Electric Amp Recommendation, Please

[BoneDigger]

Originally Posted by Jeff Scott

Any tube amp can fail.







Please post 7ender's warranty policy here, thanks.

It's posted above.

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

Most new tube amps are also using PCB wiring in nature unless you get a high end hand wired point to point amp.

Just to set the record straight, from an electrical engineer's perspective, hand wiring is much less reliable than a PCB (hand wired means relatively giant blobs of now lead free solder crying out to crack). In unskilled hands, hand wiring is easier to repair. Lead free solder is a problem Leo Fender never encountered.

I like modern DSP solid state amps better than tube. They not only can do tube, but can also do stuff that is not slavish tube and better, in my opinion :~).

[Wardo]

I have some very nice Fender custom 57 tube amps. They cost a lot of money and they sound great. I also have a katana 100 Mk II with the footswitch. I use the katana quite a bit for jams. It’s very versatile and with the foot switch you don’t have to lug a pedal board around.

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

...I'm really just not convinced that SS amps are less reliable than modern production tube amps. You could argue they don't sound as good, but I have simply not seen any evidence that they are less reliable...

Don't know if you've ever plugged into a pre-1985 Randall "orange-stripe" or "grey-stripe" RG-120 combo, but they were arguably the first SS amps with any real tone: designed and marketed by a former associate of Leo Fender, they were similar in features (two independent channels, built-in footswitchable trem/verb, master volume), power, and weight to Fender's '70s silverface tube offerings, comparably priced when new, and offered in a variety of speaker configurations. Better-sounding to my ears than the first-generation Roland JC-120 (their only real competition IMO) and higher-powered aluminum-knob Peavey SS combos, they were a hidden gem on the used market - just a few years ago player-grade examples could be had for as little as $80 (one of our fellow AGF'ers scored an orange-stripe 2x10" for that price) and excellent ones in the $175-250 range depending on speaker configuration - that has been rediscovered by old-school players looking for rock-solid construction and loads of headroom (their 120W rating is an honest one) for cleaner playing styles; not as cheap as they once were - not to mention far more scarce - IME they're well worth seeking out if your tastes run to jazz, country, clean blues, '50s-60s R&R/R&B, surf, first-wave British Invasion, and the like...

[Jeff Scott]

Originally Posted by BoneDigger

It's posted above.

Thanks. I missed seeing that.

Originally Posted by jonfields45

Just to set the record straight, from an electrical engineer's perspective, hand wiring is much less reliable than a PCB (hand wired means relatively giant blobs of now lead free solder crying out to crack). In unskilled hands, hand wiring is easier to repair. Lead free solder is a problem Leo Fender never encountered.

I have a few years experience using the Devil's Solder. What a PITA it can be.

[Bluesdale]

Quilter Mach 3 combo - Does it all.

[Rolph]

If Fender has a 5 year warranty, why did they refuse to repair/replace mine after just a couple of months, limited usage? I even argued with them, they never mentioned a warranty at all. SS is risky.

Originally Posted by rmp

Fender has a 5 year warranty I don't understand the poster who mentioned that Fender refused to fix it ?

I've had a lot of solid-state amps as well as tube amps. I've never had any problems with any solid-state amps, and I have been at this a long time. just my experience

Anyway, another vote in favor of a Tone Master.

I have a Blonde Deluxe Reverb, purchased in 2021. It's very light and easy to move (-25 lbs). It sounds great, and I really like the power attenuators on these tone masters, and I use it all the time based on where I am with it.

The reverb and trem are excellent. it does not have delay, but you can find one of those in a pedal format easy enough.

[Matthew Sarad]

One of my gigging buddies replaced his vintage Ampeg Rocket 12 with a Quilter.
Another friend swears by hers.
I have a Tech 21 65 watt that I absolutely love.
The used market is friendly.
https://www.google.com/search?client...h=750&dpr=2.63

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by Matthew Sarad

One of my gigging buddies replaced his vintage Ampeg Rocket 12 with a Quilter.
Another friend swears by hers.
I have a Tech 21 65 watt that I absolutely love.
The used market is friendly.
https://www.google.com/search?client...h=750&dpr=2.63

Those Tech 21 amps were rather special. I had a Trademark 30 some years ago, which was a little gem.

[BoneDigger]

Originally Posted by Matthew Sarad

One of my gigging buddies replaced his vintage Ampeg Rocket 12 with a Quilter.

Another friend swears by hers.

I have a Tech 21 65 watt that I absolutely love.

The used market is friendly.

https://www.google.com/search?client...h=750&dpr=2.63

I like my Quilter Aviator Cub. It's a great little amp!

[Brent Hutto]

Originally Posted by Rolph

If Fender has a 5 year warranty, why did they refuse to repair/replace mine after just a couple of months, limited usage? I even argued with them, they never mentioned a warranty at all. SS is risky.

I don't understand the "SS is risky" part. Did Fender say they would have fixed it for you if it had tubes?

[Charlie Bernstein]

I have a tiny Quilter Microblock 45. It's right on my pedal board. I plug into a 210 speaker cabinet because that's what I have, but any guitar speaker cab will do.

It's loud enough for a small band in a small club. Quilter also has more powerful small amps.

They're only available used, but Quilter now has a Phantom Block that looks worth looking into.

[fpuhan]

I'm pretty much sold on small, solid state amps. I have both a Fender Champion 40 and a Fender Mustang II v2. Similar in size and capability, both are over five years old, and never had a problem.

Even those can sometimes give me size problems. For more compact use, I have a Line6 AMPLIFi 30 (now discontinued) that knocks it out of the park. For even more compact use (mostly for home practice) I have both the Positive Grid Spark MINI and the Spark GO. Both punch above their weight, but likely wouldn't work in a gig environment unless you play FOH.

[Rumblefish]

Originally Posted by jonfields45

My current solution. The Go is in my gig bag pocket and the Alto is ~12 lbs. I’ve lately been gig’ing with the Go instead of my Dream 65. When programing the Go use the 5 band EQ to adjust the bass boost of having an FRFR on the floor. Also useful for max clean volume out of the internal speaker.

My online review:

A Light Weight Fine Sounding Speaker That I'm Using As A FRFR with an Amp Modeler

I've been using a QSC CP-8 for last 5 years with my duo. We use a single CP-8 high and behind for two mics, two guitars, and bass guitar. It works great and can cover large outdoors gigs. For the last 2 years I've been playing electric into a modeler while my partner plays acoustic guitar or bass. My acoustic guitar is currently retired.

But with a modeler in my gig bag (usually a Spark Go these days, but I also have a UA Dream 65), I thought it would be nice to have something lighter for informal jams that could keep up with a drummer. At 25% the price and almost half the weight of my CP-8 the TX308 seemed like a good solution. Its only shortcoming is I need a 1/4" female to XLR male adapter.

Like the CP-8 you need to turn the bass down on your modeler if the speaker is placed on the floor. They are both voiced to be up on a pole. For music listening the CP-8 is slightly better sounding and no doubt capable of more volume. I did stress test the TX308 with bass guitar and it did not buzz or have any other issue. I'm impressed given the light weight and low cost. The overall build quality of the TX308 looks quite good to my retired electrical engineer's eye. If you want to run either speaker from a battery power station, they both draw about 5 watts running their DSP with no sound and are deafening loud at 10-15 watts of power from the wall socket.

BTW, the Positive Grid Spark amps don't like having left and right (tip and ring) shorted together on their headphone output on the way to your powered speaker (sounds bad regardless of how you configure the output with the app, stereo or mono). You need a resistive summing cable for a bullet proof solution into a female 1/4" which might be TS, TRS stereo, or TRS balanced (3.5mm TRS stereo male with ~1K Ohm summing resistors to 1/4" TS mono).

One other small, good thing to report is the handle molded into the TX308 case does not have any sharp edges. One of the nice things about the CP-8 is a great handle which I think matters compared to the sharp-edged molded handle in for example, the Yamaha DBR10. Another more expensive option, the Behringer B208D has no handle at all. If you're looking to travel light and make one trip from the car this stuff matters.

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=669503

At the risk of derailing, the thread, why are you choosing The Go over the Dream 65.

[kirkham13]

I have a problematic tube amp ill sell for cheap!