What amps?

[jane]

I'm sure you've all seen these thread a million times, but...

I currently don't have a guitar amp (or a bass amp, but I digress). I have an Epiphone Elitist LP and a Fender Strat. I'm looking at playing guitar in a band, and I'm currently borrowing a friend's amp to jam with people... and he probably wants his amp back. So, I'm looking to do stuff like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Rush, 3DG... somewhat rock oriented stuff. What amps should I be trying? I'm thinking of driving down to the Cambridge L&M tomorrow to try out the Mesa Express... that's about as high as my price range will go, and that will definitely be stretching it. (Maybe LM will let me finance that too...) What else should I look at? The cheaper the better...

And the Express on the 5 watt setting is probably still too loud for an apartment building, I guess, huh?

Edited to add: I'm considering the Peavey Valveking (that's the amp I'm currently borrowing), Peavey Classic, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Fenders Blues Deluxe and Mesa Express. Thoughts on these amps and how well they'll work with what I'm planning? Oh, and I'm planning to run a Pod Live XT into it... maybe.

[greco]

I'm considering the Peavey Valveking (that's the amp I'm currently borrowing), Peavey Classic, Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, Fenders Blues Deluxe and Mesa Express. Thoughts on these amps and how well they'll work with what I'm planning? Oh, and I'm planning to run a Pod Live XT into it... maybe.

From the list above, I would look at a Fender Blues Deluxe ...it is noted as being a real "work horse" (i.e., dependable) amp. The old tweed ones are nice.

The other choice would be a Peavey Classic.

Problem is, I'm not sure which amp(s) are best suited for what you want to play through them. That probably makes my suggestions somewhat usesless. It will be interesting to see what others recommend.

All the best on finding an amp....and soon.

Cheers

Dave

[Budda]

used Mesa DC-3 or DC-5, Traynor YCV50Blue, Mesa F-30, Marshall JCM900 combo, peavey classic 50 212,

all those amps i suggest looking for used. the mesa's and the marshall mentioned are all discontinued, you should be able to find the traynor and peavey in stores.

[Bevo]

The Mesa's are amazing but they are Very Expensive and there are lots of other great choices out there.

L&M does have a great no interest sale right now which is ideal to take advantage of. They also have some Traynor combos on sale.

Bring your guitar with you and try them all but also see if there are other shops around that you can also visit.
Your friends are great as well to take advantage of, try what they have and have one go with you to critique each amp.

Don't forget used, just get it checked out first...

Its all about the hunt...have fun.

Bev

[Stratocaster]

The Valveking is a great amp classic rock/modern rock. It's got a good price, all tube ect.

Maybe down the road you might want to swap out the tubes for something with a little more kick

[Budda]

The Mesa's are amazing but they are Very Expensive and there are lots of other great choices out there.

L&M does have a great no interest sale right now which is ideal to take advantage of. They also have some Traynor combos on sale.

Bring your guitar with you and try them all but also see if there are other shops around that you can also visit.
Your friends are great as well to take advantage of, try what they have and have one go with you to critique each amp.

Don't forget used, just get it checked out first...

Its all about the hunt...have fun.

Bev

Every mesa I listed can be had for under $700.

[jane]

Question about impedences...

Say I pick up a DC-3, which has 8 ohm and 4 ohm speaker outputs... what if I get a 1x12 cab that is 16 ohm? Can I run it into the 8 ohm output or is something going to spontaneously combust?

[iaresee]

Play everything you can is all I can say. And bring *your* guitar -- don't count on them having something similar. And play it at all the volumes you'll be using it at. The Peavey's a great and under rated. The Traynors seem popular but get mixed reviews. The Blues Jr. is a work horse. The Mesa is going to be a Mesa-voiced amp (you'll see what I mean when you play it) but it'll take a beating and keep on ticking.

As long as the amps you're looking at have master volumes you'll be able to play it in your apartment. It won't sound the same as it does when it's full open and roaring but it'll be fine.

As for impedance mis-matching: it's generally okay to run a higher rated load from a lower rated jack. So a 16 Ohm load run from an 8 Ohm jack is okay. Most tube amps have pretty beefy output transformers and you can get away, in a pinch, with running a lower rated load from a higher rated output (so a 4 Ohm load on your 8 Ohm output) but I wouldn't make a habit of this personally: you're risking power transformer burn out when you do this.

But the real question is: given that you'll already own the amplifier (you wrote in the future tense) why would you buy a cabinet that didn't match it?

[jane]

wow... so the DC-3 I was watching on ebay went for $910...




Maybe I should stick to peavey, traynor and fender...

[sadowsky13]

Presently I have a mesa and must say they are built like tanks.

The express has recieved good reviews

http://www.mesaboogie.com/Reviews/2007-Express-GuitarBuyer/GuitarBuyerEXP-2007.html

http://www.mesaboogie.com/Reviews/2007-Express-Guitarist/Express-GuitaristREVIEW.html

[Budda]

wow... so the DC-3 I was watching on ebay went for $910...




Maybe I should stick to peavey, traynor and fender...

who's the sucker that paid that much? i've seen one go for $600..

[Emohawk]

If you're really on a budget & have some DIY tendancies, the Epiphone Valve Junior & a couple of mods (like the BitMo mod kits available at thetubestore.com) can be a decent choice. I picked up a head & cab a few months ago for fun, added a tone knob with a pull-boost & a 3-way voicing switch (one of the BitMo kits in fact...can't remember which one).

It's loud enough to jam with (if you don't need pristine clean) & crunchy enough for pretty much anything short of balls-on metal.

And you're right - 5 watts is pretty loud. The Epi (about 5w) is far too loud for an apartment.

[bcmatt]

Here's my little story about how loud 5 watts is from last week.
My BF Vibro Champ clone is about 5 or 6 watts I believe. I wanted some nice creamy power tube distortion so I cranked it. I had an ABY pedal and I was going through another amp (my DC30) while jamming with my band. We were playing pretty loudly with Drummer and everything and it was a pretty aggressive song.
At the chorus, I click/switched to my cranked champ. Everyone grinded to a stop, because I was overpowering everyone. I explained that I had switched to my 5 watt amp mid song.
I like playing loud so that the building shakes, but my problem seems to be that every amp is way too powerful to push it like I'd like to, and I always am forced to use pedals for most of my distortion in any live setting with anyone more than myself present.
Sorry, this was a self-indulged tangent. Back to the problem at hand...

[vds5000]

who's the sucker that paid that much? i've seen one go for $600..

Yeah, that's crazy money. I recall someone in Hamilton having a DC-3 head up for sale for about $499. It was missing the 'Mesa/Boogie' logo, but he actually was willing to sell it for $450 cash.

[Budda]

I was gonna get a DC-5? combo for $750, my traynor never sold.

[buckaroobanzai]

LA Music's got a deal on this...

http://www.lamusic.ca/default.asp?szNav=Product&PID=22645

no, I don't work for them....

and the previously-mentioned Fenders and so forth are always popular choices. You will probably have trouble getting a decent sound out of a Valve King at apartment volume levels.

Maybe concentrate on what works best for playing out, and then find a little modeller for home? (Roland Cube, Vox DA-5 etc.)

[jane]

Update: I bought a DC-3 combo (although I don't have it yet). I'll post again when I get it to see how I like it, in case anyone wants to know. And how I like the weight... I kind of wanted a head to split up the weight a bit but it would've cost more. (And no, I wasn't the one who paid $900+ for the one on ebay...)

I have a POD for home use. It's great... allows me to practice at 3am if I really really wanted (although I usually prefer to reserve that time for sleeping...)

[iaresee]

Congrats! So a note about Mesa's: they have finicky knobs. There's generally a huge sweep range on their EQ knobs and it can frustrate some people at first because a small nudge up or down can have a big effect. I've only owned Mk's and Rectifiers so I don't know if this applies to the DC series but I'll take an educated guess that it does. I like to start with the EQ knobs at noon, gain low, and work from there with little nudges before I swing the knobs to any extreme settings. The far end of the EQ on any Mesa I've owned has not been very musical.

[Bevo]

Great choice.

Make sure you print off the manual for the amp, they do things a bit different.
e.g. Treble controls the preamp, what that means is instead of only adjusting your treble or highs it adjust all the mid, bass and gain.

They recomend you keep the treble between 11 and 1 o'clock. Now this may be different on your amp but the manual will tell you.

I did come accross a forum specificly for your amp but lost it, do some digging and take a look at all the tips.

One great mod I seen was to take a cable from your FX out, put a guitar style volume pot in, then back to your FX in.
This way you run the preamp wide open getting the crunch but control the output transformer seperatly. You basicly get all the tones a bedroom level without having to buy an attenuator.

This is the F forum with tons of pages of Mesa info..
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=885856

Bev

[Bevo]

This ones great too..

http://www.google.com/custom?domains=grailtone.com&q=DC-3&sitesearch=grailtone.com&client=pub-2595680862737068&forid=1&channel=1369897976&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&flav=0000&sig=fMqkGCxFtUAySlUy&cof=GALT%3A%23008000%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23336699%3B VLC%3A663399%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3 A336699%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A0000FF%3BT%3A000000% 3BGFNT%3A0000FF%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3BLH%3A33%3BLW%3A1 00%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.grailtone.com%2Fimages%2 Fgrailtone-logo.gif%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2F%3BLP%3A1%3BFORID%3A1&hl=en

Bev