[joeriz]

Does anyone have any experience with those Carvin solid state power amps linked to on the first page of this thread? I (obviously) do not but I would think that one of those with the SMS preamp would be a killer, lightweight gigging combination and would get you 80% of the way "there" in terms of tone (versus, say, a big heavy Mac).

Joe

[mijknahs]

My first power amp for guitar was a big Carvin FET amp back in 1995. It sucked. Way too bright. Not the right sound at all.

A good small SS power amp that gets decent tone is the Rocktron Velocity 300. It does fair paired with the SMS and is only one rack space and weighs 15 lbs. Plenty loud and you can tweak the tone of the mids and highs. It still doesn't sound as good as my McIntosh MC100 (30 lbs) though. I only have it as an emergency backup.

Jim