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I've always received complements for the tone of my '06 ES-175 through my Deluxe Reverb RI. Also for Rock, Blues, Pop, and Country gigs with my PRS C24, my '66 Telecaster Custom, and my Ibanez AF75T. I sprang for the amp cover, to keep it looking as nice as it sounds. My Blackface Vibro Champ covers my practice needs nicely and would be perfect in an office/study setting.
All that said, if I find a Silverface Princeton Reverb like the one I foolishly sold (
), the piggy bank is toast.
IMHO, the fragility of tube amps is exaggerated, and is due mostly to mishandling. Treat them gently and they will work for a long, long time.
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11-11-2017 06:44 PM
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Right with you on that Jorge...hate the Blues Jr! One of my jamsessions now has one as the house amp. Never experienced a boxier and more muffled sounding amp as that one. Oh, except for when you are sitting right in front of the speaker, then the treble hurts your ears!
Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
So... had to get that off my chest......
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For the needs you've described in this thread, I think you'd be fine with something in the 5-ish watt neighborhood, e.g., a Fender Champ or Bugera V5 at home or in a drummer-less group. New Bugera's are about $200; Champs are a lot more, but you can find a clone for less. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
If you think you'll be playing with a drummer, something with a little more power and a bigger speaker will give you more headroom and more of a jazz sound. I'd look at a used Fender Pro Junior (under $300; no reverb) or Blues Junior ($350-ish), or a Peavey Classic 20 (also around $300, but harder to find), or maybe a Peavey Classic 30 ($350-ish used; very gigable amp, but heavier and louder than the others). I like Princeton Reverbs more than any of these, but even a used PRRI puts you above $500.
As far as maintenance goes, if you're using the amp lightly (e.g., a few hours a week at low volume), you'll go several years without needing to change tubes or do other maintenance, maybe even longer.
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I really like my Lil'Dawg Wonderdawg which is a black face deluxe reverb circuit with the mid tone control from a super reverb in a package the size of a princeton reverb. Jim Nickelson makes them in lots of different variants of power and componentry to specifically meet your needs. He also makes replicas of tweed and brown face circuits as well. His prices are lower than the vintage fenders are going for, but are fully modern and robust. It is wonderful to talk to and work directly with the guy who designs and builds your amp...
Welcome to Lil' Dawg Amps - Lil Dawg Amps
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It is somewhat of a paradox that a new production Princeton Reverb Reissue ($1000) and Delxue Reverb Reissue ($1100) are low power 2x6V6 amps made out of low cost printed circuit boards, while a late 70s Silverface Twin Reverb is a high powered 4x6L6 amp that is hand wired on an eyelet board, and can be easily found on Craigslist for about $700.
Twin Reverbs are great amps for jazz as they always stay clean. Your ears will bleed before a good Fender Twin will start sounding dirty. I think that the main reason that guitar players tend to shy away from Twin Reverbs is because they're "too heavy." I can't tell you how many times I've read posts where guitarists whine about a Twin Reverb being too heavy to carry into a gig. Just for reference, a Twin Reverb weighs in at 69 lb. Guitarists complain that it's too heavy, but bass players don't have a problem taking an SVT head that weights 85 lb and dead lifting it to throw it up on top of their 4-foot tall 810 refrigerator cabinet that weighs 140 lb.
According to Lawson-Stone's criteria a Twin Reverb might be disqualified by the "gigantic or too heavy" criteria, but I agree that it's a great choice and the vintage SF master volume twins can often be had at a great price. I recently picked up a master volume STFR with a pair of EV SRO-12 in it for $500 because the tremolo oscillator wasn't working.
I think that the Fender market has been turned sort of upside down, so that today the low powered amps that are supposed to be cheap and inexpensive end up costing as much or more than high powered amps. To me it doesn't make sense that Princeton Reverbs, Deluxe Reverbs and Twin Reverbs should all sell at around the same price. It even makes less sense to me when the little amps end up costing more. IMO that's an artifact of the bedroom/basement players driving the market.
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he classic 30 is great but way too much amp for just home use. you'd need to keep it on 1-2. the classic 20 might be a better option Originally Posted by John A.
t
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I think you nailed it Bob, people with less room drove the small amp price up but really, with the master volume you can do the quiet stuff with the big amps. I wanted to mention that the #1 reason for the tremelo not working is that people forget the footswitch either needs to be plugged in to activate the circuit or a jack with the hot tied to the ground needs to be inserted then you just have to remember to turn it down when you don't want it. Good score on those EVs.
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no doubt that an old handwired fender is always a great option...but can be tricky to find a good one at a good price...plenty have been massively tweaked & reworked...a newbie to tube amps might not know what he's getting into...justifiably intimidating!
fender currently offers very solid sounding versions ...but with circuit board construction...not quite the same...as far as upkeep and tweakability
the vht are entry level specific...handwired...tweakable..fairly basic...a good start for someone new to tube amps..
after the player develops their tubular palette, then an old fender hand wired might be sought!!..with all its timbral rewards
cheers
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PC boards don't bother me.
But, I want the jacks, pots and tubes attached to the chassis and connected to the boards with wires.
It avoids mechanical forces on the PC board -- which is how they usually fail.
I have no idea if they sound different, or, more important, worse. I doubt that the difference in sound would bother me.
If you read GP reviews and look at the pictures, they almost always allow you to see how the knobs/jacks/tubes are attached, even when the review doesn't say anything about it in the text.
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Cav, I got lucky being in the right place at the right time. I found that SFTR with the EVs on CL. It wasn't getting much love at the local music store because the tremolo oscillator was broken. It just wasn't developing bias so it just didn't have much drive and nobody wanted the amp because who wants a Twin Reverb with non-working tremolo? It didn't sound right and nobody wants to buy broken amps that need to be repaired. I got my Super Twin Reverb for $325 because it had dead reverb and some cosmetic issues. I love shopping for broken Fenders this way. I get great deals on amps that aren't working and I just fix them and flip them. When I get one that's cosmetically perfect I add it to the stable. I've been doing this since the 70s so I've got a pretty good horde going now.
I really like the master volume SF twins. The vintage rock market has gone crazy chasing the BF amps and has brainwashed everyone into thinking that the MV "ultralinear" amps are lesser amps that should be avoided. As a result there are some great deals out there. Those MV twins are some of the best amps in the world for jazz.
Good point about being on the lookout for tweaked/modded SF fenders. The Bassman has to be the worst when it comes to molestation. In the 80s so many people used to molest them trying to make them sound like Marshalls.
Today I think it's the smaller amps that appeal to basement rock stars that tend to suffer the most damage. High powered amps like the Twins, not so much.
I'm not sure that I understand why so many people seek out the old amps and have such a hard bias against the new ones. The circuits are essentially the same, only the layouts are different. I think that the dislike for PCB amps that's so prevalent, and the strong favor for eyelet board amps, comes from hobbyists who have poor soldering skills... from the kind of people who have tried to work on PCB amps and ended up destroying the amps by lifting traces. Eyelet board layouts are far more durable -- even a gorilla could work on them. They tend to be popular with amateur builders and hobbyists who are out of their comfort zone when working on PCB amps. Truth be told, PCB construction is better when it comes to uniformity in manufacturing, and servicing PCB amps and even tweaking them isn't all that hard -- it's just that dealing with PCB is just beyond the skill levels of less experienced hobbyists. I tweak, mod and repair PCB amps all the time.
Board mounted pots can be a PITA. They end up locking you into the supplier for replacement parts, which sometimes aren't available.
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Agree on Blues Jr. It's anti jazz amp. In a studio where I teach there are a few Blues Jrs and a big bass amp. A student I have who plays jazz on archtop always plugs in into a bass amp with much better results.
Blues Jr is good for , well, cranked up blues sound or classic rock, def. not for jazz.
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thats exactly the problem with modern circuit board amps..the input jacks or pots or even tube sockets are mounted directly to board...if the solder cracks or burns..you have a dead amp...with wires...you have way less chance of that happening.. Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
not to say circuit board amps can't be wired like that..but ...many of these big name big rollout amps aren't!!!
circuit board mounted input jacks are particulalrly insidious..every time you plug your guitar jack into your amp you stress the circuit board solder...just a matter of time before it cracks and you have no sound...or buzzing sound...before it dies completely
easy fix..if u know how...but who needs the headache!!!
cheers
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Yes Bob I agree on the ultra linear circuit my Twin is one I've had since new from 1982. That amp has been around and always takes care of me. For clean jazz I don't think the ultra basic circuits have an advantage. Dirty low fi blues, maybe.
Don't under rate Lawson's skills either he knows his way around with a soldering iron and a schematic as well as ohm meter.
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Not long ago I gave my impressions of the several mini tube heads I own and if you haven't seen it check it out at:
Mini Tube head NAD
The VOX Night Train 15 is so far the nicest, least expensive, most usable for many situations I have tried so far. If you can try one in person do it.
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I bought a silver face Twin for $275 a couple of years ago. Still had RCA tubes in it.
The WAF to having it sit in my front room was pretty much zero.
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I love to hear about great deals like that. Congrats.
I'm lucky in that my WAF allows multiple guitars and amps in the living room. My secret for success is to play requests every night so they earn their keep as musical furniture.
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Hi! I'd suggest the Laney Cub series, I had a laney cub 10 and it had pretty straight forward controls (gain, volume, tone) with no standby switch. It takes pedals really well and has a massive amount of low end for its size. It's really one of the amps that I regret selling (I was looking for a practice amp, it was too loud at times for practice. From what I also remember, it does not need to be biased when changing tubes. Perfect for a more immersive practice session, a small gig and light enough to bring around. It also takes pedals really well.
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My go to amp for many situations, especially practice, is the Fender 5E3 circuit: the tweed Deluxe. It nails that Blue Note guitar sound, since that is the amp they had in that studio. At living room volume it is big and fat, although also bassy and prone to causing feedback with archtops as a result. There are some tricks with the odd interactive controls that will reduce that. It's an amp with a learning curve but an amazing amount of flexibility. Mine, which is a clone I built from a kit, weighs a bit over 20 lbs, maybe 22 lbs, and is small and compact. I put a 12" Cannabis Rex speaker in it- a warm/dark/highly efficient speaker. A Jensen is more traditional and will sound great.
If I was looking solely for a practice amp, I'd look around for a tweed Champ clone. 5W, not loud enough for gigging without being miked but great tweedy tone and as simple as an amp can be. 8" speaker, IIRC, so very small and light. Back in the Dark Ages when I was in college, a buddy of mine had the equivalent Gibson amp that he found in a pawn shop for $15 or something. Warmest, richest sounding amp I have ever heard. Probably a GA-5. One knob- a volume knob.
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Interesting thread, but irrelevant. The design, serviceability and sound of Ampegs from the late late 1940s to the end of 1971 has nothing to do with why they "didn't become more popular," IMO. The question itself is wrong - they were plenty popular up to a certain point in their history. Originally Posted by BeBob
The reasons vintage Ampeg guitar amps (by vintage, I mean models designed up to the end of 1971 - nothing after that counts) are not more popular have to do with stupid corporate decision-making and mis-management, disregard for basic marketing concepts, and ownership by idjits. The vintage amps themselves are easy to work on, sound great, and were generally very well-built.Last edited by Hammertone; 11-12-2017 at 04:53 AM.
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i may be alone in this line of thinking (here) but for me, tube amps are about volume. you have to play loud as fuck to get it. you have to excite the tubes and the transformer and the speakers and the cabinet and the guitar and the pickups and the top and maybe even the player. that's the point. to have sound swirl and flow around you, not at you. to feel sound, not just hear it. even clean. especially clean. that's when you begin to unlock the 3d magic in your amp and guitar and playing. also, because it's awesome.
but that's me.
playing tube amps at a low volume didn't do a whole lot for me, be it a 4 watt or 100 watt amp. not much different than the trusty old jc77, which doesn't sound half bad, even loud. but you don't feel that amp. you just hear it. for some folks, that's enough.
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Agreed! Although I find it quite a nice amp for blues or low-gain rock... Originally Posted by Little Jay
Something like this would be the perfect small tube amp for jazz
Tube-Tone Amplifiers
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I've been using a Fender Super Champ XD Vintage Modified Tube Amp for the last couple years. I picked up a used like new model for $200. Sweet Fender 15w 6v6 power tube tone, 10" speaker, 24 lbs. Great living room amp, yet I just played a big band gig on stage in an auditorium that holds 1200, no mic.
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In that price range, with those needs, the VHT is indeed a good amp. I just picked up an Egnater Tweaker 15 which has good cleans, and is more than loud enough for small gigs. Good cleans and good dirt, too. The only drawback is that its control layout is complex. Originally Posted by lawson-stone
For a few bucks more ($350 -- $450) you could pick up a silverface Fender Champ -- decent tones, easy control layout.
And as others said, tube amps are generally reliable. The only caveat I'd put on that statement is: avoid EL-84 amps. EL-84 tubes seem to be quite a bit less reliable than others.
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I think the framework of the OP's question in that thread wasn't focused on whether or not Ampegs were well designed or popular during their era of production. I recall the OP's question being focused on why aren't vintage Ampegs as popular now as vintage Fenders or Marshalls as desirable vintage gear. Originally Posted by Hammertone
50 years later some people like to view Ampeg's corporate management through a retrospectoscope, identifying everything that they did wrong. People like to think they could have done it better. To those people I'll offer the simple advice that if it's s so simple to run an amp company then they should go start one and prove to everyone how smart they are.
I can't agree with your premise that the design and serviceability had nothing to do with why Ampegs didn't become more popular. I'll agree that they were well designed, sounded good, and were adequately popular while they were in production. But that doesn't have anything to do with why they became unpopular in the 80s-90s. I'll contend that their inability to be serviced during the 80s-90s is precisely why they did not become popular amps among people who like to use vintage gear.
Ampegs were popular enough when they were being made. The biggest problem that Ampegs had was that many of their designs were based on tubes that went out of production in the 1970s. Ampeg couldn't forsee this happening; it wasn't their fault that the tube industry would stop producing the parts needed to maintain their amps after the company went out of business, but that's exactly what happened.
If you owned an Ampeg back in the 80s-90s then you had serious problems getting your amp serviced. You couldn't walk into a local store find a pair of 7027A sitting on a shelf. The internet wasn't around back then, so finding a pair of those extinct tubes became a problem. As a result of tube unavailability there were large numbers of Ampegs that got set aside as being service headache amps that weren't very desirable. Service problems adversely effected their popularity for decades.
Back then it was hard enough to find tubes, but a few knowledgeable people (myself being one of them) would offer to rewire the amps to perform a 6L6 conversion to make the amps serviceable. For a long time that was your only option -- pay someone to rewire the power amp section like a Fender or a Marshall conversion or let the amp sit idle. Before the "vintage craze" came along, people in the used gear market stopped buying some models of used Ampegs because there was a stigma of non-serviceability associated with them for a period of decades.
Looking at the situation now, in the era of the Internet, distorts our viewpoint. It allows us to take the knowledge that we have today for granted, although that kind of accessibility of information was not available in the pre-Internet era.
During the 70s-80s it was hard to find tubes for some Ampegs. Buyers in the used market knew this and avoided Ampegs because of it. The only other choice was to mod them. In combination, those problems made Ampegs unpopular as working amps that got gigged regularly. They were just too expensive to maintain in service.
During the 90s the former Comm-Bloc tube manufacturers sought profitability by expanding their production lines to provide tubes for sale in the West. They started manufacturing 6L6 tubes and eventually they figured out that they could sell a re-pinned 6L6 as a 7027A. Of course they failed in the high voltage applications, but the idea of having a 7027A appealed to most people so they started displaying interest in old Ampegs again.
I've worked on amps for a profit since the 1970s. I worked on a lot of Fenders and Marshalls in the 80s-90s because I could get parts for them. Ampegs just weren't popular then because parts availability was a problem. That parts availability problem has gotten better in the tube renaissance that has blossomed during the post-Cold War / Internet age, but the knowledge that we have today doesn't change the fact that Ampegs were regarded as service problem children for a span of decades. Those headaches had adverse impact on their desirability and popularity. We see this manifest in the price appreciation curves for vintage gear. Fenders and Marshalls have always been strong. Ampegs didn't start to catch up until the European tube makers started selling tubes labelled as 7027A and solved the parts availability problem.
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[QUOTE=Sam Sherry;816615]Lawson --
Gibson GA-20RVT, $400 @ Guitar Center. 12" x 12 Watts. Personally, I like to stay in the 12A_7 / 6_6 neighborhood. This amp ventures outside, but a lotta people really like that. Plus you can always brag that you bought a 60s Gibson for four hundred bucks.
I would encourage you to be open-minded about brands. Let your ears decide.
Right now, I sometimes plug into a 1965 Gibson Lancer GV-35RVT...sort of a poor man's Deluxe Reverb. Bought it years ago, and had Dennis Kager of Ampeg (and Sundown) fame swap tubes to get more clean headroom...it has a good clean sound, and really amazing tremolo and reverb...it was about $300, and about $150 for servicing and upgrade.
Old Ampegs were much revered by jazzers....Chuck Wayne and others used them, and Jess Oliver, the originator invented the upright bass pickup, and loved jazz.
Some other good amps out there, e.g. Peavey and some off brands (Bedrock) have a good sound.
Fenders are good amps, but to some extent there is an "installed base" phenomenon responsible for their dominance....their dealer network was more extensive, their designs were well understood and serviceable, and people grew up hearing them.
Dennis K. did another design... the Reverend Hellhounds and Kingsnakes...I have a Hellhound...good sound, versatile (kind of does Marshall-y) stuff too, has 10W and 40W switching. 1 x 12" speaker and 37 lbs. but spring reverb is not good as the old Gibson.
Most of these amps I mention are in the $500-ish range...and if you can find some to plug into and try, you might just like them.
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