Re: best amp for $200 bucks on the used market?
Hoss said:
none of you guys have or have played small practice/small gig amps!?
Oh yes i have! I own 4 or 5 small amps... the Peavey Classic 30, an all original 1965 Fender Deluxe amp, a Fender Princton Chorus amp, and a Berhinger Vintager... My rundown is
the Classic 30 is the best i have for a small amp as far as it still being loud enough to jam thru with a drummer. It has poven to be a great gigging amp.... My one complaint is it does not have enough low end for my tastes as i'm used to stacks, but a good soundman will add the extra bass. But it has everything else i could want and it is really light to carry. I use a large pedalboard thru it and for different tunes i will use both the Distortion channel on the amp for some tunes and also distortion pedals thru the clean channel for different tunes.... Plus i run my Piezo's thru the clean channel as well and it sounds great! But at low volumes this amp does not sound that great. Turn one up and it comes to life!!!!!!! Also Gibson style guitars shine thru this amp but single coil strats don't sound that great. I picked up the Classic 30 for a cheap cheap price with the matching ext cab..
The 65 Deluxe is a bit of a waste really as i just use it in my bedroom and i really do not care for any of the tones i can get thru it... It has a good clean sound with a neck strat pickup but other then that i don't care for it. My Boss DS1 does an OK job to turn this amp alive but still not amazing. I scored this amp for an extremely low dollar off a kid. It didn't work at all and he got it from a old lady next door who used to be in a band back in the 60's. I had a tech do some tube and cap work to it and it works fine now. But still the tone is only good for clean strat neck pu sounds so it seems to be a one trick pony.
The Fender Princton Chorus amp is an amp i have owned since about 1988.... I've had many different Prinston Chorus and Ultra Chorus's over the years and still have a Princton.... It's about 6 years old now and it is my main practice amp. Most people think these amps have way too much fuzz sound to it..... Well yes it does sound like a distortion box over a tube OD. But the amp has many different tones if players would sit and adjust the gain and mid boost controlls back. This amp also has an amazing clean channel... The Chorus and Reverb are very nice and i don't like the new DSP Prinston's as the real spring reverb and lush Chorus is gone and the effects suck. You can pick these amps up dirt cheap but beware that sometimes they can have faults... check them out from top to bottom. This amp is also gut-less!!!! The speakers buzz and distort extremely easy and you can't turn them up. But for jamming late at a wisper i love them!!!!! And for a bedroom practice amp that sounds so big yet does not wake anyone it is worth it to me.... Oneday i want to try better speakers in the Princton to see if the amp can sound good at a louder volume without crapy cheap speakers buzzing. The Ultra Chorus i had was LOUD! Solid State Loud..... It didn't have the bottom end i liked so i sold it and got some real tube stacks for high volume work.
The Berhinger Vintager was a bit of a mistake for me to buy but i still use it a lot. A mistake as i have other amps that do what it does better. It was dirt cheap and has a million features so who cares i guess.... It has LXR direct outputs and 3 switchs to choose Cab, Amp And Tone preset sounds. Plus it has EQ knobs. I fooled around with this amp and it has one great tone. The ACDC type rock tone with huge amounts of bass!!!!! This thing at low volumes is killer for that sound.
WhoFan
Small practice amps is what we as guitarist play thru the most and the yare very important.....
