Amplification

[Steve DeRosa]

One of these:

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Fender-2...90-i1479747.gc

- with one of these:

http://www.eminence.com/speakers/spe...odel=Lil_Buddy

- should give you plenty of clean volume for home practice as well as that eventual small gig. If you need more power or clean headroom a good used '80s Peavey Bandit 65/Special 130/Renown combo can be had for under $200, as can a pre-1985 Randall RG combo - the latter was marketed as a solid-state competitor to Fender's silverface tube amps (and similarly priced back in the day), with comparable features, power, and tone - and either one would make a great match for a Tele...

[moon]

Another vote for a Princeton Reverb. Definitely one to try before you make your mind up. This is a classic tube amp design which has been used in too many recordings to mention and it will love your Tele.



The Vox AC15 should also be in budget. This one has Greenbacks (great rock 'n roll speakers and warm-ish cleans) although some would say the more expensive version with Alnico Blues is the best for Voxy chime.



I've no idea what Orange are like for cleans. I always associate them with crunchy, overdrive (perhaps wrongly).

You don't need anything powerful. 15W or even lower will be plenty - and could easily get too loud depending on your neighbours.

Tube amps stay clean until the signal gets too strong for the tubes to handle without clipping. The extra harmonics added to the signal by small amounts of clipping give it some sweet tube warmth. Shortly after that, as the waveforms become more and more distorted, you start to hear crunchy overdrive.

Thus every tube amp has a fixed amount of clean headroom, with a theoretical "sweet spot" for cleans at a certain volume just before the sound starts to get audibly distorted (it's a subtle thing and the cleans will likely still sound pretty good at other volumes). Make sure you get a chance to try amps out at the volume you mean to play them at to check if they'll stay clean at that level.

Some amps which are popular for their overdriven tones might not have much clean headroom at all. Early breakup is good if gain is your thing because it means you get to the snarly, singing overdrive at a less ear-splitting, neighbour-annoying volume.

Choice of speaker can have a big impact on tone. The raw sound coming out of a tube amp's output transformer is quite brash and nasty on its own. Guitar speakers have quite a powerful filtering effect - like viewing bright, harsh sunlight through a stained glass window - and different speakers will filter the frequency spectrum in different ways so that they each have their own voice.

The cab itself can also have a big impact on the sound. Less so if it's an open back but certainly anything with a closed back will interact with the speaker quite strongly to create a new set of resonances and frequency peaks.

A separate head gives you the option of choosing your own cab and speakers. However, a good quality combo should come as standard with a speaker(s) which complement the amp and not just something chosen for a price point - so the short answer is if you buy a decent combo like the Princeton Reverb you don't need to worry about speakers and cabs (although there are those who say they don't make Jensens like they used to...).

[clintj]

https://sligoamps.com/shop/vintage-a...luxe-1959-5e3/

Someone here has an upgraded version of one of these and is very happy with it. The 5E3 Deluxe is my favorite to pair with a Tele, and that is a steal for a handbuilt amp. The sound is typical very early Fender, lush, easy to control with pick attack, somewhat upfront in the mids, and the circuit has a good bit of natural compression which smooths out the typical Tele bite nicely. The controls also are interactive - each has an effect on the others in terms of gain and EQ that make a wide palette of sounds available. Leo Fender designed this amp and the Tele around the same time, and was a big proponent that the guitar and amp together were one instrument. Probably the most famous user of this pairing is Mike Campbell from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. They're not terribly loud either, but they can fill a room nicely.

[printer2]

Also something to note, speaker efficiency plays a big part in whether an amp stays clean or will have to flirt with running into distortion. A lower efficiency speaker will be in the range of 94dB for one watt while a high efficiency speaker will put out 100dB for one watt. For the 94dB speaker to sound as loud as the 100dB speaker the amplifier would have to have four times the wattage as the amp feeding the 100dB speaker. So a 20W amp used by the first speaker would mean the second speaker only needs a 5W amp. Also good to know is that a 15W amp will not sound much different in loudness than a 20W amp.

[DESERTRAT1]

The amp is unlikely to ever play for a live audience - it will live in my music room which isn't exactly the size of Yankee Stadium. Think of a space almost the size of an average 2-car garage.

What I want is the cleanest possible tone with decent volume.

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Actually a 2 car garage sized practice space isn't all that small compared to the average. Most 2 car garages are about 400 sq. ft. and for that square footage I'd recommend something with at least a 12" speaker. I practice in a converted 3 car garage and at 3 to 4 on the volume dial, depending on how many beers I've had, my Twin sounds about right. Of course there are far to many amps that will do what you want for me to tell you which is best. All I can recommend is what works for me which is a Super Champ XD run through a 12" extension cab. The whole rig ran me a little less than $500.

[perttime]

Some of the current analog solidstate amps are pretty good, and you don't need to tinker with tube replacements.
http://www.tech21nyc.com/products/am...tar/index.html
http://www.award-session.com/
http://www.roland.com/categories/amp...ss_amplifiers/

[rburke]

VHT Special 6. Whatever you do get something with tubes. This will give you plenty of volume and plays clean nicely.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/ampli...itar-combo-amp

[KY000]

I would suggest spending some time watching amp demos on youtube. I personally wouldn't buy anything that didn't have tubes. YMMV.

[perttime]

Originally Posted by KY000

I would suggest spending some time watching amp demos on youtube. I personally wouldn't buy anything that didn't have tubes. YMMV.

On youtube, some make everything sound horrible, and some make everything sound great. Opinions vary on solidstate amps. My old Session 75 is great for what I like to do: play softly or roll back guitar volume for cleaner sounds, and hit it harder for overdrive.

I have not tried ANY modeling amps. Some say they sound good BUT do not have the "touch sensitivity" of analog circuits.

[jonfields45]

I spent an hour or so a few years ago contrasting my Zoom modeling pedal into a PA with a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Absolutely discarding anything preprogrammed and developing some expertise with the Zoom UI to make modifications to the selected effects and amp models was the price of entry. My conclusion was the Zoom was quite competitive for usable quality overdrive with absolutely any characteristic I was willing to invest a few minutes chasing (including roll back the volume knob clean to overdrive). And the Zoom reverbs were much better sounding (it was a first generation HRD which might matter). The HRD was no absolute joy to configure since the gain came on too quickly as you upped the first volume knob, which may be better in the newer vIII.

Modeling has come a long way, but you do need to get into the nits of your chosen device's programming interface. Today I carry a Yamaha DBR10 (129 dBM...don't bother with watts they don't mean anything, this thing can be loud enough to cause hearing loss and is only 23 lbs) and a Zoom MS-50G (which I run with 2 AA NiMH rechargeable batteries to eliminate the wall wort). This set up is as versatile as it gets and I see no reason to own tubes (at least for me).

Jon

[paulp1960]

I have a fender Mustang 1 modelling amp. Whereas it was ok plugged into the computer using the Fender Fuse software and playing through a mixer and headphones when I tried to have a jam with a mate playing bass it just freaked me out. I couldn't dial in a good tone using the knobs on the amp without the Fuse software.

If you like great clean sounds I think you need valves.

Check out the Ibanez TSA15 combo or head. It has fantastic clean tones and is quite cheap.