Serious amp regret

Re: Serious amp regret

I don't know if it counts or not, but when my ex g/f and I broke up, I lost access to our '62 5f1 Tweed Champ and her '68 AB165 Silverface Bassman, '77 Silverface Tube Reverb head and '64 Blackface Tube Reverb head.

Yeah, it counts. I miss the clean channel on my old Evil Twin. and a 72 silverface Deluxe Reverb.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

Don't regret the stuff I got rid of. I've kept all the stuff that I've used, needed and liked.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

tube amps for bedroom use dont make sense to me and im a tube snob. first of all a 5w tube amp doesnt sound like a 50w amp but much quieter and a quiet 50w amp usually sucks. i dont really play at home but if i did id have a good modelling amp. for stage use i wont use anything but a good tube amp but for quiet home use all the good things become i liability, mostly the volume involved to get a great tone

Wow wow wow i know what you mean about the volume but let's take a minute to remind everyone that a 5W amp can be really great.

The history of rock and roll is full of legendary small wattage amps that were used in the studio mostly, the Tiny Terror being a really good example. 5W amps CAN sound really good and also make a LOT of noise. But yeah, that doesnt actually mean they're suitable to play at home.

The thing about these amps is that for the most part,
they're one trick ponies.

They do the ONE sound really well but you can't really ask for more.
That gets boring after a while because you end up playing the same stuff over and over again.

So i concur that in a sense unless you shell out at least several hundred euros on it, it doesnt get better than this.

Clean sounds are a different story. I own a VOX BRIAN MAY replica and it's absolutely divine. The ROLAND cube and Jazz chorus are considered good amps by most guitar players, so yeah you should get it back and experiment with pedals for your heavy metal craves.

It all comes down to how much you can spend. Under 500$/Euros you don't have that many choices and everyone knows which amps to get, because they've been around forever.
The Cube is one of them.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

I actually never sold an amp and still have my very first H&K 30W combo. Still sounds great to me.
I almost sold my Marshall 9100 and JMP-1, but the guy never showed up. I had it all hooked up for him, so I played through it a bit and took the ad down :). They've been collecting dust though since I got my 2204.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

I've only had three amps in my life (!!) and I have two of them with me now.

The first one was a 10 watts Yamaha that literally fell apart after years of abuse. I threw it in the trash.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

I've only had three amps in my life (!!) and I have two of them with me now.

The first one was a 10 watts Yamaha that literally fell apart after years of abuse. I threw it in the trash.

I once traded a little mystery SS amp for a set of strings. Don't really regret it tho.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

I miss the Randall RD20 I just sold. Being a broke father of a 2-year old...not fun, so I had to ditch it for some cash. That and my old Peavey XXX. It sounded great, but you really need to be able to open up an amp like that.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

I've been holding back on mentioning it, but why not. My Mesa Dual Rec. I sold it to a friend, early 2000's. I had mostly stopped playing because of some physical issues. Despite not playing, I still thought about it and wished I hadn't. I never asked to buy it back or even mentioned regretting it but I think he knew. He told his wife that if anything happened to him, to return the Mesa to me.

RIP bud.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

No regrets on amps sold, but yes on regrets that I was too stupid to know how to dial the really good ones in I used to own as well as I can dial in an amp now. Took years of using modeling and old age to temper my tones. Now my amps are easy to dial in several sounds (I use more than just highest gain with most saturation now). My old sound I used to go for with real amps is not even something I try to achieve now. I prefer less gain now even though it highlights mistakes easier. Make it Kerrrang, but let me hear all the individual notes of the chord too.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

I kinda regret selling my Marshall MF350. I have a better amp now (Peavey XXX), but it was still a cool and unique amp for what it was.

I have a Randall RD5 which is pretty damn cool for the house, but it's only one channel. Honestly, for bedroom practice, I'd much rather have one killer tone than a bunch of emulations which may be ok, but out of which I doubt I'll ever use half of. Maybe look into the Blackstar stuff.
 
Last edited:
Re: Serious amp regret

I regret two amps I sold.

one was a 1981 JCM800 combo that wasn't stock at all; modded for 100w, new transformers and whatnot. not really a GREAT amp, but it was for me my first serious marshall.

Second amp I regret selling: a Rivera M100. it had 2 channels, marshall drive + fender clean, EPIC reverb and slavemaster, which you could use as a powersoak or as a separate channel for your stompboxes. man, that amp smoked. Sold it for a Marshall I still have, which is EPIC in its own right but that rivera... lovely.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

I miss my Triple Rec I sold last year, but I wouldn't say I regret selling it. I have no real use, nor the space for it, so I couldn't really justify basically storing it. I know I can always get one again in the future if I really want one.

I do have a purchase regret though. I saved a bunch of money to buy a 5150II that I ended up not liking and then having a terrible time trying to sell. I eventually took a pretty big loss on it, and kind of turned me off buying amps for a while.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

In the later 1980s I had an original Vox AC30 in fully working condition and a 50 Watts Marshall JMP. On paper selling the AC30 sounds more hurtful but let's be honest it was 99% useless to me. The Marshall head was a more reasonable thing with the power soak but today I own a very similar one so I only lost money.

I just got my first Dual Recto so **** it all anyway. Also, my next car will be black, preferably black on black. \m/
 
Re: Serious amp regret

FWIW even 5 watts out of a tube amp into a guitar cab are not "bedroom" noise levels, far from it.
 
Re: Serious amp regret

^Depends on how loud you play in your bedroom. My Randall RD5 is pretty damn bedroom-friendly. It relies more on preamp distortion than on cranking the poweramp like a Plexi or an AC30 for sure, and yeah, it does open up if you turn it up a bit, but I feel the sweet spot is pretty attainable well below loud TV volumes through a cool little 10" Greenback (which is also pretty convincing). It sounds pretty useable at lower volumes than that too.

Depends on the amp's design.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top