Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

[PFDarkside]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

Haha

Mesa Road King.

It's simple, the Mesa gain and EQ sections require a lot of dialing in to get the tones you want. There are a multitude of tones available and not all are great. Fenders and Marshalls are simpler, they sound the way they sound, you either like it or not. Set the Bass so it doesn't flub, treble so it cuts but isn't too harsh, and mids to taste. It's just different flavors of the Fender or Marshall sound.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

Randall RD5 combo. Sometimes it sounds great. It never does sound like my Krank (which is the amp I always love), but sometimes it still sounds great for what it is.

Most of the time, though, it's just a puny little 5 watt combo with a 10" speaker. I replaced the tubes and the speaker for a G10 Greenback, which is great, but it cost as much as a ****ing 12" Greenback or a Vintage 30! And the cabinet is still tiny, and made out of MDF, and sounds like a shoebox.

Can't complain, though. I needed a practice amp, and I traded a delay pedal for it. I guess that's as good as a tiny 5 watt combo with a 10" speaker can get for high-gain chuggah chuggah.

 

[DankStar]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

H&K Tubemeister 18 30th Anniversary. I love the gain channel; it's definitely got a voice of its own instead of trying to be a Marshall or whatever, and the clean channel is fine for what I do. The three-band EQ is so weird, though. I think the treble is centered really high, enough to make it a lot less useful than treble knobs on amps usually are. With three different speakers I can't dial it in to sound really good with a lot of my dirt pedals, including the Carl Martin PlexiTone. (My Line 6 Spider IV 15 actually sounds better with that one.) I'm working on trying to buy the amp I used to demo the PlexiTone.

anniversary of what? the amp's only been out for a couple of years! j/k - how's it differ from a normal 18 watter?

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

anniversary of what? the amp's only been out for a couple of years! j/k - how's it differ from a normal 18 watter?

Anniversary of H&K, I think. It has some cosmetic upgrades and comes with some kind of NOS power tubes. (Just going from memory, I could be missing something. Anyway, it was only $50 more, and it's the version that was available to demo, so I bought it without hearing the standard version.)

I really like the amp, overall, even though it doesn't seem to want to do a Marshall tone by fairly conventional means. What I really like it for is the kind of sweet metal rhythm "purr" that it does.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

I had a dual caliber 50.
Absolutely loved it. So many gorgeous useable sounds. So flexible.
Even club owners commented on how nice it sounded.
So solid and engineered like tanks too.
Just an amazing piece of kit.


IN the end i sold it! lol
It was "too good". I was after something looser and more vintage sounding.
IN the end, you can get great tones out of pretty much any gear.
It just comes down to getting the right tones for your context.

 

[GAS-a-holic]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

Not trying to pile on, but my Mesa Heartbreaker gave me fits! One day it would sound great, the next day it would sound meh at best - all without moving a single knob!

I think part of it has to do with the fact that everything in a Mesa is so interactive - with every part of the tone stack dependent on everything else, it seems like the slightest change in any variable can affect the sound. Maybe Boogie Bill is right and it's just my ears on any given day.

Just to be clear, I'm not trashing Boogies - they're great amps, just not for me. YMMV as always.

 

[trevorus]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

My 5150 combo. The drive channel is ok, but the crunch channel is amazing.

 

[ItsaBass]

Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

My Mesa Express Plus 5:25 combo. I love the tones and features. But I wish it was available as a 2x12 combo, and I also wish Mesa used EL84 power tubes that were not pieces of complete ****.

 

[King IzzO)))]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

One day it would sound great, the next day it would sound meh at best - all without moving a single knob!

Yep, this was my problem as well. There were actual hardware issues within the amp that took several amp techs before discovering what the actual cause was. I've since discovered that these issues aren't isolated... just look at this thread.

But man, when it was on, it sounded so ****ing good.

 

[BloodRose]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

My JCM 800 2204. Biggest thing is that I can let her roar like she should.. Knobs very sensitive too.. It goes from almost too much to WAY too much with a tiny touch of the knob.

 

[dystrust]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

My JCM 800 2204. Biggest thing is that I can let her roar like she should.. Knobs very sensitive too.. It goes from almost too much to WAY too much with a tiny touch of the knob.

My bro and I used to say that about his former '78 2203... "The volume goes from mouse fart to demolition" with barely a touch of the master volume. :laugh2:

 

[Progbusters]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

My orange dark terror.. Unfortunately it was more hate then love and i don't play that schmuck anymore

Same with my Orange Jim Root. Then I listen to old files and it sounds good with my other guitars (single coils).

 

[ianson36]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

Same with my Orange Jim Root. Then I listen to old files and it sounds good with my other guitars (single coils).

Yea I'm waiting for my new guitar to arrive with passives. Strangely enough i think it will work better with them than my emgs which for a metal amp i find strange. I also feel the same about my ironheart it would sound better with a Duncan distortion and jb pups but the thing still sounds killer... I'll try the dark terror again but unfortunately i think it's been trumped hands down

Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk

 

[Falloffthebonetone]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

I have pedals like that. Somedays they sound great, some they sound off so I tweak them and then the next time I play with them on they sound bad to me and I tweak them again, even when using the same amp. These are usually the pedals that have the most knobs too...

 

[allbutromeo]

Re: Anybody else have an amp they have a LOVE/ HATE relationship with?

Most of my amps will sound good one day and off the next, but I think it's mostly me, I work in an industrial environment, so if I work and then go to practice I'll have some ear fatigue. Other times it might be that other band members have take their settings so my tone sounds off in the mix. The one amp I really have a love/hate relationship with though is my Fender HRDX, the dirty channel sounds like crap, but the clean channel pushed to breakup sounds awesome, problem is 1 it's really loud, and 2 it frequently has an issue where the volume randomly drops out, but when it's working right it's great