Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

[IMENATOR]

I am trying to buy my first tube amp ever but should be is versatile enough tone wise so I can play some clean music like Jazz or country, overdrive, even high gain for hard rock and metal. I cannot afford having multiple amps rigth now. I know 2 channel amp can not do all the following without re-tweaking gain/volume/channel voicing but I can live with that.

My candidates are Marshall DSL40C, Blackstar HT Club 40 and Peavey ValveKing ii 50. All combos here.

What am I looking for? Please tell me your opinion and put the gold, silver and bronce medal on these 3 amps in each the following categories, kind of a way to express who makes a better job in the following chategories. For example Peavey gets Gold, Marshall gets Silver, Blackstar gets bronce under the "Clean headroom", that is the idea.

1.- Clean Headroom in the clean channel.
2.- Pedal friendly clean channel for those times I want to get the overdrive/distortion from pedals rather than the amp's lead channel.
3.- Wider pallete of overdrive, from mild overdrive to high gain distortion.
4.- Reliable and built to last. I already know valves can fail and need to be changed regularly

Thanks in advance to all for your kind help.

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

I've messed with a Peavey VK2 and they aren't too bad. Interesting voicing and resonance options and can be either nice and clean or do a decent Brit crunch/gain. Its probably a pile though; its just a Chinese box of parts. When I played a Blackstar I wasn't able to rev it up to sound good. Its probably a better choice than the Peavey though.

 

[dominus]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

The VK will do metal with an overdrive in front.

 

[IMENATOR]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

Its probably a pile though; its just a Chinese box of parts.

I am still waiting for those valveking to arrive to stock here in Mexico, I don't mind made in China, all those 3 amps are made in the far east.

 

[IMENATOR]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

The VK will do metal with an overdrive in front.

Thanks, I was wondering that since demos I have seen so far don't crank the gain and try to play metal. I don't mind having a pedal to push the amp's gain. What do you think of the clean channel? Can it do cleans at high volume in the AB mode? Think of Eric Johnson kind of decent clean in the clean channel then dirty/lead in the lead channel of this amp, but volume around 8 without breaking up?

 

[dominus]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

I never play clean.

 

[Rockstar216]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

I have a HT40 but I remember looking at the Marshall when I was in the process of choosing. I think you get more bang for the buck with the Blackstar. I can't really rate the others as i've never played them.

As for the list

1.)Clean Headroom - The Blackstar has two voices for their clean channel. A Fender type clan for one and a more crunchy and brighter clean for the other voice. The Fender type clean voice has the most head room. Although the clean channel has no 3 band EQ it only has a tone knob but I find it sounds good but you could probably use a EQ pedal if it really bothered you.


2.)Pedal friendly - I don't know only pedal I use some times is my wah pedal and it sounds fine through it.


3.)Wide Pallet of OD - Just like the clean channel the dirt channel has two voices. One is more mid focused and not as distorted and the other voice is higher gain and more modern sounding and tightened up in the bottom end a bit.

4.)Reliability - Had mine for close to two years and still works fine except the handle has started to rip but I fixed it with duct tape and I also put casters on mine to make it easier to move. Two easy mods people like to do are swap out the valves and speaker but the stock ones aren't all that bad.

 

[guitardeth3]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

I haven't played the valveking, but I have tried the other two. Unfortunately I never tested their cleans, so I can't help you there, but as far as high gain goes, the blackstar ht killed the marshall IMO. It was just more tight and aggressive, but the DSL was still pretty good.

 

[IMENATOR]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

1.)Clean Headroom - The Blackstar has two voices for their clean channel. A Fender type clan for one and a more crunchy and brighter clean for the other voice. The Fender type clean voice has the most head room. Although the clean channel has no 3 band EQ it only has a tone knob but I find it sounds good but you could probably use a EQ pedal if it really bothered you.

Hello Rockstar216, I remember you did a clean channel demo once. So how loud can the clean voice of your HT Club 40 go before it starts to have a noticiable break up?

I like this blackstar since it seems like it can do both extremes of the spectrum clean-high gain pretty well. But what do you think about not so agressive distortion? Do you think it can do some AC/DC or Deep Purple?

 

[Agileguy_101]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

I don't like them very much but the Blackstar is probably the best option for you out of those. If you're open to Egnater amps, the Tweaker 40 would do everything you want short of brutal death metal, but you could just get a Metal Muff or something for that.

 

[Rockstar216]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

Hello Rockstar216, I remember you did a clean channel demo once. So how loud can the clean voice of your HT Club 40 go before it starts to have a noticiable break up?

I like this blackstar since it seems like it can do both extremes of the spectrum clean-high gain pretty well. But what do you think about not so agressive distortion? Do you think it can do some AC/DC or Deep Purple?

If your pups aren't super hot you can get it pretty loud and still stay clean. After 5 on the vol probably around 7 or 8 you get a bit of dirt on the Fender voicing side but it's still pretty clean. To get around that push the vol on the amp and lower your guitars vol a bit. If your running vintage style singles or PAFs you should be able to keep it really clean at louder volumes.

You can get AC/DC crunch sure. You can either push the clean channel very hard on the bright voicing of the clean channel OR choose the less aggressive voicing on the gain channel and bring the gain way down and push the master vol.

 

[IMENATOR]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

I am trying to cover the versatility with a couple of guitars too, one with HBs for hard rock and the other with single coils for blues and clean stuff.

 

[IMENATOR]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

Is my appreciation that the clean channel of the Marshall DSL40C will actually distort at high volume or will it stay clean?

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

Is my appreciation that the clean channel of the Marshall DSL40C will actually distort at high volume or will it stay clean?

I could be completely wrong...but my thought was that just about any tube amp will distort "break up" after a certain volume. That's been my experience with tube amps anyways...

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

Yea, if you want clean volume you either need a LOT of tube power or solid state. Tubes will just color the sound more and more and sooner or later distort.

 

[IMENATOR]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

Yea, if you want clean volume you either need a LOT of tube power or solid state. Tubes will just color the sound more and more and sooner or later distort.

Your comment about loud cleans could be better with a solid state is the reason why I had been also researching on things like the Power Engine but I have not gone further that way because it looks like that one needs a preamp pedal which I don't have and all preamp pedals I have found so far are meant to sound like an overdrive or distortion . If there was a way to get that Tech 21 Power Engine 60 to sound pristine clean with no need of a preamp and just use my existing pedals that I like that would be my forth option.

Or maybe I just need to try and love tube amps as they are even if the concept of clean headroom may change my playing a little bit

 

[IMENATOR]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

I don't like them very much but the Blackstar is probably the best option for you out of those. If you're open to Egnater amps, the Tweaker 40 would do everything you want short of brutal death metal, but you could just get a Metal Muff or something for that.

That Egnater Tweaker sounds so cool in the demos so far, nice celan overdive and crunch, amazing tweakability, I would not mind keeping my Boss SuperOverdrive to push it into the "ultra gain" territory. Only problem is those are not price competitive against Marshall/Peavey/Blackstar here because there is only one reseller

 

[jon the art guy]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

Your comment about loud cleans could be better with a solid state is the reason why I had been also researching on things like the Power Engine but I have not gone further that way because it looks like that one needs a preamp pedal which I don't have and all preamp pedals I have found so far are meant to sound like an overdrive or distortion . If there was a way to get that Tech 21 Power Engine 60 to sound pristine clean with no need of a preamp and just use my existing pedals that I like that would be my forth option.

Or maybe I just need to try and love tube amps as they are even if the concept of clean headroom may change my playing a little bit

You may want to take a slightly different direction and look for a Crate Power Block. They sound sort of guitar amp-ish, and as a bonus they're teenytiny and put out 150w. May also think about a/b switching into an old Sunn Beta at some point if you need clean and massive sound. The other upside of a solid state amp is the ability to turn it way down OR way up and get the same basic sound. Yamaha makes the g100 which is a widely disrespected, yet still great clean SS amp. (they also make the t50/t100, which is a Soldano-designed all-tube monster).

For risk of another member coming in and ranting about me pushing the solid state agenda again, tube amp cleans aren't "clean" as much as they're sweeter. Imagine a turkey sandwich with just meat and bread...then imagine it with juuuust a little mayo.


What I'm trying to say is that a tube power section is exactly like eating a jar of mayonnaise. With your hand. Take that as you will.

 

[dominus]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

Peavey XXL.

Good cleans, plenty of gain, and can be found fairly cheap.

 

[IMENATOR]

Re: Three tube amps to choose from, please give me your opinions

You may want to take a slightly different direction and look for a Crate Power Block.

But those are discontinued and I cannot find it used here in Mexico. I was looking to try the ISP Stealth amp but then again it is onle the power amp section, it is my understanding I need some sort of pream infront of it to make my pedals (that are not preamps) to sound as expected, that was the suggestion I got on the phone from the guys in ISP wich makes sence since all the demos I have seen are with modelers with cab simulation or preamp pedals but not a single one using my Boos Power Stack, Fulltone Plimsoul or that kind of pedal that goes into the clean channel of an amp. Maybe I am missing something here I cannot see and that may be a different thread, maybe there is some kind of SS pream to get a fender clean tone and inturn make it stomp box compatible.