There have been lots of posts here over the last few months from people after a fairly low price 1x12 valve combo. The names that seem to come up mosts are Fender Hot Rod Deluxes, Peavey Classics, Marshall DSl401s, and Traynors.
I spent that last few months looking fora 1x12 combo myself. Tried out the fender, Marshall and Peavey. In the end, it was between the Peavey CLassic and another amp I found: A Hughes and Kettner Edition Tube 20 Anniversary.
For anyone interested, it is a fantastic sounding amp. It is 2 channel (in the same way as the peavey ie shared EQ), is 20 watts, uses 2x el84s, is closed back, has an eminence speaker, reverb, looks great, and is light.
The clean sound is fantastic is right up there with the fender) - fat, warm, sparkly and lots of bass. As you turn up the volume on the clean channel, it compresses absolutely beautifully, and you end up with a wonderful classic rock (think 70s queen or Led Zep) when the clean channel is on full. If you like controlling your sound from your guitar volume knob, you would absolutely love this channel.
The lead channel has masses of gain and sustain. On full tilt, it has a really nice, slash-like fat lead sound with huge sustain - it has much more gain the the peavey. On about half way, you get a brilliant modern heavy rock sound, again with huge sustain. But it doesnt do the crunch thing as well as the peavey as it has too much gain unless you turn it down to about 1. The Reverb is nice (not extreme) , but unlike the Peavey it is not footswitchable. Gigging wise, the gain channel is easily loud enough for small-medium gigs, but i am not sure it has enough headroom for a very clean clean sound at high volume.
In the end, i went for the Hughes and Kettner, but it was very close between that and the Peavey, and it depended totally on my specific needs. But I would urge anyone after that type of combo to give the H&K a go. It is a limited edition but there are still some available.
I spent that last few months looking fora 1x12 combo myself. Tried out the fender, Marshall and Peavey. In the end, it was between the Peavey CLassic and another amp I found: A Hughes and Kettner Edition Tube 20 Anniversary.
For anyone interested, it is a fantastic sounding amp. It is 2 channel (in the same way as the peavey ie shared EQ), is 20 watts, uses 2x el84s, is closed back, has an eminence speaker, reverb, looks great, and is light.
The clean sound is fantastic is right up there with the fender) - fat, warm, sparkly and lots of bass. As you turn up the volume on the clean channel, it compresses absolutely beautifully, and you end up with a wonderful classic rock (think 70s queen or Led Zep) when the clean channel is on full. If you like controlling your sound from your guitar volume knob, you would absolutely love this channel.
The lead channel has masses of gain and sustain. On full tilt, it has a really nice, slash-like fat lead sound with huge sustain - it has much more gain the the peavey. On about half way, you get a brilliant modern heavy rock sound, again with huge sustain. But it doesnt do the crunch thing as well as the peavey as it has too much gain unless you turn it down to about 1. The Reverb is nice (not extreme) , but unlike the Peavey it is not footswitchable. Gigging wise, the gain channel is easily loud enough for small-medium gigs, but i am not sure it has enough headroom for a very clean clean sound at high volume.
In the end, i went for the Hughes and Kettner, but it was very close between that and the Peavey, and it depended totally on my specific needs. But I would urge anyone after that type of combo to give the H&K a go. It is a limited edition but there are still some available.