Amp regrets?

[Powdered Toast Man]

Man that's disappointing to read! I have only had experience with the older Vibro-Kings from back in the 90's when Bruce Zinky was running the Fender Custom shop. One of the absolute best sounding amps I have ever plugged into from anybody! Also were built like tanks and had NO Chinese junk parts inside. Sounds like the later ones really took a dive in quality control and materials!! Sign of the times unfortunately

Yep. When you look at the transformers and they've got "TAI CHANG" labels on the sides, what does that tell you? Plus the innards - all grey IC capacitors. Basically the same stuff in their Hot Rod amps.

[Ascension]

Opposite situation: Amp I regretted buying was the Fender Vibro-King. I know if you look up posts about them you'll hear things like, "best amp ever made", "desert island amp" etc. I disagree. I bought it because I got a great deal on a floor model that the dealer needed gone. Figured it was the Cadillac of Fender amps, right? Ugh. It was obscenely heavy (same weight as a Twin Reverb). It's also loud. And it's unreliable. The tremolo is prone to "ticking" noises which I never got fully ironed out. I had the power transformer fail. And in that process of repair I found out that all the parts in their "hand wired" expensive amp are Chinese made import components.

And on top of that, even though I got a deal on it in the first place (almost 50% off retail) I STILL lost money when I sold it because NO ONE WANTS BIG HEAVY LOUD COMBOS ANYMORE. I wish I'd never have bought that amp.

Man that's disappointing to read! I have only had experience with the older Vibro-Kings from back in the 90's when Bruce Zinky was running the Fender Custom shop. One of the absolute best sounding amps I have ever plugged into from anybody! Also were built like tanks and had NO Chinese junk parts inside. Sounds like the later ones really took a dive in quality control and materials!! Sign of the times unfortunately

[Markk]

Biggest regret? Not getting a used Twin Reverb some 15 years ago for literally a symbolic 500 CAD back then...

[playas]

My only amp regret is buying one of those small battery powered Marshall 1 watt amps (long before they made 1w tube amps).

What a waste of money. It was cheap but what an utter pile of crap.

[Ascension]

Wish I would have kept the JCM 900 MK III 50 watt Dual Master combo I had. Kinda a one trick Pony but man what tone! Always figured I would find a head but never did.
Also miss my Boogie .50 cal plus head. Had a love hate with it as it had no control of the gains between the clean and crunch so sold it and bought a DC 5 head. Never liked the DC 5 but loved the crunch on the .50 cal plus.
Another would be my very early Hot Rod Mod Carvin X 100 head. That one was voiced differently from any other Carvin X amp I have heard. Had a compression and release on the high gain side that just sang and would break into glorious controlled feedback like nothing else. Found a same year X 50 Hot Rod Mod head in a pawn shop a few years back but it's not the same.
I was playing guitar in a huge mega Church when I had the X 100 and ran a full 100 watt half stack on stage at volume with nothing but a compressor for clean sustain and a delay in the loop it was glorious! Here is a live clip from my old mini disc set up at the sound desk played in front of 4000 or so several services a week here for about 6 years miss that amp and that place!
https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=4453782
https://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=5049360

[treyhaislip]

I have sold/traded several amps that I wish I could get back but none more than a Mesa DC-5 Combo. Amp sounded killer and the 5 way EQ could dial in Marshal and Fender tones...very versatile.

[80's_Thrash_Metal]

Yeah, you should have just cut that thing in half and kept part of it. It has enough gain for 2 people!

Agreed!

[JamesPaul]

My first 6505+

Yeah, you should have just cut that thing in half and kept part of it. It has enough gain for 2 people!

[80's_Thrash_Metal]

My first 6505+

[The Guitar]

Not one, but two Peavey Rockamster preamps.

[JamesPaul]

I could see them doing that. Likely two EL84 or 6V6. Still, their engineers should have told them they could make 20W with a single 6L6/5881. They would have to convert to Class A, but I do not know of any 6L6 amp that truly relies on power tube distortion. Maybe the phase inverter breaking down, but they likely could have handled that in the preamp design. If the small bottles were EL84, they should have had room to add in another preamp tube if needed. But they did not ask/pay for my recommendations, so I will not let it get to me.

[dave74]

The story I heard on the Rev Jr was that they had originally designed the layout for small-bottle tubes, not sure which ones, but it was only a 20w amp, and then after the fact they decided it would sell better with the 6L6/5881 pair, so they tried them and they fit with barely a sliver between them.

[JamesPaul]

I hear tubes have to be certain distance from each other for interference and heat reasons and that absolutely shouldn’t be.

Old technology man. It reads like they really are too close to properly dissipate the heat. Once those electrons start flying, if they miss the plate they might go right through the glass...

[El Dunco]

My only other regret is the Krank Rev Jr. I regret ever buying it, which is why it got sold after a couple years.
It sounded OK and never failed me, but having full-size glass I was expecting more thump/grab in the lows. It just sounded very small, albeit good.

The first thing I noticed when receiving it was that the power tubes were literally almost touching each other, like close enough it could have held a credit card tightly pinched between.
I could never get a handle on the highs either. They were always too harsh and annoying, or turned down they were too dark and murky.

I hear tubes have to be certain distance from each other for interference and heat reasons and that absolutely shouldn’t be.

[JamesPaul]

Selling my Black Tweed Peavey Classic 30, because all my other Classics were Tweed. A few months after, I found a Black Tweed 412E cabinet for a reasonable price.