Re: Looking for a new amp, £1200 budget
Re: Looking for a new amp, £1200 budget
Tried out a load of amps at both Andertons and Guitar Guitar.
Roadhouse 50: was a very nice sounding amp, but being single channel it didn't offer an instant dirty sound which is essential for what I need, and I didn't really wanna go down the pedal route. Overall a great amp for jamming the blues.
Marshall JVM210c: Had the rich typical Marshall gain sound which was tight and kept its definition, even at the muddier gain settings. I liked this channel, it had the perfect 80's rock sound. Unfortunately I didn't like the clean channel much, it sounded too sterile/brittle.
Vox ac15: As expected a very vibrant and sparkly clean channel which was nice to play on. The dirty channel didn't do what I needed though and so I could rule it out. I need something on the Marshall side of things when it comes to higher gain settings.
Blackstar HT60: For the money this is a decent all round amp. Tone is mostly in the fingers, so no amp will sound the same when different guys play through them. For some reason I found something lacking in the Blackstar that I couldn't explain. Maybe the speakers need changing or breaking in or something, but I found it slightly sterile, not many harmonic overtones shining through when I played it. Dirty channel was on the Marshall side of things and sounded good for metal and hard rock. There wasn't really a sweet blues crunch to be had out of any settings I put in. Not to my ear anyway.
Mesa Boogie lonestar: Nice clean channel, I got some great fat jazz tones out of this amp. I didn't like the control layout much, very unintuitive. I don't really like the overdrive on Boogies that much, they are too scooped for my liking. Maybe if I had cranked it higher I would have got a distorted tone I liked, but in the time I spent on this amp it didn't really do it for me. It sorta comes out at you in a stabbing motion.
Egnater renegade 65: Wow, what an amp is all I can say. For my personal tastes and preferences this hit the spot. The clean channel when running a head through a 2x12 was stunning, it sang with harmonic overtone, very fender like, and when I pushed the gain I got a crunchy blues that I could have sat for hours with. The tight/deep, bright/ normal switches actually made a big impact on the sound as well, when I engaged the deep switch on the clean channel I got a fat jazz clean sound similar to the boogie, the bright switch raised the higher mids and treble frequencies but retained a beautiful sound, it didn't become brittle at all. The distortion channel was also perfect for me, I had some screaming leads going on and some good power chord riffage. The tube mix feature also worked a treat changing the character of the amp, there was so much versatility to be had.
Fender Twin: Damn what a loud amp! lol, I probably had it at about 0.7 on the dial and it was already blowing my head off. It's your typical fender sound, luscious glassy cleans, bluesy crunch etc.
I walked away with the Egnater Renegade Head and 2x12 tourmaster cab. It offered sounds equivalent to amps that are way more expensive. For the sheer versatility and sound, I found nothing within budget that came close to beating it. This is all just my personal opinion.
