Delta or Blues King amp for playing live and recording?

[Babaluma]

Hi all,
I am looking for a small value amp to record and play live. I play in a guitar, piano and bass trio and aim to play very small pubs without a PA. It is pretty mellow laid back music and we wont play to more than around 20/30 people I imagine. I also would like to do some recording first to get our demo together. I have been using a Roland Cube, which is great but I am itching for real valves again!

I feel pretty confident the Delta King 12 (15 watts or the equivalent Blues King model) would be fine but I just wanted to ask about headroom, does it stay nice and clean to a reasonable degree? I see it has boost and gain so assume it must stay pretty clean in standard setting?

Secondly would the DK 10 (5 watts) be simply too little or does it punch above it's weight?

I know there are a ton of videos but I always like to hear from people who play the music I do in the real world and everyone here is very helpful and knowledgeable. Also if any alternatives please feel free to suggest.

Thanks in advance!

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I’ve tried all of them at GC but never gigged with any. They’re single 6L6 amps with limited headroom. The 12” 15W version sounds great up to the point at which it starts to break up. There’s a reason they’re marketed as blues amps. The little one is definitely out, but I don’t think any would stay clean enough for a jazz gig even with “only” 20-30 patrons sucking up and dissipating sound energy.

I know you want tubes, but you cite only personal preference as your reason. Many of us have gone to Quilter and Toob for our small gigs and love them. Even a Superblock (or a TC BAM200 or other good class D head) through a 6.5” Toob Metro+ will give you a bigger jazz tone than any of those Supros, with more headroom and more versatility and less than half the weight. The Toob 10 is more efficient and richer in tone at higher SPLs, for a little more $.

[AllanAllen]

My Fender Tweed Blues Jr. stays clean enough for me. This is in an empty 200 person room. YMMV.

Dropbox - Blue Bossa 08.17.2023 Steam Hollow Jam.m4a - Simplify your life

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

My Fender Tweed Blues Jr. stays clean enough for me. This is in an empty 200 person room. YMMV.

Dropbox - Blue Bossa 08.17.2023 Steam Hollow Jam.m4a - Simplify your life

They're totally different amps. The Supros are class A single ended single power tube amps designed for smooth breakup at relatively low volume. The Jr is a twin EL-84 class A/B circuit that will get significantly louder than the Supros with the same input signal level and has a bit more clean chime in its tone.

[pauln]

My trio (guitar, bass, drums) plays cozy quiet dinner venues like that. The drummer uses brushes, the diners converse at normal speaking level. I usually use Twins, sometimes Supers, and occasionally a Deluxe because of their 12" speakers (bigger speakers have lower distortion) and higher power has more head room. I would never try to use a 15W amp or something that has less than a 12" speaker. The minimum for me is the Deluxe (22w/12").

For me, the most important thing about the guitar sound for jazz is that it must not sound strained in any way whatsoever, which means lots of headroom. The idea of "to much amp power" is only a factor when driving an amp hard enough to get "the tone" for music styles that use overdrive, where the concern is the amp not be so powerful that the tone arrives at too high a volume level. For clean jazz the concern is that the amp is not powerful enough to clear your highest dynamics without loss of clarity.

Amps don't have an intrinsic power level, they have a rated power specification for a particular level of output distortion. The engineers show a plot of distortion vs power and inform the marketing department that they may choose an output power and corresponding distortion, or choose a distortion level and corresponding power. Using the latter, Fender amps output power is rated at 5% distortion. Practically, you can't use the usual power specifications; you have to use about a fourth of that level for real world jazz sound in order to have enough dynamic head room (6dB)) for clear sound - especially for jazz chords that have dissonant intervals...

I know ultra-light amps with tiny speakers are very popular these days; I just don't believe in miniature big sound.

[Babaluma]

I’ve tried all of them at GC but never gigged with any. They’re single 6L6 amps with limited headroom. The 12” 15W version sounds great up to the point at which it starts to break up. There’s a reason they’re marketed as blues amps. The little one is definitely out, but I don’t think any would stay clean enough for a jazz gig even with “only” 20-30 patrons sucking up and dissipating sound energy.

I know you want tubes, but you cite only personal preference as your reason. Many of us have gone to Quilter and Toob for our small gigs and love them. Even a Superblock (or a TC BAM200 or other good class D head) through a 6.5” Toob Metro+ will give you a bigger jazz tone than any of those Supros, with more headroom and more versatility and less than half the weight. The Toob 10 is more efficient and richer in tone at higher SPLs, for a little more $.

Thanks for the info, I have never heard of the Quilter and Toob so will definitely check them out!

[Babaluma]

My trio (guitar, bass, drums) plays cozy quiet dinner venues like that. The drummer uses brushes, the diners converse at normal speaking level. I usually use Twins, sometimes Supers, and occasionally a Deluxe because of their 12" speakers (bigger speakers have lower distortion) and higher power has more head room. I would never try to use a 15W amp or something that has less than a 12" speaker. The minimum for me is the Deluxe (22w/12").

For me, the most important thing about the guitar sound for jazz is that it must not sound strained in any way whatsoever, which means lots of headroom. The idea of "to much amp power" is only a factor when driving an amp hard enough to get "the tone" for music styles that use overdrive, where the concern is the amp not be so powerful that the tone arrives at too high a volume level. For clean jazz the concern is that the amp is not powerful enough to clear your highest dynamics without loss of clarity.

Amps don't have an intrinsic power level, they have a rated power specification for a particular level of output distortion. The engineers show a plot of distortion vs power and inform the marketing department that they may choose an output power and corresponding distortion, or choose a distortion level and corresponding power. Using the latter, Fender amps output power is rated at 5% distortion. Practically, you can't use the usual power specifications; you have to use about a fourth of that level for real world jazz sound in order to have enough dynamic head room (6dB)) for clear sound - especially for jazz chords that have dissonant intervals...

I know ultra-light amps with tiny speakers are very popular these days; I just don't believe in miniature big sound.

Very detailed advice thanks! I feel I need to have a bit more of a think and also look at my budget a bit more

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

Thanks for the info, I have never heard of the Quilter and Toob so will definitely check them out!

Here's my Toob 10 on a blues gig with my Quilter Superblock US velcro'ed to the platform built into the top. The band member peering intently at it is the singer and harmonica player. He's wondering why he drags a Vibrolux around when he could be carrying a 9 pound rig in a lunch box gig bag.



Here's the SB US on one of my Toob Metros (6.5") in its lunch box gig bag:



Quilters are near bulletproof. I have 3 right now and have even gigged with the tiny Microblock through a Toob Metro, just to see if it could be done. It was more than up to the task in a quintet with amplified bass and keyboard, drums and tenor sax playing to about 100 people in a very large room with a 20' ceiling. The guy behind these modern marvels is Pat Quilter, the audio genius who was the founder of QSC in the late 1960s. The Quilter organization is great - call and they answer, ask and they respond.