It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Subscribe to our Patreon, and get image uploads with no ads on the site!
Base theme by DesignModo & ported to Powered by Vanilla by Chris Ireland, modified by the "theFB" team.
Comments
I personally loved the drive tones from it, very modern and dry but still very full and powerful, especially through a decent sized cab. I don't think it does great mild crunch tones, but for spanky cleans and raging rock tones, its the mini amp i'd choose.
As a result, I'm calling that particular implementation a useless feature - except for live stuff, where it was sometimes fun to get a darker, squelchier tone on stage by dropping to 25W mode.
As you said, that's not to say those different power options are totally useless- for places where you can play a good bit louder, but where full power is still too loud, they can be useful. But they're often advertised as being useful for home practice... which is very iffy, if you ask me.
The other thing is, pedals into a tube amp, or just relying on the amp's preamp distortion if it has a master volume control, may well still sound better than other options even if you can't crank the amp (even for classic rock and similar). Depending on your personal preference, the type of tones you want, and exactly how loudly you can play.
It's not black-and-white, unfortunately. I play at home and I like having tubes. I don't share any walls with neighbours (which helps), but I'm not anywhere close to cranking them, either (master on 1 usually).
Personally I love the sound I can get from a really big valve amp running at low volume, either clean or using the master volume control to set the amp for a moderate crunchy overdrive, and adding a pedal for anything more distorted - to me that just sounds better, as well as more like a big amp turned up loud, than a small amp turned up loud does.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
There are a few key points...
1 - You don't have to crank a valve amp to make it sound good
2 - A master volume with a good taper on it (so that it's controllable at lower levels) is far more effective for setting the volume than power scaling
3 - You won't use the same settings for home use as you will for live performances
My 50W Jet City sounds fantastic at home volumes, and I know people who've had the same result from a 100W Marshall JVM. Similarly, I've had 5W amps that couldn't be controlled at home volumes and were way too loud.
Don't worry about "cranking tubes" or whatever. Valve amps can sound good at low volume - especially good ones. I'd take a good digital or solid state amps over a crap valve amp any day, and a great valve amp over anything.
Some amps like being loud, and really need it. But something like a dual rec or a fender twin, both of which are behemoths, sound awesome at TV volume. I tried a 5 watt tweed champ and couldn't make it sound any good until it was too loud for home use.
What amp do you have?
I absolutely love that thing. Works at all settings.
A Tweed Champ (mine was an original '59 ) on the other hand worked very well. It was certainly very loud when cranked - I actually got told to turn it down, when I was using it unmic'ed with a piano-bar blues band! - but it was great with pedals.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein