Re: Cheaper amps like the Bluesbreaker/JTM45?
Gibson175, what you said makes sense. I've heard it before but not really fully accepted it.
About getting the best amp for my budget, right now I'm gravitating towards either the Blues Deluxe/Deville, the Traynor YBA-1 head and a cab, or a silverface Bassman and a cab if I can find one for cheap. How would you rate these from worst to best overall amp designs?
Id say the old bassman even tho the other two are good gigging workhorse and excellent sounding amps for a couple of reasons:
1. The bassman circuit is old skool fibreboard construction making repairs or mods much easier than the modern much flimsier PCBs.
2. The pots and jacks are all full size, high quality and not hard wired to the PCB. Again easier to work on and more reliable in the first place.
3. The hotrods/bluesdeluxes/devilles etc all have MDF cabinets. Solid pine or plywood is much less prone to rattles and screws are less likely to thread out. The only downside of some silver face era fender combos and speaker cabinets is that often you find particle board in the speaker baffle, but i guess that is not really an issue with the amp itself, more just something to look out for when you are choosing a cab. If you do get an old fender cab with nice solid pine sides but a particle board baffle, it is easy and cheap to swap it out for pine or ply if you want to. Im only mentioning it cos all the modern fenders in the hotrod/blues series have mdf for the whole cabinet. It is not as unreliable as i make out, but i dont think it is as solid or toneful as pine or ply.
4. An old amp might need some repairs such as fresh electrolytic caps, but the modest investment in a couple of fairly cheap components is well worth it when you have an amp that will only increase in value. The repairs themselves (if necessary) are really easy to do anyway (see point 1).
The only real advantage of the deville is that it has reverb (not the greatest reverb fender has ever produced but still real spring reverb) and channel switching. The bassman however, if it is working as it should definitely will have a much richer, fatter and more inspiring clean tone due to the high quality of the transformers etc and the fact that it is constructed using the old techniques that are now reserved for "boutique" amps. That is a pretty good platform to add one of a bazillion great overdrive pedals out there to get the tones you like best and possibly some kind of reverb pedal if you feel the need for it.
My 2c. Hope it is useful.
