Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

[dxlxntxxlxr]

Just wanted to start an interesting discussion

Best:
Marshall JVM
Laney Ironheart IRT-Studio

Worst:
EVH 5150 III 50w
Engl Fireball

 

[Diego]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

My ranking considers "best" as "I got what I wanted out of it straight away",
and "worst" as in either bad quality, or simply a too picky unit that didn't work for me.

Best:

Bogner Shiva combo. The best tone I've ever had.
Egnater Tweaker 15 and the 88 heads. The closest thing to the best tone I've ever had. Smooth and warm sounding units. I read somewhere that the Tweaker circuitry is based on a Shiva and I kinda believe it is.
Orange Dual Dark 50. Freaking brutal. Dense and thick and rich sounding, tons of gain and flexible enough.
Jet City JCA50H. The way I like my "tight" heavy sounds to be like. A nice cross of vintage and modern heavy sounds.
Peavey 6505+. Crazy loud head that needs no overdrive pedals or anything, just a great guitar and it slays right off.

Worst:

Laney Ironheart IRT60H. Atrocious cleans and fizzy gain, it sounds dead to me.
Blackheart Little Giant. Never got the appeal.
Anything from the Tubemeister/Grandmeister range fom Hughes & Kettner. Too modern, fizzy and overly tight. Very clinical cleans. Excellent amps, tailored for me NOT to like them.
Marshall TSL100 head. Nothing too appealing or terrible, but being a flagship unit I expected it to kill. It didn't.
Mesa-Boogie Triple Rectifier. Can you say learning curve? Too much for me.

 

[dxlxntxxlxr]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

My ranking considers "best" as "I got what I wanted out of it straight away",
and "worst" as in either bad quality, or simply a too picky unit that didn't work for me.

Best:

Bogner Shiva combo. The best tone I've ever had.
Egnater Tweaker 15 and the 88 heads. The closest thing to the best tone I've ever had. Smooth and warm sounding units. I read somewhere that the Tweaker circuitry is based on a Shiva and I kinda believe it is.
Orange Dual Dark 50. Freaking brutal. Dense and thick and rich sounding, tons of gain and flexible enough.
Jet City JCA50H. The way I like my "tight" heavy sounds to be like. A nice cross of vintage and modern heavy sounds.
Peavey 6505+. Crazy loud head that needs no overdrive pedals or anything, just a great guitar and it slays right off.

Worst:

Laney Ironheart IRT60H. Atrocious cleans and fizzy gain, it sounds dead to me.
Blackheart Little Giant. Never got the appeal.
Anything from the Tubemeister/Grandmeister range fom Hughes & Kettner. Too modern, fizzy and overly tight. Very clinical cleans. Excellent amps, tailored for me NOT to like them.
Marshall TSL100 head. Nothing too appealing or terrible, but being a flagship unit I expected it to kill. It didn't.
Mesa-Boogie Triple Rectifier. Can you say learning curve? Too much for me.

Give the laney another shot. U mightve been using the lead channel or the pre boost for rhythms, which just doesnt work. Use the rhythm channel for rhythm, lead channel for leads.

 

[Little Pigbacon]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

There have been soooooooo many amps. It's all just a blur now.

 

[Diego]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

Give the laney another shot. U mightve been using the lead channel or the pre boost for rhythms, which just doesnt work. Use the rhythm channel for rhythm, lead channel for leads.

I blame the Ironheart 2x12 cabinet. Tried it with my Tweaker and thought it sounded like dog****.
The one I tried belongs to a friend and I've tried just about every trick. Push/pulls, the "Dynamics" knob (whatever the **** that is), wattage settings. It doesn't quite punch the way I want it to.

 

[dxlxntxxlxr]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

Oh you were using the laney cab? It can make anything sound fizzy. No wonder you hated the ironheart!

 

[dxlxntxxlxr]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

Also the dynamics knob is a resonance control. The tone control is a presence control

 

[Surgeon]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

I don't think I've every played a bad amp per say, I'm always able to squeeze something I like out of an amp. Of course, some worked for me better than others.

I don't have one favorite but a few:
-My jcm800 build
-Dual Recto Reborn
-Orange TH30
-Orange OR15

There's only one that, after a while, really didn't fit and it was the Orange TV50...

 

[mechanic1908]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

Best would be a Traynor 30 watt combo.
I don't recall playing thru a bad one?

Sent from my SM-J320W8 using Tapatalk

 

[dxlxntxxlxr]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

I don't think I've every played a bad amp per say, I'm always able to squeeze something I like out of an amp. Of course, some worked for me better than others.

I don't have one favorite but a few:
-My jcm800 build
-Dual Recto Reborn
-Orange TH30
-Orange OR15

There's only one that, after a while, really didn't fit and it was the Orange TV50...

Yeah man, th30 is great! Orange doesnt really work for my music which is why i didnt include it.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

Sometimes I am surprised by cheaper tube amps, but many times I am not. I hated the sound of a Valve King, and the first generation Hot Rod Fenders. For the best, I love the Dirty Shirley, and my Mesa Blue Angel.

 

[dxlxntxxlxr]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

Sometimes I am surprised by cheaper tube amps, but many times I am not. I hated the sound of a Valve King, and the first generation Hot Rod Fenders. For the best, I love the Dirty Shirley, and my Mesa Blue Angel.

What the hell is a blue angel?:haha:

 

[dystrust]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

The only bad ones I can think of are a Crate Blue Voodoo and original Carvin X100B. The BV was just unspeakably horrible, while the Carvin had a pretty good clean channel and a horrible, ratty OD. Honorable mention goes to a Framus I played (can't remember if it was a Dragon or Cobra) that sounded like a Boss Metal Zone with a power amp. I also didn't care for the Diezel Herbert as it was too loud and had far more gain than anyone could use IMO. Not a bad amp, but not my thing at all.

In terms of great amps, The Soldano SLO & Decatone and the Bogner Ecstasy top the list though I don't really want any of them. My Jubilee 2555 is also one of the best amps I've ever had the pleasure to plug into.

 

[beaubrummels]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

Best: Carlos Santana's 1968 Marshall 100-watt Plexi through matching 1968 Marshall straight cab

Worst: mid-late 70's Fender Princeton silverface

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

I'm honestly not that picky when it comes to amps. Of the amps I've really liked - a Vox AC30HW2X, my bassman 70, Fender Deluxe Reverb reissues - basically if it's a classic amp, then I'll probably like it. That AC30 was my favorite though.

One amp I didn't really care for was some Krank head I tried a couple years ago. I don't think it was the Krankenstein - possibly the Nineteen80, and I just thought it had this bright fizz to the top end that I just didn't like. Although I generally prefer older style amps, I don't particularly disfavor modern high gain amps - I really enjoy a 6505+ - but the Krank wasn't one of them.

One amp I didn't really dislike, but didn't like enough to ever justify buying it at the street price is the Tubemeister 18. I love the look of the blue lights and all, but who cares how an amp looks? To me, it had too much grainy presence on top of an otherwise alright sound.

 

[Securb]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

I don't think I've every played a bad amp per say, I'm always able to squeeze something I like out of an amp.

There have been soooooooo many amps. It's all just a blur now.

There have been so many I honestly can't remember. I will say I can't recall any amps that were horrible enough to note unless there was something electronically wrong with the amp.

 

[DeadandBuried]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

Best: Peavey 6505+

Worst: Blackstar Series One

 

[Mincer]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

What the hell is a blue angel?:haha:

It is my favorite Mesa amp.

 

[Van Noord]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

Best:

Marshall JVM 210H, Mesa Mark IV, Peters Gryphon.

Worst:

Dunno...Laney GH50L, JCM 2000 TSL, KRANK Krankenstein...

 

[Nightburst]

Re: Worst and best tube amps you've ever played?

Best: Bogner Ecstasy 101B, Mesa Boogie F50

Worst: Blackstar HT5