Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

[Diego]

Starting to set my goals towards a new amp, once I'm done with other expenses from my new apartment first.

I have a hard time describing my tone goal... I want a clear, uncompressed gain stage, something that I relate with an "American" high gain sound, not a British one. Great string separation is a must and a good clean tone is desired, but not mandatory.

These two have caught my attention. I like my Tweaker's tone but it could use better bass definition at higher volumes, so the 40 is the obvious next step.
Downsides...? It might be too vintage focused since my current Tweaker likes single coils better than humbuckers. But I like the results of pushing it out of it's shape to make it sound heavy. It's interesting and I'll retain the sublime cleans it has. But it might be a bit too smooth and refined for my Hard Rock plans.

Then there's the Jet City. Haven't tried it yet. But if it's really based on the SLO circuit then it should be an absolute winner for me.
How's the cleans? Hope they're not Peavey 6505 bad, at least. Gain wise I should expect it to smash the Tweaker 40? But I don't know much about it.

I'm just looking for thoughts and ideas with you guys. I'm not trying to decide here and now, but if any of you has experience and ideas with these, then I'm listening.

These will run through an appropiate cab BTW. More on that later.

 

[Johtosotku]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

I have a JCA50H and I run it through four v30s.

I don't think it's the right amp for you. The distortion, that there is plenty of, is pretty mid-range focused, more british than american. I wouldn't call it muddy but not that clear either. I haven't really ever played with the clean tone on it, so I'll pass commenting on it.

On one of my bands the other guitarist has a rectifier of some sort. The tones we get are pretty different.

I like the amp and I think it's a steal for the price. It also has worked very well with no hiccups at all. These days I mostly play death metal with it, anything from Sweden to Florida through the Netherlands.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

I thought the SLO/Jet City sound is a hot-rod modded Marshall? Not very American sounding, right?

For American high gain on a budget, I'd look at Peavey. The 6505 would kick ass, but you said you don't like the cleans. Have you tried the 6505+? I think those cleans are usable (partly due to the separate EQ).

What about the B-52 AT100? It sounds pretty dang good in clips I've heard of it. Tons of saturation and Fender like cleans.

 

[Diego]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

I tried the 6505+ too. Awful cleans IMO, just dead and not very tasty. Like plugging straight into a mixer.

Just thought of the Egnater Vengeance... Supposedly killer distorted sounds with great cleans.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

How about an EVH brand 5150? Supposedly is has great Fender clean channel along with the awesome high gain sounds.

 

[Archer250]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

How about an EVH brand 5150? Supposedly is has great Fender clean channel along with the awesome high gain sounds.

I concur. Very usable cleans and AWESOME distortion. Cleans may be a little "tight", but it isn't half bad at all!

 

[Archer250]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

This sounds awesome, too. There's a 40watts version IIRC

 

[misterwhizzy]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

Let me just say this in favor of Jet City. The jewel bulb in my old JCA20H burned out, and I noticed it last night. Before I went to sleep, I emailed them to ask what part I needed to buy. When I woke up, the owner of the company had replied personally to apologize and offered to mail me one he had in his office. I think I have to recommend a company like that.

 

[dystrust]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

I thought the SLO/Jet City sound is a hot-rod modded Marshall? Not very American sounding, right?

The SLO is based on a modded Blackface Bassman that Mike Soldano built in the mid-80s. The Jet City amps are based on the Soldano Hot Rod series which are essentially an attempt to build an SLO on a budget as the custom transformers and sealed pots used in the former are pretty expensive. I'm much more familiar with Soldanos than Jet Citys, but I don't think I'm entirely talking out of my a**.

To the OP:

The Soldano Hot Rod lead channel doesn't sound exactly like a SLO, but it's pretty close. The mids are a little less forward, which you'll probably like since you stated a preference for an American sound rather than a british one. There is also an huge range of tones available at different gain levels; from vintage classic rock tones at around 3-4 to heavy metal tones at 6-8. Above 7-8 (depending on pickup output) the amp gets quite compressed which is nice for sustaining lead lines, but not really punchy enough for heavy rhythm work.

The Hot Rod clean channel is based on the 'crunch' mode from the SLO. It stays reasonably clean below about 4-5 on the gain, but it definitely is not a Jazz Chorus or Mark IV ultra clean. I liked to run it near edge of breakup where it would be clean most of the time, but provide a little grit when digging in. The two channels share EQ, but I've never had problems with that as the channels are balanced extremely well.

A few final notes; others have mentioned the Peavey 5150/6505 as well as the newer EVH 5150. I've played all of these and they all seem to be SLO knock-offs to a degree; maybe they're tweaks that EVH wanted, but I don't know. Compared to a Soldano they're brighter and have even more gain which I don't understand as an SLO has more gain than anyone will ever need. The new EVH amps have a pretty good clean channel which is cleaner than the Hot Rod, but maybe a bit weaker in terms of edge-of-breakup tones. As you've already noticed, the Peavey clean channel is pretty lackluster. Last of all, I don't know if you can do this with the Jet City amps, but you can change the output tubes in a Soldano to tailor the response of the power amp. The stock 5881s are quite edgy, aggressive, and tight; you can swap them for KT-66s which produce a deeper tone that is bigger sounding, slightly less bright, and not quite as tight.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

The SLO is based on a modded Blackface Bassman that Mike Soldano built in the mid-80s. The Jet City amps are based on the Soldano Hot Rod series which are essentially an attempt to build an SLO on a budget as the custom transformers and sealed pots used in the former are pretty expensive. I'm much more familiar with Soldanos than Jet Citys, but I don't think I'm entirely talking out of my a**.

And the JTM45 is a modified Bassman.

 

[chadd]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

You could run two amps to get the sound you want. One that has the lower end thump and your current amp to get the articulation on top.

 

[Diego]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

Lovely idea man... But I like my stuff simple and I'm not THAT hard to please tonewise, to be honest.

I just need the right amp.

 

[dystrust]

Re: Tweaker 40 and Jet City JCA50H... Thoughts?

And the JTM45 is a modified Bassman.

A JTM-45 is a modded Tweed Bassman, while the SLO circuit is derived from a Blackface Bassman. They do have the same name, but they really don't sound all that similar. The tone stacks are very different to say the least, not to mention the setup of the gain stages.