Small valve amps. Caution; guitar related content

[jimmyb625]

6 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

And me and Krist Novoselic...

The LC15R is a brilliant little amp

[SubsonicSimpleton]

If you know what you want soundwise, it might be worth considering buying an amp that has been built using old fashioned turret board and point to point wiring (or building one yourself) - most modern valve amps are built using components mounted directly to PCBs and although they sound great when working properly, they can be problematic to repair due to the relative fragility of the pcb traces.

I have a fender superchamp XD which I bought used, huge range of sounds available, very portable, you can disconnect the internal speaker and conect it to an extension cab(8ohm min), I would be singing its praises almost unconditionally, but a week or so after I bought it I dropped in on a mate who had built a homebrew amp based on the champ 5F1 circuit with solid state rectification, and added a baxandall tonestack and master volume and it was really on another level, no high gain tones on offer and no effects, but sounded great both with bass and guitar whatever you did with the controls.

[Stub Mandrel]

Should confess the Laney I've had for 30-odd years is  pro Bass head 🙂

[Nicko]

On 01/11/2019 at 21:19, leftybassman392 said:

Dunno if I should have said this sooner, but I don't need high gain. I'm looking for fairly clean (I do love the sound of lightly compressed strat), through to a bit of bluesy grind with the 335. Barring a miracle it's all for my own pleasure anyway. I know most modern amps can do high gain, but I'm really more interested in basic tone so I can just plug in and play.

I went through this exercise a few years ago and tried all the small twin channel valve amps I could find.  I ended up with a Hughes and Kettner TM18, which has a power soak allowing 0, 1 5 or 18 watts output.  It was the least heavy metal sounding of the amps I tried.  The clean channel with the drive just backed off sounds absolutely stunning with my telecaster in the middle position, and almost as good with my 339, especilly if I boost the input with a touch of EQ from a pedalboard.  I dont have a strat but suspect the position 2 and 4 would sound similar. Originally it was available as a combo or head/cab.

Sadly they have now discontinued this model, and had already discontinued the 5 watt version and the smallest they do now is a 20 watt deluxe which is out of your budget even in head form and no cab.   You may find a 2nd hand 5 or 18 watt one somewhere. 

If that miracle happens theres a speaker emulated line out so you can gig with it too.

By sheer coincidence our guitarist has just bout the TM36 second hand and is now gigging with it in place of her old Bugera which weighed a ton, mainly using a PRS and it sound great too.  Bugera also do a single channel 5 watt valve combo and a multi channel 5 watt head which both seem ridicuously cheap and would be worth a try at that price (£209 ea at Gear 4 Music).

[leftybassman392]

17 minutes ago, Nicko said:

I went through this exercise a few years ago and tried all the small twin channel valve amps I could find.  I ended up with a Hughes and Kettner TM18, which has a power soak allowing 0, 1 5 or 18 watts output.  It was the least heavy metal sounding of the amps I tried.  The clean channel with the drive just backed off sounds absolutely stunning with my telecaster in the middle position, and almost as good with my 339, especilly if I boost the input with a touch of EQ from a pedalboard.  I dont have a strat but suspect the position 2 and 4 would sound similar. Originally it was available as a combo or head/cab.

 

Thanks for that. Very interesting.

High gain seems to be almost de rigueur for this type of amp - appealing to the inner child in most guitarists I guess.

Of the amps that have been suggested, the one I'm most looking forward to testing (for a variety of reasons) is the Cornell. Unfortunately the 'mean' channel is something I'm unlikely ever to use. I'll no doubt play around with it a bit - why wouldn't you?  - but not really my priority. Interestingly, Cornell do make amps that - on paper at least - do more of what I'm after, but they're £800+ and will in all likelihood weigh almost as much as the Cornford.

Next in line will probably be the Blues Junior and one of the Blackstar 10W jobbies (if only to see if they sound as much like Marshalls as people are saying). With great respect to everybody who's taken the time to post here, I'll be surprised if I need to look beyond those three.

As I go through this process I need to keep reminding myself that I'm no longer a gigging musician, and resist the temptation to go for something just a little bit bigger, just a little bit more powerful and just a little bit more expensive. I need an amp with which to indulge my passion at home. If I can have a bit of cash in hand after selling the Hurricane then so much the better.

[Monkey Steve]

slightly late to this one, but I have a Marshall Class 5 combo - 5w class A amp - and love it

It's typically set for 0.5w (as it's a later model from after they included that switch) as I really only use it for practice at home, and switching it back to the full 5w would make it very suitable for small gigs/practices.  My tip is to elevate the amp or tilt it back so that it's projecting at ear level

Lovely warm valve sound without getting very dirty, which seems to be what the OP is after.  Pretty simple 3 band eq and that's about it - no gain.  If you want a more focused distorted sound (as i sometimes do) then a separate fuzz box is needed (I favour a Tube Screamer, which works really well with the valve amp providing the warmth)

No longer in production - the closest currently being made is probably the Marshall Origin.  But if you can find a second hand one, well worth a try, and looks great too.

At the other end of the market, a mate bought a Harley Benton 5w amp (Google suggests it was a GA5) which was briefly stored at my place before being loaned to another of my mates.  Also Class A, and with a warm valve sound, with no gain or distortion on board.  Lacking the 0.5w switch so the owner retired it from home practices because it was too loud, and pretty limited eq with just volume and tone controls, but in comparison to my Marshall the mate who's ended up with it couldn't hear much difference.  Again, seems to be out of production, but a bargain if you can find one second hand

 

Edited November 4, 2019 by Monkey Steve

[WHUFC BASS]

I've got the HT-1 amp and it's great. I use it with both headphones and through the speaker. It's a fantastic little amp, but I'd doubt you could gig with it.

If it absolutely has to be valve, I'd recommend the Hughes & Kettner TubeMeister 36 if you can find one. They're awesome and easily loud enough for pub gigs.

[sammybee]

7 hours ago, leftybassman392 said:

Next in line will probably be the Blues Junior and one of the Blackstar 10W jobbies (if only to see if they sound as much like Marshalls as people are saying). With great respect to everybody who's taken the time to post here, I'll be surprised if I need to look beyond those three.

My daughter won a Blackstar Artist in a competition. A/B'd for 1/2 an hour with my Blues Jnr to decide it's not 'the sound in my head' (as the adverts say) - so it went on eBay as quickly as it arrived. Saw a Fender Pro Jnr in decent nick on a facebook group earlier today - £250 and a BJ for £300. 

[Nicko]

14 hours ago, sammybee said:

a BJ for £300. 

I had to think about that for a second.

[DaytonaRik]

A shame that you've absolutely set on a combo as a single 1x12 cab with a lunchbox head would do the job perfectly - amazing tone at low volumes and extremely versatile 

https://www.victoryamps.com/rd1-rob-chapman

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, DaytonaRik said:

A shame that you've absolutely set on a combo as a single 1x12 cab with a lunchbox head would do the job perfectly - amazing tone at low volumes and extremely versatile 

https://www.victoryamps.com/rd1-rob-chapman

As a generous fool, I gave my brother a Marshal 16-ohm 1x12 cab I bought years ago for using with a head as a practice amp. It's small and light and with a Celestion greenback in it sounds great with his Tiny Terror.

[leftybassman392]

2 hours ago, DaytonaRik said:

A shame that you've absolutely set on a combo as a single 1x12 cab with a lunchbox head would do the job perfectly - amazing tone at low volumes and extremely versatile 

https://www.victoryamps.com/rd1-rob-chapman

Oooohh! That's nice.

It is a bit outside the window on several counts, but might be worth a look.

[EliasMooseblaster]

On 04/11/2019 at 13:53, WHUFC BASS said:

I've got the HT-1 amp and it's great. I use it with both headphones and through the speaker. It's a fantastic little amp, but I'd doubt you could gig with it.

If it absolutely has to be valve, I'd recommend the Hughes & Kettner TubeMeister 36 if you can find one. They're awesome and easily loud enough for pub gigs.

I am also very fond of my HT-1, and I I got an opportunity to compare it with the HT-5 in a shop. I was just after something for home practise and recording, as I wasn't gigging on guitar at the time, so I saved my pennies and plumped for the 1W; under different circumstances I might have been more tempted by the 5W. Both are good for doing high gain stuff, but I was mainly looking for something which could do a could "clean-going-into-breakup" tone, and they were good for that. Worth trying the HT-5 before buying if you can - they have "a sound," and it can be a bit divisive.

Also worth bearing in mind that they're hybrids - I forget which way round it is, but either the preamp or power stage contains the valve, while the other is solid state.

[skankdelvar]

4 hours ago, leftybassman392 said:

Oooohh! That's nice.

At completely the other end of the price spectrum there's the JOYO JTA-05 Sweet Baby. Basically, a 5F1 Champ for under £200.

It's not handwired (obvs) but unlike most cheap Champs it's got a valve rectifier which is good because (i) that's how the original Champs were built and (ii) you can swap the valve out for a different sound.

I've not played one but people seem to like them. Comprehensive unboxing, first impression and guts-shots review here 

[leftybassman392]

26 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

At completely the other end of the price spectrum there's the JOYO JTA-05 Sweet Baby. Basically, a 5F1 Champ for under £200.

Thanks for that Skank. That really is oldschool! Sounds good on the demo though, especially the Strat.

 

Edited November 6, 2019 by leftybassman392

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, skankdelvar said:

It's not handwired (obvs)

You seem to be doing them down!

Quote

Giving a truly vintage tone thanks to the all valve, all hand-wired, class A circuitry,

 

[Dan Dare]

There's a difference between "hand wired" and "hard wired". Hand wired can mean built by hand on a PCB. Hard wired would mean point to point/turret board construction. I doubt very much whether one would get true hard wired amp for £200, even if it was made in China by children who are paid a bag of gravel for their labours each week...

[Stub Mandrel]

6 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

There's a difference between "hand wired" and "hard wired". Hand wired can mean built by hand on a PCB. Hard wired would mean point to point/turret board construction. I doubt very much whether one would get true hard wired amp for £200, even if it was made in China by children who are paid a bag of gravel for their labours each week...

Looks like you are right, at least it is all discrete components though.

[skankdelvar]

Joyo JTA-05 guts

The Joyo is hand wired in the sense that Joyo's tearful, oppressed child labourers push certain connectors into certain components by hand. Being tiny children, they have tiny hands which is useful when doing detailed work in confined spaces.

OTOH it seems the amp has at least two PCB's (the valves mount directly into one of them though it looks they're properly secured into the chassis as well) and those strange plastic coated multi-wire connectors. I suppose one might contend that it's a modern take on turret board construction.

I've been thinking about getting one of these for a while now but I can't justify it, this on the grounds that I need to get my old Bassman properly fettled and I don't see that work coming in for less than the cost of the Joyo 

 

Edited November 6, 2019 by skankdelvar

[DrBike]

Our lead guitarist has a Laney Cub 10 that he uses from time to time when we practice, I'm super impressed with the sound he gets out of it.  Very small and very portable and nice clean sounds too.  

I have heard that some owners decided to replace the speaker but I guess it depends on what you're looking for/expecting.

[NancyJohnson]

As this thread took a little modelling amp swerve, I'll just throw in my 2 cents.  I don't play much guitar, but I do own a combo - a Line 6 Spider IV - that I use for home recording; to my ears it sounds fine for demos...DI'd or cranked on the landing with a microphone in front of it.  Whilst yes, I know that Line 6 stuff is sneered at and that this probably hasn't been withing a mile of a valve, a guitarist who's used it for recording at mine just loves the thing and compares it favourably with this Orange head and 4x12 and doesn't have an issue getting usable tones out of it.

Moving along, small valve amps.  I'm watching a small valve combo on eBay at the moment (no, I'm not saying what), that ticks all my boxes.  It's a bit of a one trick pony, visually it's a bit retro, but I'll see where the auction goes over the next few days.

[leftybassman392]

@NancyJohnson Thanks for that. As I said earlier in the thread, I've had a couple of Line6 units over the years and still have an original Pod. I have no real beef with the technology at all. Just not for me from here on in is all.

Valve combo sounds interesting though...

[Monkey Steve]

the Cornford is a Class A amp, right? 

If so, and that's the sound you like then I'd suggest sticking to other Class A amps rather than Class AB - particularly if you don't want the high gain options.  There's been a real growth in small Class A amps over the last few years, as you can see from all the recommendations

Your other consideration being weight, I have to say that for home use, an 8 inch speaker is plenty big enough.  The obvious swap for lower volume would be to a Cornford Harlequin, but I think they still have 12 inch speakers so it wouldn't tick all your boxes (albeit that it would retain the sound you like)

Beyond that, I'd throw in that while there are plenty of 5w amps, for home use that can still be pretty loud, so one with an option to reduce the output levels without simply turning the volume down (so that you are still getting that warm valve sound) is very useful.  You could look at adding some sort of power attenuation, but that's not always an option for some combos - for instance I couldn't use one with my Marshall Class 5 unless I completely dismantle it so that the speaker isn't hard wired in.

Regarding @NancyJohnson's modeller idea, while it's not the solution you're looking for, I would say that if you want to get some other amp sounds out of your combo, putting an amp modeller pedal in front of a nice warm valve amp works brilliantly - something like a Sansamp GT2 will sound excellent

[Kiwi]

I have a couple of early Ibanez TSA5 combos which are 5w 5E3 based for 99 quid each.  They sound very nice when at full voice, I had some nice comments from BC-ers when I brought them to the SE Bassbash in 2014. 



I also have a 50w Burman Pro501 combo and a 60w Fender Concert II (Rivera era) but they're a little too loud for home use.

[GuyR]

On 06/11/2019 at 11:16, EliasMooseblaster said:

I am also very fond of my HT-1, and I I got an opportunity to compare it with the HT-5 in a shop. I was just after something for home practise and recording, as I wasn't gigging on guitar at the time, so I saved my pennies and plumped for the 1W; under different circumstances I might have been more tempted by the 5W. Both are good for doing high gain stuff, but I was mainly looking for something which could do a could "clean-going-into-breakup" tone, and they were good for that. Worth trying the HT-5 before buying if you can - they have "a sound," and it can be a bit divisive.

Also worth bearing in mind that they're hybrids - I forget which way round it is, but either the preamp or power stage contains the valve, while the other is solid state.

Another HT-1 user here. Very nice range of cleanish into breakup sounds available. Not super versatile but a great little amp for not much money. If you are not gigging, there is more than enough volume for home use and more driven sounds are available at low enough volume to not have to worry about annoying family/neighbours. It does my 66 Tele justice.