looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

C

castiron

New member
hello people,

i'm trying to find a 50w head with a good clean tone and as much headroom as possible. its cant be more than 50 watts because i have a 2 x 10 trutone cab with two 25 watt jensen P10R's that i don't want to split with. any help would be appreciated.

but here are some notes on my past ventures for the right amp (it's important to note that i play "soft" and am going for kind of an experimental, almost ambient guitar tone. i play a USA jazzmaster and my favorite bands are The Birthday Party/Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen, The Pixies, Deerhunter, Public Image Limited, Bowie/Iggy Pop, and Joy Division/New Order.)

- i had a marshall dsl50 that actually had a real nice clean tone, but i parted ways with it in order to get a 6L6 clean tone to run pedals through, as it was really too much amp for me. it had 4 channels and i only used the clean and "plexi" channels.

- so i sold that, and i bought a '66 blackface bassman because of all the praise it gets. i honestly didnt find it to my liking. it seemed like a great amp for blues players as it broke up pretty early. besides i had to pay a couple hundred for maintenance (caps, resistors, 3 prong cord, tubes, ect.) which was a headache.

- then i went through some lower 20-watt 30-watt amps which were cool, but not what i was craving. too much break up and too thin. too much like AC/DC. :barf:

so my real question is , i guess, are there any good newly-released 50 watt heads with headroom? i'm looking into the silverface bassman and SF bandmaster, but i don't want to risk the reliability of the older fenders like before with the blackface. and there are a couple of cosmetically unimpressive, shady 60's/70's bandmasters on ebay right now priced at around $800 which i find pretty steep. i'm looking to spend as little as possible, up to $600 if i have to. i have looked into boutique amps, which seem to be the only other truly fender-esque amps, but they're way out of my price range.

has anyone had experience with the some what newly released Vintage Modified Bandmaster? or any other 40-50 watt heads i should know about? i'd consider a good solid state at this point since these tube amps have keep letting me down.


i have a modified pro co rat and a maxon tubescreamer, so distortion is a non-issue with me. and i use a couple more pedals as well; two reverbs and an octave pedal. thanks again fellas, and ladies. cheers,

chris
 
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Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

First, you can EASILY blow 2 25 watt Jensens with a 50 watt head.

Second, 50 watts is 50 watts and all 50 watt amps will have a very similar amount of headroom.

Third, you mentioned a Bandmaster more than once, those are only about 30-35 watts and will have less headroom than a true 50 watter.

Also, maintenance on a tube amp IS A MUST...PERIOD...

It's like breaks, oil and tires for a car...things wear out and have to be replaced...there is NO tube amp that can be bought and will never need work.

If you buy a 10+ year old amp it will likely need work the day you bring it home unless it was serviced by the person that sold it, if you buy a new amp today it'll need a good services in 10 or so years...those are the facts...now, imagine a 20, 30 or 40+ year old amp.

While we're at it, if you felt like a BF Bassman broke up to quickly you need a bigger amp...I'd start with a 100ish watt Fender like a Twin Reverb or a Dual Showman but you'll HAVE to go to a higher wattage cab.

Also back on the issue of your speakers, if you were using said 2x10 with the afore mentioned Bassman head that could have been one of the issues of your breakup...those new P10R's are only about 96bs efficient and rated at 25 watts a pop...hitting those with a 50 watt Bassman head will yield not a lot of volume and a lot of breakup because the speakers are number one not very efficient and number 2 they are getting their teeth kicked in from the power of the Bassman.

Ya know, the more I sit here and type I think if you had a 50, like the Bassman and a cab with higher wattage/higher efficiency speakers in it you might have been a lot happier...
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

I love my Sovtek MIG50, but they are a little hard to find these days.
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

TGWIF speaks wisdom, the break up and thin tones you are getting are most likely from those 10" Jensen speakers. Why are you so attached to them?
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

"First, you can EASILY blow 2 25 watt Jensens with a 50 watt head."

i was under the impression that it would anything up to 50 watts.

"While we're at it, if you felt like a BF Bassman broke up to quickly you need a bigger amp...I'd start with a 100ish watt Fender like a Twin Reverb or a Dual Showman but you'll HAVE to go to a higher wattage cab.

Also back on the issue of your speakers, if you were using said 2x10 with the afore mentioned Bassman head that could have been one of the issues of your breakup...those new P10R's are only about 96bs efficient and rated at 25 watts a pop...hitting those with a 50 watt Bassman head will yield not a lot of volume and a lot of breakup because the speakers are number one not very efficient and number 2 they are getting their teeth kicked in from the power of the Bassman."

i have a marshall 1960av which is what i was using when i had the bassman. i heard somewhere that silverface amps had more headroom than the blackfaces which makes complete sense to me, given the people that swear by the BF's and listening to bands that use the SF's.

"Third, you mentioned a Bandmaster more than once, those are only about 30-35 watts and will have less headroom than a true 50 watter."

i think they're 40 watts, anyways ive heard people say that they still get headroom. im actually leaning towards getting a bandmaster, but the ones i find are overpriced.

"Also....
It's like breaks, oil and tires for a car...things wear out and have to be replaced...there is NO tube amp that can be bought and will never need work.
....amp."

yeah yeah yeah i get this, but i'd much rather fix an amp 15 years down the road than fix it now. seriously, blackfaces are 50 years old and endured a lifetime of salt water, tobacco smoke, weed resin, humidity, on and on and on.

"the break up and thin tones you are getting are most likely from those 10" Jensen speakers. Why are you so attached to them?"

honestly, because id rather lug around a 2X10 cab than a 4X12 :-) im moving away soon (far) and really have no means of bringing it with me.

anyways, thanks for all the suggestions so far. anyone want a handmade Trutone 2x10 with jensen p10r's? green tolex, wine grille, made of pine wood. :-D
 
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Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

One note on 50 watt tube amps. Most 50 watt tube amps put out more than 50 watts at max volume. Tube amps are usually very conservatively rated for output.
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

2 x 25W jensen 10"s aren't going to give you big bold clean fender sounds at the volume you're talking about
i'd be looking to run a little vox ie night train or AC4 through that kind of cabinet, FWIW.

a valve amp rated for 50W puts out way more than 50W if you crank it, this is why 50W heads are routinely matched with 200-300W cabinets

maybe look at a solid-state 50W fender? that'd work well with the cab in question and will provide a decent clean sound
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

if you want headroom you wont get it using any amp thru that speaker configuration. Small wattage amps dont have much headroom, and bigger wattage amps will overdrive you speakers.
I think you need to think outside the square a bit, because you say you want headroom, but you want to use a low headroom cab. Doesnt make sense.
Im not gonna make any recommendations, because all of them would include changing the entire rig - speakers included.
If you are open to just thinking about achieving the tones you mentioned, and not being limited about using that one particular piece of gear then there are plenty of killer options.
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

PS - If you are moving soon and can't carry big gear with you. Sell everything that you can't take with you and buy new gear once you get there.
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

If you are attached to the cab why not try some other 10" speakers? I had a cab with Celestion V10s and I didn't find them too bad at all. It's a shame you didn't try a speaker change as you may well have had the right amp already.
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

d1dsj said:
If you are attached to the cab why not try some other 10" speakers? I had a cab with Celestion V10s and I didn't find them too bad at all. It's a shame you didn't try a speaker change as you may well have had the right amp already.
Click to expand...

^^
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

castiron said:
i'd consider a good solid state at this point since these tube amps have keep letting me down.
Click to expand...

1.) You sold a DSL50 because it had too many channels.

2.) You're disappointed with the Bandmaster because you had to put a couple hundred into maintenance.

:dot:
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

Meh, cut the guy some slack. He's young and probably didn't realize a few things when it comes to tube amps. Like the RMS power, speaker limits, etc... Tubes amps, like most anything have a learning curve. Hell, I've been playing off and on for the better part of 20 years now and I still learn stuff everyday...mainly from here.

That's why we are here, besides bragging about what we already have and posting about what we want. We're here to learn and teach people. Howz about little less ball busting and a little more helping.
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

Sorry. It's Sunday morning, and some loud noise interrupted my sleep-in time.
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

Here is a suggestion...go get a 6 knob Bassman head...it can be a blackface or a silverface, they ae all good ones just stay away form the 135 watt models. If it has 6 knobs (2 vols, 2 bass and 2 treb) go for it...

Then get 2 different 10's for your cab...if I were you I'd start with Eminence speakers since they are fairly cheep, great quality and can be had anywhere...

Maybe a pair of Ragion Cajun's or Ram Rods since they are both 75 watts a pop and 100db...this will give you a LOT more CLEAN volume with a 50 watt head and it's a set up that if for whatever reason you don;t like it you can easily flip it all w/o loosing money...
 
Re: looking for a 50 watt amp, need ideas

Also as a note...it sounds like the OP'er is on the hunt for gear and his sound and doesn't have a lot of experience...this is the way you learn things. Buy, try and hope for the best...everytime you try something new you get one satep closer to finding what you want and you also build experience with various kinds of gear...
 
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