best amp for clean sounds

[SongsForTheDeaf]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

I know I'm goanna get a lot of "really?" responses but the best clean I have ever heard is a USA hot rod Deville 4x10 with the reverb on 4... just chiming sparkly cleans with a thicker rounder sound compared to say a twin reverb

 

[erksin]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

I find most high power amps pretty sterile sounding for cleans aside from the Marshall 100-watters. Twins, Hiwatts, JC-120s, etc. I'd much rather play a lower wattage amp and dial back the guitar a bit to clean it up - it's a much more complex sounding clean for one, and it doesn't have to be painfully loud to get to the dirt.

 

[Johnny the Kid]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

I think that the best clean tones come from a combination of amps. My favorite is the Vox AC30 and the Fender Deluxe Reverb.

 

[SongsForTheDeaf]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

I think that the best clean tones come from a combination of amps. My favorite is the Vox AC30 and the Fender Deluxe Reverb.

same goes for distortion tones... I love when I see a band with stereo setups like one local band that uses a combo and an ampeg bass cab with some sort of modeller at the other end of the stage...

 

[erksin]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

You know who has beautiful cleans? This guy:

 

[LtKojak]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

You know who has beautiful cleans? This guy:

Neil Young's rig... very "up-to-date", isn't it?

In that picture, the only thing that's newer than 1960 must be the gutar's strings, LOL!

 

[HTT]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

Roland JC-120 ftw

IMO, best clean amp for jazz and funk. Those are the clean styles I play.

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

One thing I'd add is how much better I think the clean tone is on amps that have a tube rectifier, such as the Fender Deluxe, Pro, Super, JTM-45, and Matchless amps. It gives even crystal clean tones a fuller lusher sound, as well as a softer feel under the fingers.

A tube rectifier greatly improves the picking dynamics, so when you dig into a note, it blooms and gets bigger, rather than just spiking you in the ear.
And when the amp is loud enough to break up, it's smoother on the top end.

 

[JeffB]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

^
Troof.

Much more 3D tone...or depth.... with tube rectification.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

i see a lot of people mentioning the jazz chorus. I guess they have good clean sound for an ss amp, but all mine ever really did was make my head hurt if i played it for a while.

 

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

The '57 Twin, '59 Bassman & '65 Bassman have no reverb... I would think that to qualify an amp to have great cleans, you would need reverb.

Assuming you mean '65 Super Reverb and not the brown tolex Super from 1960-1963... I would have to go with this amp.

The Princeton Reverb or it's big brother Deluxe Reverb are the Mack Daddy amps for cleans IMHO.

For solid state, I have to go with the Polytone Mini Brutes or Taurus amplifiers... does Standel still make amps?

 

[MetalManiac]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

MesA bOOGIE mkiic+ / EV12L/Reverb /Simulcalss/Wood wicker. Unreal Cleans with an old 50's Strat or a late 50's Les Paul- its the grail.Tweed Bassmans/Plexis break up too early to have much headroom for the best loud cleans.Probably why Clapton likes Tweed Twins, but they still distort under gain. Someone mentioned Hot Rod Deville. Its a very seductive glassy silverface type sound, but nowhere in the league of the best thick chewey cleans. It- or any modern Fender- gets fatiquiging quick because it isnt a very dimensional tone.
Other than that, your Fender Blackface Dlx and Super Reverbs, Vibroluxs and Pro's have the sweetest cleans on Earth, but they also break up past 5 or so on volume. I dont know about Twins, casue I like to get some hair on the edge of real loud cleans, probably a BF twin does that too, but just louder IDK.
I don;t know anything about Voxs' and Hiwatts.

 

[UberMetalDood]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

PURE CLEANS:
Port City Pearl
Hiwatt
Fender 57 Deluxe (not really high headroom clean, but sounds awesome)

BEST CLEAN CHANNELS:
Bogner Ecstasy 20th Anniversary (possibly my all-time favorite clean tone)
Bogner Goldfinger (versatile, immaculate cleans)
Fender Supersonic 100/Twin

 

[hareek]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

Fender 65 twin for sure. Best clean tone to ever grace this planet.

 

[LReese]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

My PTP wired Princeton Reverb RI rivals my old Vibrolux reverb - Its just not loud, which is a good thing.

I'm actually turning the reverb OFF some of the time.

 

[Lucy Diamond]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

I didn't see a reason to vote other, although I tend to use an original Fender Blues Deluxe for cleans.

From the poll choices, I think the 65 twin is probably the standard next to the Roland Chorus amp.

Cool poll op.

~LD

 

[SteveAlysis]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

fender twin and ac30 in stereo

 

[Drunken Bowling]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

Anybody remember the Dyna-Touch Fenders from the late 90's? I had the Princeton version and the clean was AMAZING with single coils. Like an idiot I traded it and another smaller amp I had at the time for a POD 2.0 :smack:

 

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

Fender Vibro-King 20th anniversary edition it is for me.....that thing with blending in a 6V6 tube with the mix knob....soft soft and angelic....got other amps where I like the cleans alot, but that Vibro-king we got in the shop....only other amp that I like as much in the cleans, is our brownface Bassman we have as well, but it is still two different animals.
Plus the feel is extremely tacticle in the fingers when playing those things, no stiffness or such...

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: best amp for clean sounds

Yeah, the Vibroking is a very worthy contender. There's so many Fender models that have gorgeous clean up to the edge of breakup. Sometimes they're killer out of the box, and other times you're only a speaker swap or tube swap away from perfection. Leo Fender started a ball rolling that's hard to top.

A few companies that are making beautiful sounding amps nowadays are Divided by 13, Bad Cat, Matchless, 65 Amps, and Tone King. There's amps by those companies that just blow my mind with how good they sound.

Oh yeah, there's also a guy in Fullerton California , Don Morris, who makes Electroplex amps.
He's a disciple of Leo, who's amps haunt me after seeing them at the last LA Amp Show. Now that I think about it...if I had real money, I'd be in Fullerton tomorrow talking to him.
http://electroplex.com/