[Billbbill]

My apologies if this has been beaten to death somewhere else on the board.

Thought I'd lean on you guys as I'm woefully uninformed in this area. Looking to upgrade from my solid state 65w Crate GLX65 amp to a decidedly warmer tube tone jerryish sounding (you know what I mean!) amp. Don't want to spend an arm and a leg but as it's tax return time I got a few extra coins available. Would like some headroom and enough juice for small club gigging.

I understand there's more to the jerry tone than the amp, and I can get some nice tones from my crate, but the margin for 'error' is rather tight. Not looking to duplicate jg's tone as much as I'm looking to 'warm' it up!

Onboard effects not a must though would entertain the options.

Thanks for any and all input.

[paulinnc]

I have heard great things about the Peavey Classic 30. I ran across the Johnson Loredo 25 amp, that looks like a rather inexpensive tube amp. The Johnson amp needs some simple mods to make it really good, check the reviews for it on harmony central for more info. There id always the fender blues junior, Crate also has a series of tube amps that sem to have some decent reviews. Check Ebay and your local craigslist for deals and happy hunting.

[FretfulDave]

I would personally second on the Peavey Classic 30... it's what I play. It comes with stock Sovtek and EHs and I understand you can get more headroom and clean but putting a 12AT7 in place of the stock drive tube, v3 I think. I have not done that yet but I get pretty good clean from it as is. Its 30 watts and can play a small room from what I hear but haven't gigged yet so not sure on that. $600 and under. Combo or head. The combo I have is nice, weighs only 39lbs, which is good for us older guys

I was looking at the Epiphone SolCal 50. It seemed to be the closest in sound to the Classic 30. I was looking for more power in case a gig popped up . I understand that one needs to be re-tubed right from the start. I read where you can clean it up nice also with a few select 12AT7s in the right spots, etc. And switch out the Ruby tubes that come stock. It is like $500 - $550. Head only. The writeups say the reverb needs work and that is the target of the 12AT7s or even 12AY7s.

Best of luck on your quest!

Dave

[Billbbill]

Thanks guys - I suppose everything is relative and I should clarify that I'd be willing to go to 1K or maybe a little more to save me from modding as I really don't have much of a clue! fretfuldave, you might as well be writing in Greek! But I'll be able to sort thru the advise as I go along. Thanks!

[tigerstrat]

Southern Westchester NY...

http://newyork.craigslist.org/search/ms ... query=tube

Check out that DeVille for $375. Or this one on the Upr E side looks interesting:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/msg/1163331245.html

click the tabs for other parts of the NY area...

[SarnoMusicSolutions]

If you're willing to spend $800 or more, I'd strongly recommend finding a Fender Pro Reverb amp from '68 to '73 or so. Nothing can touch a real vintage Fender circuit, especially if you're going for "that" sound. New Fender's are not all that reliable, but the old ones are as rugged and bulletproof as any amp in history. And they do that tone better than anything else. I recommended the Pro because it's plenty loud at 40 to 45 watts, and sounds just like a Twin. If you need the super loud clean thing, then a Twin Reverb is the ticket at 80 watts. Some later Twins are 135 watts. There are plenty of these Fender amps to be had, and any amp tech can easily service them too. To me it's just crazy to get anything but a real Fender if you're wanting a tube combo amp to do what you're after. Why not get the real thing? The way they made them back then would cost you thousands of dollars today with a new boutique amp. By far the best bang for the buck, by a longshot.

Brad

[jonarobb]

I have a 68' Pro Reverb and a 75' Twin Reverb up for grabs. The Twin has been faithfully Blackfaced to a 64' Non Master Volume circuit. The Pro Reverb absolutely sings. We can talk mods, etc if you're looking for a particular tone. As it stands they're both blueprinted and stage/studio ready.

There's also a couple of Boogies here. A 77' Mark I 1x12", an 81' Mark IIb Head, and a 96 Mark IV 1x12".

p/m me if you want to come down and check em' out

[caspersvapors]

I always hear you guys discussing the same 3 amps - deluxe rev, twin rev, and pro rev.

but whats your opinions on super reverbs or vibrolux's or any of the other amps of the bf/sf era?

[tigerstrat]

I generally agree with that, SMS, but I didn't know what "not an arm and a leg" meant so I just punched in "tube", min:300 max:1000 on local Craigslist search and linked that sample of used deals. Basically encouraging to buy used, not new.

I

[Chuckles]

I have a 68' Pro Reverb and a 75' Twin Reverb up for grabs. The Twin has been faithfully Blackfaced to a 64' Non Master Volume circuit. The Pro Reverb absolutely sings. We can talk mods, etc if you're looking for a particular tone. As it stands they're both blueprinted and stage/studio ready.

There's also a couple of Boogies here. A 77' Mark I 1x12", an 81' Mark IIb Head, and a 96 Mark IV 1x12".

p/m me if you want to come down and check em' out

I just want to add a strong rec for jonarobb's work if what he has interests you. Got a TR head he modded to the preamp config (and reconed E120s) from him a while back and couldn't be happier...

[SarnoMusicSolutions]

I always hear you guys discussing the same 3 amps - deluxe rev, twin rev, and pro rev.

but whats your opinions on super reverbs or vibrolux's or any of the other amps of the bf/sf era?

I mention those amps because they use 12" speakers, and most of us here are interested in using 12". The Super and Vibrolux are fantastic amps, but you have to prefer the sound of 10" speakers to enjoy those amps.

Pretty much any of the amps from that era are killer. Personally, I don't play loud amps. My holy grail collection currently includes a '68 Deluxe Reverb, a '68 Princeton Reverb, and a '71 Champ. I love them all. They're all built with the same hand wired, military rugged quality, are extremely serviceable, will last a hundred or more years, and above all, they have just gorgeous clean tube tone. Why go for anything less?

I'd say you should be very interested in jonarobb's offerings here.


Brad

[Billbbill]

I generally agree with that, SMS, but I didn't know what "not an arm and a leg" meant so I just punched in "tube", min:300 max:1000 on local Craigslist search and linked that sample of used deals. Basically encouraging to buy used, not new.

I

What I figured TS - as I was clarifying you were doing the legwork I'd guess - thanks much!

Brad - thanks for the advice - It's great to have the collective knowledged and experience of all of you guys to lean on.

Oh Jason...

[strumminsix]

Seriously I'd consider one of jonarob's offerings... If you doubled your available money I'd recommend you talk to Fargen amps.

[NashvilleMike]

I got one of these about 6 months ago and love it! I wanted a good tone tube amp that I could use on its own with a solid voice or just use it as a palate for effects to paint over. The 2 sets of tubes combined with gain/tone knobs and the settings on my 72 strat or epi sheraton give me a wide variety of tones without using any effects.

I shopped and played different amps for a good while with a budget of up to 2k. Here is why I decided on this one:

Dual tube settings - variety of sound
Light weight - No back breaking loads (have you tried to move a Twin?
Versatile - I can use the head and speakers, one 12" or 2/12's (to get really loud and feel the tubes work)

[paulinnc]

I came across this site and they seem pretty reasonable. http://www.sligoamps.com/index.html
These guys will make pretty much any fender style amp and they look very reasonable. Also Allen Amps look really nice too, check them out. http://www.allenamps.com/index.php