Hey guys,
I am trying to find a good sounding solid state amp for practicing. Here's some background info....
I currently have a Trace Elliott Brat 30 watt, which is a good sounding amp but just doesn't have alot of distortion and really needs a booster infront of it for heavy gain, I use a Marshall Bluesbreaker II pedal on the "boost" mode. Also, no channel switching via footswitch.
I also have a Marshall MG15DFX, which again is a good amp but the small speaker can make it sound kind of thrashy, plus it doesn't have channel switching via a footswitch, which I really want!
At the moment I'm using a Roland Cube 30, which is OK but I find it hard to get a reasonable volume for playing in the house - even on the lowest setting I find it a little too loud plus some of the models don't sound the best to my ears. I always use the Metal or the Classic settings. The clean is pretty good and I can change channels with a footswitch.
The other amp I have, which I use alot, is my Vox AD30VT. This is OK sounding but it lacks clean options and it's supposed to be very unreliable, although I haven't had any problems with it yet.
So, what I'm looking for is the following -
* A low wattage but good sounding SS amp for use in the house. I don't play gigs and never will play gigs so having a loud amp is useless to me. I'm guessing that anything below 30 would be suitable.
* It has to have two channels which I can change using a footswitch.
* It has to be a combo amp.
* It has to be capable of high gain for metal and hard rock styles.
* It should clean up nicely when I roll down the volume on my guitar.
* Sound tube like.
With all this in mind, can anyone recommend something that sounds decent? Maybe I'm asking for alot here. I was thinking of the Peavey Transtube amps, I see that the Envoy 110 looks pretty good, although 45 watts may be too loud, even when I have the volume down low, would this be the case?
I was also looking at the Peavey Bandit 112 amp. I see that you can drop it down to 25% wattage via a little control on the back, would this make it suitable for house playing levels ie TV volume levels?
The thing is, I live in Northern Ireland and the music shops here do not carry a wide range of amps. I will have to order the amp without trying it first so I need to get something that is guaranteed to fit the criteria I've set out.
I don't really know of any other cool SS amps from any other companies so if anyone here can guide me, I'd be much obliged!
Thanks
Zuzu.
I am trying to find a good sounding solid state amp for practicing. Here's some background info....
I currently have a Trace Elliott Brat 30 watt, which is a good sounding amp but just doesn't have alot of distortion and really needs a booster infront of it for heavy gain, I use a Marshall Bluesbreaker II pedal on the "boost" mode. Also, no channel switching via footswitch.
I also have a Marshall MG15DFX, which again is a good amp but the small speaker can make it sound kind of thrashy, plus it doesn't have channel switching via a footswitch, which I really want!
At the moment I'm using a Roland Cube 30, which is OK but I find it hard to get a reasonable volume for playing in the house - even on the lowest setting I find it a little too loud plus some of the models don't sound the best to my ears. I always use the Metal or the Classic settings. The clean is pretty good and I can change channels with a footswitch.
The other amp I have, which I use alot, is my Vox AD30VT. This is OK sounding but it lacks clean options and it's supposed to be very unreliable, although I haven't had any problems with it yet.
So, what I'm looking for is the following -
* A low wattage but good sounding SS amp for use in the house. I don't play gigs and never will play gigs so having a loud amp is useless to me. I'm guessing that anything below 30 would be suitable.
* It has to have two channels which I can change using a footswitch.
* It has to be a combo amp.
* It has to be capable of high gain for metal and hard rock styles.
* It should clean up nicely when I roll down the volume on my guitar.
* Sound tube like.
With all this in mind, can anyone recommend something that sounds decent? Maybe I'm asking for alot here. I was thinking of the Peavey Transtube amps, I see that the Envoy 110 looks pretty good, although 45 watts may be too loud, even when I have the volume down low, would this be the case?
I was also looking at the Peavey Bandit 112 amp. I see that you can drop it down to 25% wattage via a little control on the back, would this make it suitable for house playing levels ie TV volume levels?
The thing is, I live in Northern Ireland and the music shops here do not carry a wide range of amps. I will have to order the amp without trying it first so I need to get something that is guaranteed to fit the criteria I've set out.
I don't really know of any other cool SS amps from any other companies so if anyone here can guide me, I'd be much obliged!
Thanks
Zuzu.