Your favorite amp

[chadd]

I've owned a stupid number of amps over the years and my favorite was my Mesa Road King II. four channels, twelve modes and a ridiculous amount of tonal variety. Ridiculously heavy (weight) but sounded great at reasonable volume. Currently using my Kemper (powered) and don't miss the Mesa that much.

 

[Aceman]

My all-time favorite?

Went in to buy a 2555 Silver Jubilee Head, and came out with this - The Mesa that "Out-Marshalls" Marshall Stiletto Deuce:
(ignore the guitar - here for the amp)

50/100 watts, Bold-Spongy switch, Tube/Silicon Rectifier, Clean/Fat Clean/Crunch and Crunch/Tite Gain/Fluid Channels-Modes. Plus a boost for "more loud" leads

Close Runners Up:

Marshall VS100R - Clean/OD1-OD2 25/100 watt with Reverb on two channels 1x12 combo. Hybrid 12ax7 up front and solid state power. All the Marshall tones I really need.

Peavey Express 112 - 65 watt Clean/Gain channels, bright-normal and low-high gain and a thrash (scoop) switch. Great solid state 1st gen Trans-tube amp. Clean, Blues, Bass, Rock, Metal - this amp can do anything.

For all around practice jamming - love my Roland Cube 30. The Fender Twin, Roland JC120, 5150, and Rectifier models are particularly useful. Full EQ, Modulation, and Delay-Reverb built in make it very very flexible.

 

[orpheo]

I have had so many amps. JCM800 2203, JCM800 2210, Triple recto, dual recto 2 channel, Soldano SLO, Victory Silverback, Victory V100, Marshall 6100 30th anniversary, Rivera M100, Rivera Knucklehead Tre, Koch Powertone Mk1, Peavey 5150-I, Engl SE 670 Special Edition, Mesa Mk4, Mesa Mk3 Green Stripe. TwoRock Studio.

None of them compare to my Revv Generator 120 Mk2. That amp does it all for me. Sparkly cleans (which I never use), crunch ala Vox or Marshall, overdrive ala Marshall and SLO, fluid creamy tones ala Fender and Dumble, and high gain chuggachugga. It is the only amp that does what I have in my head, sonically.

The JCM2210 lacked a touch of gain;
The 2203 was too fizzy in the top end.
The 5150 was too fizzy all over and way too much gain.
The SLO felt like I was playing through a cloud of glass dust.
The Rectos were too fat, too gritty.
The Victory V100 'felt' right but sounded too flubby.
The Silverback felt like sitting on a bag of crisps.
The 6100 was just horrible. Not my thing. I wanted to love that amp but it just wasn't for me. Too fizzy!
The M100: fizzy AND flubby!
Knucklehead: same like M100 but too harsh.
Powertone? Why the heck did I sell that. GREAT amp!
Engl SE670: despite TONS of gain it was too kind for my taste, too polished.
Mesa m4: great for medium and low gain tones, horrible high gain. Not my thing.
Mesa mark3: oh man that thing sounded sweet. Creamy, fluid, transluscent dare I say, but the high gain s u c k e d. Yet, I miss that amp. Needed a TS808 to tighten up.
2Rock: NO. Hard pass. Totally not my thing. Lacked any kind of ability to distort. even a little bit.
Toneking Imperial Mk2: oh man, I loved the reverb and trem but the drive didn't do it for me. I went back to the Revv.
Koch Greg Koch: like the toneking. Man I wanted to love it, but the overdrive just wasn't it.
Hughes&kettner Triamp Mk3 in Purple. OH I wanted to love this. I did. But no sound convinced me. It was horrible.

No, the Revv is the amp for me. Every tone I get from it, is perfect. Even if I mess up all the controls for laughs 'n giggles it sounds amazing.

 

[Cynical]

Mesa mark3: oh man that thing sounded sweet. Creamy, fluid, transluscent dare I say, but the high gain s u c k e d. Yet, I miss that amp. Needed a TS808 to tighten up

Was there something broken on it? A Mark 3 needing a boost to tighten would be so weird; those amps are incredibly tight naturally, and are also responsible for some of the best high-gain sounds in history at least in my opinion.

 

[ErikH]

The favorite that I have owned, early 1990's Marshall JCM 900 MkIII Hi Gain Master Volume. Not to be confused with the Dual Reverb or SLX. The MkIII was the predecessor of the SLX, made for 2-3 years. An absolute monster and great Marshall tone. I sold it because I wasn't using it anymore and it sat there. That was a period where I sold off a bunch of stuff since I wasn't playing in a band at the time and paid off a credit card with proceeds.

 

[Mincer]

One of the amps I use for lessons is a Spark Mini. It is tiny, and it sounds great. It can be used as a Bluetooth speaker, and has a great app that allows you to add effects and share settings. It also has backing tracks to play along with.

 

[Archer250]

The Peavey 6505+

I mean I've had Plexi clones, I've had the Triamp, I've had DSLs, I recently have a Friedman Smallbox

The 6505+/5150ii is still my fav.

"it just works", and it works very well

 

[misterwhizzy]

No, the Revv is the amp for me. Every tone I get from it, is perfect. Even if I mess up all the controls for laughs 'n giggles it sounds amazing.

Every time I get to messing around with my Revv pedal, I feel the same way. It's running into the effects loop return of my Marshall Origin 50, and it can do an unbelievable variety of tones.

 

[maug2122]

With nine 12ax7, you almost don't need a distortion pedal.

 

[Mincer]

That Carvin is a little over engineered, eh?

 

[maug2122]

That Carvin is a little over engineered, eh?

It's a Monster, from Fender cleans to Rectified .

 

[Mincer]

It's a Monster, from Fender cleans to Rectified .

If you think about it, it is pretty amazing for its time.

 

[Seashore]

With nine 12ax7, you almost don't need a distortion pedal.

I would love to try running this through the power section of my VHT.

 

[metlking]

My 2 real amps are a Bogner Helios 100 and a Friedman Smallbox. I prefer the Bogner 75% of the time but switch it up now and then. The 2 amps are similar in Marshall flavor but different enough. They sound glorious when ran together!

 

[Ascension]

Owned a bunch of killer amps over the years, thats for sure.
My all-time favorite is the first gen PRS Archon head I have. It's the tone I have always heard in my head, has a fantastic clean, plus the gain side is suer expressive.
I have 4 now and every one of them is something special.
The Jet City JCA 22H head that is mint and unmolested is a killer little modded Marshal tone machine.
The 25 watt Zinky Blue Velvet combo Bruce built me in 2008 is just a little beast that I will never sell.
The little 20 watt Mesa Boogie Subway Rocket that I have owned for decades and is my grab and go small gig go to still after all this time.

 

[Ascension]

If you think about it, it is pretty amazing for its time.

Owned a couple of those Quad X preamps. The tones are just amazing, one of the best sounding midi tube Preamps ever built by anybody at any price. This is from someone who owned a Boogie Traxis,, Marshall JMP! , Several rocktrons , ADA Peavey Rockmaster and others. Very very underrated rigs that are just killers!!

 

[Mincer]

Owned a couple of those Quad X preamps. The tones are just amazing, one of the best sounding midi tube Preamps ever built by anybody at any price. This is from someone who owned a Boogie Traxis,, Marshall JMP! , Several rocktrons , ADA Peavey Rockmaster and others. Very very underrated rigs that are just killers!!

How come you don't own any now?

 

[Hiwatts and Gibsons]

These two.

I've owned...

Crate GL150
Fender London Concert Reverb
Yamaha T100C
MESA Tremoverb modded with 5 watt SGR's to run EL34's on the si diode setting at the correct bias
Magnatone Panoramic Head
​Dr-Z Route 66
Fender Champion 600

I still own...
Hiwatt Custom Shop Custom 100 DR103
​Reeves Custom 100 DR504
Matamp GT150
Ampeg V4

While many of them are amazing amps, those two Custom 100's are just amazing on an entirely higher level. Between their natural clarity, broad bandwidth, pristine cleans to amazing classic rock crunch, and the way they eat pedals like a fat kid digging into a box of Twinkies when mom and dad are out they are more versatile and sound better than any amps I ever played.

There is no tone I cannot cover with either of them, a Treble Booster, a Fuzz, and a good distortion pedal. With the Fulltone TTE split stereo, and that Z-Verb on one side, and a semi-hollow or hollow body guitar they give up that Chris Issack "I Want to Fall In Love" tone for days. Switch to dry with my Treble Booster into my Game Changer Plasma Coil Fuzz and it is more brutal than summer in hell for thrash and death metal tones. Switch to a Tone Brnder Mk II Pro and I have '70s hard rock heaven. Then with the Keeley Fuzz Bender it does Doom tones that would fit perfectly in Electric Wizard or Goatsnake.

Unfortunately the Z-Verb was stolen, so usually these days I run my Ampeg VT22 on one side for that juicy super cavernous reverb.

 

[Ascension]

My favorite amp is a Rocktron Voodu Valve preamp and a Peavey Classic 60/60 tube power amp with a 4x12" cab. It can push some air but it sounds also very good at bedroom level (as quiet as my Katana at 0.5w).



Nothing boutique, nothing high class, but when I'm shopping to replace it I'm always coming to the conclusion that it will be too expensive and I will have to make some compromises. It's an hard to dial preamp (because of the 2-band pre-eq and the 4-band parametric post-eq) but you can dial any tone you want (clean, blues, pop, classic rock, hard rock, '80s metal), and all recallable with midi. Probably a Synergy rig could replace it but it's freaking expensive.

Based on the amp models I play with, I would really like to have a Cornford MK50.

Ran that exact same rig for a while at my church. Back in the day, it was very cool!

 

[Ascension]

How come you don't own any now?

Got away from running a rack rig. I ran it with several different processors and used an ART X 15 midi controller. It was big and heavy, plus a pain to set up and with 9 12AX7's in the pre and the 6L6's plus a couple more 12AX7s in the Power Amp to maintain. Still was a good sounding rig.