Big Amps at home?

Re: Big Amps at home?

I do have a dedicated room for my electrics. I use a Bogner Shiva (80W), a Komet 60 (60W) and I have a Deluxe Reverb, Super Reverb and a Marshall 900. I generally play through the Bogner & Komet. The Komet is the most "Alive" amp I have ever played through and the Bogner just has beautiful drive so in essence I am using the Komet for clean & the Bogner for drive. I play at gigging volume. I usually play about an hour at the end of the day about 7 or 8 til 8 or 9. Fortunately I am not right on top of my neighbors so I can play later if I choose but out of respect i try not to play past 9:30. Now I also play music when I play. I hate running through scales. I used to do that years ago, so now I just play. Playing songs is so much more pleasant to listen to then somebody running up & down the fingerboard playing scales. I am practicing tunes that I want to play with the and & I am trying to find a good tone for the tunes. If I ever do practice playing just scales I will do that on my acoustic guitars which I also play about an hour(in the morning before work). I think playing acoustic guitar has been extremely helpful in developing my hands and how to squeeze every ounce of tone out of the guitar with your fingers NOT the amp.
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

Combos are the perfect I also prefer the combos for living... You can also choose it!
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

100W Krank Revolution 1. I just turn it down to the point I'm not bothering anyone. I don't have a practice amp but I'm checking out the Blackstar amps right now and thinking of getting one like the Club 40 or something.
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

Jeff5 said:
I use my Triaxis/2:90 with a Mesa 4X12 all the time for practice and play at home. I usually play after 8pm when the kids go to bed. I play fairly loud, but I'm in my basement with the door closed and my kids sleep like rocks. They're also on the second floor so effectively they're two floors up with their doors shut. The doors are oak too which helps a ton. (I've only woken one up once!!) Also, the space between houses is really good and it doesn't bother my neighbors. So I have a few things working in my favor and they enable me to play with a big rig at a pretty good volume.

With regards to amps, the 2:90 really sounds good at any volume. It doesn't really have to be cranked. (I don't know if you can or would need to unless you were out doors with no PA) My 50/50 was a bit different in that it sounded decent at low volumes but really needed to open up to sound good. Not so with the 2:90 which is one of the reasons I wanted one.
Click to expand...

I have a similar setup, but leave it at my friend's house and play in his basement. I just keep my little 120 watt 2x12 solid state combo at my home. Even that is bordering on too loud for a small apartment.
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

I play a Twin and a Mesa Express 5:50 at home. I don't bother anyone because I play clean and use my volume knob. They both sound great that way. For overdrive and distortion I use a small headphone amp. Something I learned from an audio expert years ago is that even a cheap set of headphones will out perform the most expensive speakers. The main thing with headphones is to wear them off center enough so that they don't blow out your ears. Frankly, I'm not all that critical about tone when I'm playing at home. Good enough is good enough. After all it's just practice. As long as I get the tone I want when it really counts I'm happy enough.
 
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Re: Big Amps at home?

I used a 100-watt Marshall TSL head with a 4x12 in a small bedroom in an apartment. Whisper volumes, but I always liked the way it sounded. Not sure what I'm going to do for my next amp head, but I see no reason to consider getting rid of that cab.
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

I was never much of one for "practice amps". I've owned a bunch of 50-100W amps and struggled when it came to family-friendly volumes. To get to reasonable volumes, I tried
  1. Attenuators
  2. Slaving
  3. Iso cabs
  4. Speaker sims into small PA
  5. Low wattage amps

...but none of it was quite satisfactory. Ultimately, I said "**** it" and embraced the digital side. It's a lot of fun to use the same setup for headphone practice as for ensemble use. I really like the way I can practice my pedalboard cues when playing through headphones.
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

I have an EVH 5150 III 50 watt- I play it through (2) 1x12s. It sounds better than my Marshall did at low volumes, but still needs to be cranked up to 9:00 to start moving air and getting great tone. They put power scaling on the new model combo, so I may get a Weber MASS
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

i've got a 5150 combo, and in the house, i can get it up to 2.5-3 on the volume, which is good, but its still a little stiff sounding. with hardwood floors and such, i think i get a better tone out of the cube 30. its not about which amp is better, its about which amp fits the room best
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

I have a Plexi full stack, and I play so loud I once had the cops call the neighbors. I don't stand directly in front of the amp, or it'd take my head off.
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

I live in a condo where my neighbors upstairs from us are really good people. The husband is also a guitar player who plays for his church band, so there's no problem at all. Plus they both work during the day. Our other neighbor is at her Grandchildren's all day, babysitting them and doesn't get home until after 5 , so I usually play in the early afternoon around noontime or so , for about a hour daily. I never do at night, so there's never any problems.
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

I just play at low volumes most days, my Bugera 333xL sounds great through it's 4x12 at bedroom levels as does my little Chinese Goldea Rex 3200 15W head/2x10 cab. I play classic 80's metal/shred/doom/thrash/death metal so I'm not really looking for delicate/borderline breakup or clean/crunch tones...

I do crank them sometimes (2-3 times a week) usually in the early evenings. No idea what my neighbours think about that, but no one's sent the cops over yet.. :p
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

j9fd3s said:
i've got a 5150 combo, and in the house, i can get it up to 2.5-3 on the volume, which is good, but its still a little stiff sounding. with hardwood floors and such, i think i get a better tone out of the cube 30. its not about which amp is better, its about which amp fits the room best
Click to expand...

This is wisdom.

Snobs will go "No way the 5150 doesn't have better tone than the Cube" Well, yes there is and here is just one example.
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

I play either a Marshall DSL 100H into a Laney slant cab, a Vox AC30 CC2 (which is quite loud), an old Fender twin, or a Mesa-Boogie F100, I have set up a room in my house just for that reason. Bonus, neighbor to my left is a drummer, neighbor to my right had a husband who played in a band, and had a full PA set up in his basement for rehearsals, and other neighbors are retirees, they hear nothing....
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

I was doing some recording yesterday using my 100W Mesa Tremoverb into an iso cab w an Eminence Wizard. Even with acoustic precautions, to get the amp where it sounded good it was definitely lease-breaking loud if I didn't have it attenuated about 50dB.
 
Re: Big Amps at home?

All of my larger amps sound decent at moderate volume levels, it just requires a bit of knob fiddling to adjust for the lower volume. Our bedroom is directly above my amps and my wife frequently can't hear them. Using closed back cabs helps quite a bit, as they tend to be so directional. Anyone out of the line of fire hears much less volume.
 
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