Another practice amp thread

[Ian111]

Its time to ditch my Mustang. Not liking it compared to my Katana these days. Want something new. If there’s really nothing else I may just get the Katana Mk2.

1. Not a modeler

2. Capable of low wattage bedroom living room practice. Similar to the .5 watt option of the Katana

3. Decent tones for its price range.

4. Under $300

[paulp1960]

Originally Posted by Ian111

Its time to ditch my Mustang. Not liking it compared to my Katana these days. Want something new. If there’s really nothing else I may just get the Katana Mk2.

1. Not a modeler

2. Capable of low wattage bedroom living room practice. Similar to the .5 watt option of the Katana

3. Decent tones for its price range.

4. Under $300

The Katana range of amps are modeling amps just like the Mustang or my Marshall Code 25.

[robj144]

There are a ton of options, but most model (but I'm a huge fan of modern modeler amps and think they are on par with most amps today). However, if you want the real thing:

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=611705



A 5W, tube amp, for $115 + shipping (I think). You might need a reverb and overdrive pedal though. There are many decent for ones nowadays for very cheap though. You'd be well under $300 with pedals.

[rmp]

sounds like you're ready to take a leap

look at some of the fender tweed reissues or other Fender combos. (Twins, Deluxe, Virbrolux) or keep it simple, Blues Jr.

if you're going marshall, step aside form DSLs.. (all made in China, yea, no thanks,,) Look towards UK made JVMs, bring cash,, lots of it..

[Realbluesman]

Bugera V5. Switchable to .5, 1 and 5 watts. Nice reverb and good speaker. $200. Upgrade tubes later if you desire for a few bucks. A dust cover is $10.
Always gets rave reviews.

[roylor4]

Originally Posted by Ian111

Its time to ditch my Mustang. Not liking it compared to my Katana these days. Want something new. If there’s really nothing else I may just get the Katana Mk2.

1. Not a modeler

2. Capable of low wattage bedroom living room practice. Similar to the .5 watt option of the Katana

3. Decent tones for its price range.

4. Under $300

Blackstar ht1r. Great sounding, 2 channel, reverb and 1 watt.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by Realbluesman

Bugera V5. Switchable to .5, 1 and 5 watts. Nice reverb and good speaker. $200. Upgrade tubes later if you desire for a few bucks. A dust cover is $10. Always gets rave reviews.

Also has a headphone out if even the 0.5W setting P.O.'s your S.O. at 3AM , only caveat is that it can be a little dark-sounding with full-size humbuckers and the factory tubes; you'll need to play around with the (highly-interactive) controls to zero in on your favorite tone(s), but that's half the charm of these low-power Class-A amps...

[imwjl]

You always need to do homework on the Yamaha THRs for this topic. Superb in many ways.

[YamahaGuy]

Yamaha thr10ii--I just got one and love it! With the cell phone app, you essentially have the old green model, the manilla one, the black one, the gold one (THR5a) all in one for $299. Sounds fantastic with decent headphones. I lined mine out with the headphone jack into my Stagepas 1k for a "bigger sound" and it worked great. Very pleased. Super easy to dial in any tone you want. Hi gain stuff isn't my thing, but is sounds great to me. If you're throwing pedals at it, I'm sure the flat setting would be the one. My acoustic sounded great through it, plus the USB interface is sweet. It's definitely worth checking out.

[Paleolith54]

Originally Posted by Realbluesman

Bugera V5. Switchable to .5, 1 and 5 watts. Nice reverb and good speaker. $200. Upgrade tubes later if you desire for a few bucks. A dust cover is $10.
Always gets rave reviews.

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

Also has a headphone out if even the 0.5W setting P.O.'s your S.O. at 3AM , only caveat is that it can be a little dark-sounding with full-size humbuckers and the factory tubes; you'll need to play around with the (highly-interactive) controls to zero in on your favorite tone(s), but that's half the charm of these low-power Class-A amps...

Originally Posted by Ian111

Its time to ditch my Mustang. Not liking it compared to my Katana these days. Want something new. If there’s really nothing else I may just get the Katana Mk2.

1. Not a modeler

2. Capable of low wattage bedroom living room practice. Similar to the .5 watt option of the Katana

3. Decent tones for its price range.

4. Under $300

I'd agree with the Bugera recommendations. I had the Infinium head model of the amp they're talking about, bone stock, and it was just outstanding. Had a surprisingly good clean, and as I recall a very nice reverb. It also had a line out that actually sounded good into the PA, something that's always claimed but seldom actually achieved.

If I needed something like what you are after, I'd go back to that with no hesitation at all.

[3notes]

Originally Posted by imwjl

You always need to do homework on the Yamaha THRs for this topic. Superb in many ways.

I don't have one but the want is quite strong. They don't seem to be readily available at this time though some recently purchased. I think they sold-out. Again.

[Dru Edwards]

Originally Posted by rmp

sounds like you're ready to take a leap

look at some of the fender tweed reissues or other Fender combos. (Twins, Deluxe, Virbrolux) or keep it simple, Blues Jr.

if you're going marshall, step aside form DSLs.. (all made in China, yea, no thanks,,) Look towards UK made JVMs, bring cash,, lots of it..

A used Blues Jr is a great recommendation. I'm not sure if they can be had for $300? Close perhaps. Great pedal platform too. A loud amp though.

Taynor tube amps - look at them used. Great amps. Made in Canada. I have the YCV50 Blue and it's fantastic. Again, it'll stretch your budget a little but it'll last a lifetime. The YCV50 sounds great at low volumes.

[Bix58]

I have a Yamaha THR10C that I'm about to list for sale. Mint. Original owner. Box, etc. I'll be listing it for $150 if you're interested...

[ChrisN]

Marty Schwartz put up a How to Play Sweet Child of Mine vid the other day and used a Katana 100 running a downloaded preset (created by someone else) called "Sweet Child." I was amazed at how close to the original Slash tone it sounded. It must have taken someone with knowledge significant time to put that together.

It occurred to me that it's hard enough to learn something new (playing the song) without also spending hours trying to dial in the original's tone, especially for a newb. I've enjoyed my Mustang(s) and doing my own presets, but I'll now spend some time finding song-specific presets by others. Since Fender killed its online preset exchange when it killed off FUSE and the FUSE community, I bought them cheaply on Amazon.

Anyway, I'll never buy another Fender modeling product, but I'd keep the Katana around the house.

[Captain Jim]

Originally Posted by 3notes

I don't have one but the want is quite strong. They don't seem to be readily available at this time though some recently purchased. I think they sold-out. Again.

Amazon (Prime) had two "in stock", but delayed shipping for a couple weeks due to the Corona Virus. Two days later, Gear Tree had 11 of them on Amazon, not Prime, but shipping right away. My wife cancelled the one with the delayed shipping and ordered one from Gear Tree (through Amazon). It was shipped the same day; tracking shows it should be here tomorrow.

I had been waiting for someone to have it in stock. I missed it for the few hours that Sweetwater had some. Not sure why the trickle in getting these out to dealers.