Small tube amp for small gigs!

[Arnesto]

Hello! I'm on the eternal quest for a tube amp, this should be small, lightweight inexpensive.
Options I have are


Fender Pro Jr III
Fender Super Champ XD
Kustom V15
Laney LC15
Laney Cub12
Which of these do you recommend? Any other suggestions? thank you!

[SamBooka]

Not the Pro Jr.
Cant comment on the rest.

Pro jr is a great amp.. cranked.. for rock.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Why tube?

[Arnesto]

Do you mean no clean headroom? I want this kind of sound

I play with a Hofner Verythin guitar with a bunch of pedals in front of the amp, right now I have a Frontman fr212r, which is great but very heavy.
I love the tubes! I had a Cube 60 and I still have the Frontman but I want the tube sound, call me a tube fanatic!

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

The Fender Pro Jr III and the Fender Super Champ XD are very different. Are you interested in a modeling amp, or a straight forward tube amp?

Will you have to keep up with a loud drummer? Will the amp be miked?

Do you want the amp to have a drive channel or will you get that from pedals?

Can you give a weight limit? Do you have speaker configuration in mind -- 1x12"?

EDIT: in short, the more information you can tell about what you are looking for in an amp, the better the suggestions will be.

[dmorash]

I hear you on having to have tubes. I have a Port City 12 which I would recommend if you omitted the inexpensive side of your request. I also have a super champ and it is great although to me it is limited by the 10 inch speaker and small cab a bit. The clip you posted has a lot of breakup in it. I would look at the Peavey Classic series for that - the Delta blues is an amp I like as well as the Blues JR.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

I think the Delta Blues could weigh more than the amp Arnesto says is too heavy!

[dking]

Ah yes, the quest for a small lightweight tube amp. There are many questions asked about this on the internet. A while back, I ended up with a Fender Blues Junior NOS and it serves this purpose well. The video clip you show has some mild distortion on the guitar, and I'm not that fond of the Blues Juniors distortion, however, if you leave it set to clean and don't mind adding a pedal, then get yourself a Fulltone pedal (OCD, Plimsoul, Fulldrive etc.) or I also like the Hermida Zendrive. Many pedals will do the trick. Then you can get the sound you hear there.

I've since switched over to using the Kemper Profiling Amp, which is really just a preamp. It profiles tube amps, and pedals, and has effects and everything! It is expensive, but along with a small poweramp and a speaker (unless you already have a PA at the gig and are going direct as it works superb for that), you can have virtually any sound or amp that you'd ever want. It is very impressive, not a modeler like the Boss or Line 6 stuff, but the 1st solution I've seen that really works digitally.

[dking]

I hear you on having to have tubes. I have a Port City 12 which I would recommend if you omitted the inexpensive side of your request. I also have a super champ and it is great although to me it is limited by the 10 inch speaker and small cab a bit. The clip you posted has a lot of breakup in it. I would look at the Peavey Classic series for that - the Delta blues is an amp I like as well as the Blues JR.

Thumbs up on those Peavey's as well. Nice small tube amps. Carvin also has some cheaper ones that sound nice.

[mr. beaumont]

Just because an amp has tubes doesn't make it any good. Al those amps on the original list wouldn't be anything I'd spend my money on.

I'd hold out and look for a used Rivera Pubster (or is it the Clubster? the smaller one, I mean)

A Carvin Nomad is cool as well, and I get my tube fix from a silverface non-reverb princeton, which don't fetch a whole lot of dough used. (Easily can find one for 5-600 bucks)

[kris]

Peavey Classic-30 will be great .

[dking]

Just because an amp has tubes doesn't make it any good. Al those amps on the original list wouldn't be anything I'd spend my money on.

I'd hold out and look for a used Rivera Pubster (or is it the Clubster? the smaller one, I mean)

A Carvin Nomad is cool as well, and I get my tube fix from a silverface non-reverb princeton, which don't fetch a whole lot of dough used. (Easily can find one for 5-600 bucks)

I had a Rivera Sedona for years and although it also was an acoustic amp, the clean sound was phenomenal. It weighed a million pounds though. The pubster/clubsters are probably lighter. Great amps.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

Rivera: $$$

But:

the smaller Pubster 25 110 (1x10") is 30lbs
the Clubster 25 110 is also 30lbs -- what's the difference?

[mad dog]

Been using a Valvetech 22 head with a forte 3D 1x12 cab. Best rig for small gigs I've found. Mainly because of the highly effective master volume. It's deluxe reverb power level (louder probably), but you can throttle it back very far and still have good sound. The alnico WGS blackhawk 50 in the cab helps too. Just used it on a low volume restaurant gig. Sounded just as good as louder on bigger stages.
MD

[helios]

Listen to the "clean jazz" file of the Mesa Express Plus 5:25 (or the 5:50)--I think they sound pretty good. The down side is Mesa's tend to be heavy for their size:

Mesa Boogie Express Plus 5:25 Guitar Amplifier

[garryrenfro]

+1000% on used equipment.

Another one I like is the Egnater Tweaker. The 112 combo also weighs in at 30 lbs. It is whisper quiet except in extreme gain situations, and has some great tonal variations. Same as Mr. Beaumont, I think versatility is over hyped and over-rated, but every switch on the amp does have a noticeable and usable effect on the tone.

Quality is probably not that of the Rivera, but it seems to be darned good. It is a bit less expensive. A used head can be found for a couple of hundred bucks.

[marcwhy]

+1 for Steve Cardenas! He's the Man.

[Arnesto]

Wow! Thanks Guys, In my country we have issues with the import goods unfortunately we dont have a number of brands that you say.Prices in itself have a 40% increase compared to the USA.
Here there are only representatives of Fender, Vox, Ibanez, Kustom, Crate, Marshall, Roland, Ampeg (only bass amps)
I'm looking for a speaker of 12 but can be 1x10, the weight should not exceed 20kg in my set I have several pedals (Eq, Delay, Distortion, Freeze, Pog, Reverb) I don´t want to use two channels because I have pedals.
I prefer playing with drummers who can play at low volume

[billymac]

i have the new super champ..the x2. its light..cheap (in the u.s.) and versatile. even has a super clean jazzmaster ultralight model. i use it for my nursing home gigswith 20 to 40 people in a room. plenty of volume and punch. certainly not the best out there...but best for me right now.

[barrymclark]

If I were going tube, my favorite jazz tone from a tube amp was from a Mesa/Boogie Express 5:25 on its cleanest channel. Now, that's of what I've played. Of the amps I've seen or heard, the Rivera Jazz Suprema 112 is intriguing.

[Encinitastubes]

My fave is the Princeton Reverb. I have a reissue and a vintage. They both sound excellent. They also sound great hooked up to my 15" cab.

[earsoup]

The XD has a very nice clean channel, like a small deluxe reverb. Now I don't know how reliable they are, but they're cheap if you get a used one.

[mad dog]

Steve Cardenas is such a fine musician. First time I saw him play, ES-335 into Deluxe Reverb, on the bridge p/u all night. Never saw a jazz player do that before. He pulled so many different sounds out of that. Brilliant stuff!

MD

[jorgemg1984]

Cardenas is great - just his work of transcribing accurately all Monk tunes and turning into a book would put him in the jazz history.

[Arnesto]

Yes, I took some classes with him in 2010, 2012. It is one of the best teachers I've ever met, besides being a very humble person and a great musician.
The Super Champ XD can handle small gigs?