The endless GAS for stuff continues, this time the focus is on amps.
I have been doing a bit of research and have a budget of around £1k for a valve head and cab but obviously the less I can spend the better.
I have been looking at the various Victory and Jet City offerings but some of the real life reviews I have seen are less than favourable shall we say. There is a Countess available near me for about £650 which leaves some money for a nice used 2x12.
The reviews for the 20w Jet City heads are mostly good but then there are some bad ones too. So I don't know what to believe!
Choices for the moment are:
Victory BD1
Victory Sherriff (max I would spend new)
Victory Countess
Jet City (any of the small heads, not the 5w one) however I am not sure of the differences between them!
I play heavy rock mainly with LP's and use pedals for drive and all that so I am mainly looking for a pedal platform but can be open to using amp gain and boost pedals - if this is the case then a good loop is required.
Should be loud enough to gig with un-mic'd and reliable.
Cabs wise I have some good recommendations from another thread so the main focus here is on compact heads - I am pretty naive here as I have never properly owned anything other than combos.
Cheers!
Comments
I play guitar and take photos of stuff. I also like beans on toast.
With that and a second hand Marshall 4x12 you're laughing.
I originally bought it as a back-up head but as my main amp (Fender HRD) has been making funny noises recently I've been using the Jet City....and it's flipping great, and an absolute bargain.
I run it into a Zilla 2x12 with Greenbacks and it's the perfect classic rock tone I need. Then a few pedals to suit and it's a great rig.
You could get a jet city head cheap and run it into a really nice cab with quality speakers. Would sound immense.
I like high gain pedals, but they don't come close to the real deal (in my experience - @digitalscream has had luck with a bogner pedal, though!).
Another option would be a used peavey 6505+ or 6534+ head. Absolute beasts. Not compact though.
Left field suggestion - if it's heavy rock and not tight metal, the Laney lh50 is fairly compact (fits lovely on a 1x12), has a sweet clean channel, bright switch, a crunch channel with a "modern" switch, a global tone control as well as a dual 3 band eq and sounds excellent. It uses a toroidal transformer so it's not horrendously heavy either, though not exactly a lunch box.
It's got 50 watts, and is loud. Mine was reliable, too - Laney gets mixed reports on here but faults are generally small rather than "pcb caught fire" or "it is a write off".
The global tone control makes it so easy to dial in at gigs - I'd set it at 5 for rehearsals then at gigs I'd just tweak it to the room.
Available for very little money second hand. Takes pedals great, too.
Bought a H&K puretone that was around locally, but after gigging that decided I much preferred the JCA.
Playing it this week for the first time with a Les Paul (usually a strat guy)and pedals were barely needed...........