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Worst guitar amp you have ever heard


JapanAxe
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I used to play drums in a (for want of a better term) punk band where one of the guitarists had an SG into a silverface twin running through a 4x12 loaded with two greenbacks and two golds, with a pharaoh fuzz in front. To this day it is the most meaty earth-shattering tone I've ever heard. People used to ask him "what tuning are you in, drop D, drop A?" nope, just standard. Mindblowing stuff.

The line 6 spiders don't sound half bad if you keep them on clean and crank the master.

For me the worst sounds I've ever head have always come out of Ashdown gear.

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Pretty much any modelling amp I've come across would win out here. I think the Blackstar ID range are perhaps the worst I have heard in recent times. Tried a few of them the other month and they sound dark and muddy with fizzy gain. Horrible sound that would be useless for pretty much any application.

And Line-6 stuff - the Spider I've had a few unfortunate encounters with and it is an utter horror show. I cannot imagine how anyone could love that thing. Saying that I feel pretty much the same about the POD-HD too. Expensive rubbish that sounds nothing like the supposed amps it's moddeling, lacks almost all of the dynamic reponse you get via a real amp, and sounds fizzy and brittle once you get it louder than bedroom levels.

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We have an ashdown at work of indeterminate model (1x12 combo of some sort), it is unreliable, heavy and sounds poor at best and terrible when really pushed. I see people on here with Ashdown rigs who are happy with them so presumably some of their stuff is good.

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Another fan of the Mustang 3! I find it a very enjoyable and responsive little amp.

Worst was a Vox Cambridge 15.

I had owned and stupidly sold a Cambridge 30, which I loved. Saw a 15 for sale a few months later and hated it. Tinny, brittle, fragile, and unresponsive. Yuck.

I did wonder if the 30 I had had had a new speaker put in? Never bothered to find out to my eternal shame.

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[quote name='MoonBassAlpha' timestamp='1483897880' post='3210955']
I think the main problem with guitar amp sounds is that too many folks apply far too much gain to their sound which takes all the dynamics out of the playing and sounds to the audience like a fizzy mess.
User error, for the most part, imho.
[/quote]

This.

I learned a long time ago that what sounds good in your bedroom generally doesn't sound good onstage trying to cut through a live band.

Too much distortion, scooped mids, too much low end - all end up swamping the sound live.

Better off concentrating on midrange/top, and using a cleaner sound, to get a bit of clarity.

All said tho, some of the amps mentioned here are actually pretty bad!

Edited by bassbiscuits
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