Best solid state combo?

Ptolemaeus

Ptolemaeus

New member
I'm at a place in my life where I can afford a new amp. I don't need a head and cab, seeing as I mostly play at smaller venues and my apartment. I need something that is powerful enough to cut through a drummer, but still sounds good at low volume. I play mostly modern rock and metal, so a higher gain amp is ideal. Useable cleans, but they're not as important as the distortion. Needs to have independant bass, middle, and treble controls. I would prefer a solid state due to the relative ease of maintenece as well as consistent sound quality. However, I'm open to tube options. Please make solid state suggestions first, then tube suggestions.

I play in Drop C#, Drop B, and Drop A#.
 
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Re: Best solid state combo?

What is your budget?

If you want sick high gain look no further than a Ampeg VH140C. The earlier Marshall Valvestates are also really cool.
 
Re: Best solid state combo?

All solid state, and all will do metal:

Peavey XXL
Ibanez TBX
H&K Warp
Marshall Valvestate
Randall RG75
Crate GX-130C
 
Re: Best solid state combo?

Ptolemaeus said:
Does it have have enough headroom for lower tunings?
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The Valvestate series was the standard amp for most US based Death Metal since they came out up to the mid 90's. Death, Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse among others used them live and in the studio. Meshuggah used them too on the first few albums (head version of my combo). So yeah, you should be good. :)
 
Re: Best solid state combo?

Dino Cazares used a Valvestate with Divine Heresy. I think he went down to F# on his seven string.
 
Re: Best solid state combo?

Its hard to argye against either a valvestate, or my personal favorite solid state, a Randall RG series. It has all of the gain anyone could need, it handles low tunings well and Dimebag used them for most of his career
 
Re: Best solid state combo?

Either:

Marshall Valvestate VS100 (old one) - 25/100 watt power switch, 3 channels.

Peavey Transtube Bandit with Power Dimension switch - 10-80 watts or whatever, 2 channels and 4 voices, or something like that.
 
Re: Best solid state combo?

Aceman said:
Either:

Marshall Valvestate VS100 (old one) - 25/100 watt power switch, 3 channels.
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I'm actually leaning towards the Peavey because I like the brand (my current amp is a transtube envoy, it's just old). But can you tell me why everyone is recommending an OLD Valvestate? Why are they better?
 
Re: Best solid state combo?

Aceman said:
Either:

Marshall Valvestate VS100 (old one) - 25/100 watt power switch, 3 channels.

Peavey Transtube Bandit with Power Dimension switch - 10-80 watts or whatever, 2 channels and 4 voices, or something like that.
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What in the hell VS100 ever had a power scaling switch from 25-100? The power dimension that you talk about on the peavey is on the VS100 and is a "emulated" power section distortion.
 
Re: Best solid state combo?

Ptolemaeus said:
I'm actually leaning towards the Peavey because I like the brand (my current amp is a transtube envoy, it's just old). But can you tell me why everyone is recommending an OLD Valvestate? Why are they better?
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The older valvestates were a hybrid design they had a single 12ax7 in the preamp, while they dont sound like a tube amp they sound really good and can be found for crack head prices easily. The newer marshall MG's are straight solid state and the sound quality has suffered.
 
Re: Best solid state combo?

Edgecrusher said:
What in the hell VS100 ever had a power scaling switch from 25-100? The power dimension that you talk about on the peavey is on the VS100 and is a "emulated" power section distortion.
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MY VS100, right over there, has a Power Switch that runs the output down from 100 watts to 25 watts.
 
Re: Best solid state combo?

Ptolemaeus said:
But can you tell me why everyone is recommending an OLD Valvestate? Why are they better?
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As a former owner and HUGE fan of the Peavey Brand, and the Studio Pro Transtube (amazing flexibility, great sound…)


A lot of guys out here will tell you about the Original Valvestate series. Quite honestly, they got Hybrid right out of the box.

- Tube up front for tone, hybrid power section for reliability/weight/cost. The "Output" tubes on Most amps only add that magical output crunch at god-awful volume, will melt down and blow, etc…mostly you either can't play that loud, don't want that specific sound, or will kill the amp. Thus hybrid. Coolness of this, I can get classic MArshall crunch out of the Clean channel on that amp if I turn the clean volume up and hit it with a hot pickup.

The early VS series just really nail the Marshall sound, period. Very flexible, very easy on wallet and back.


Later VS series were hit or miss, as Marshall messed with the circuit extensively. Marshall VS2000 50 watt head is pretty awesome though…
 
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