Amp, so I was used to sparkly cleans and the Cub 10 blew me away with how good it sounded with a Tele. I've been using it for bass for past couple of months, run into an Excelsior cabinet with an original 15" Exy speaker, and that sounds excellent too. No fx loop or reverb but pedals sound excellent in front. It has a very nice Gain control that gently dials in a mild overdrive. Highly Recommended.

Dave_Mc

I'm not sure any small valves amps are big enough to use for a home.

Sorry

Seriously, though, what type(s) of music will you mostly be playing?

ICBM said:

kreggs said:

Ah sorry my apologies  

Not needed, it's a very common myth/misunderstanding .

Power valve type has a very small bearing on the final sound, far less than almost any other part of the amp design. There are some slight characteristics that some types do bring out more than others, but essentially you can get any type of amp sound with any power valve if you want to.

Not helped by there being so many "mythbusting guides" which purport to destroy these myths but which actually often reinforce them. For example, pro guitar shop the other day came out with (yet another) poor (IMO) guide about tubes, and basically was helping to perpetuate more of the myths than it was busting, IMO. Like you said, it very strongly suggested, if not outright said, that the power valves were what influenced the tone most in a valve amp. Oh and the same guide also said an AC30 and EL84 amps in general were class A.

http://proguitarshop.com/andyscorner/its-tube-time

Awful. It doesn't even mention preamp designs, FFS.