tube amp

im lookin for a cheap but good tube amp and all i can find are the really expensive 2,000 dollar tube amps are there any good tube amps around for a guy like me whos tryin to purchase his first tube amp? thanx for your help.

shredder.

The first thing you need to tell us is how much are you wanting to spend? What kind of music do you play? What are you going to use the amp for,ie.. bedroom practice, light gigging, etc, How much flexibility in tonal range do you want/ what kind of features do you want, ie... channel switching, reverb, effects loop etc... Give all that some thought, and then we can start looking at whats out there that might be what you want.........

tube/valve amp you can get in the UK at decent prices is the laney LC15/LC15R. These are UKP £150 -230. they are a very fine amp and have great tone, features like line out so you can run 'em through larger amps. i tried a selection of 15-50 watt amps and the LCs blew away most solid state amps up to 50w. The Pignose 40 valve amp sounded ok to me as well. In the end I went with a Vox cambridge which has a valve preamp and all the features (except reverb) but a soldid state power section...I find the tones fine.

there are many hybrids like this such as the ashdown kidd range.

These types of amps are usually ok for medium gain sound up to LED ZEP,Queen (hard rock) type noises, for Metallica+ you'll need an HM pedal.

Start huntin'

Go to this page and click on Traynor Series Guitar Amplifiers. Select either the Custom Valve 40 or the Custom Valve 80. The 80 is not much more expensive than the 40, and it has a few more features. You're looking at about $800 in Canada. At ~1.50 $CDN per 1.00 $US, its gotta be hard to justify buying anything else!

ok lol your saying it will be about 800 dollars in canada but what about in the us?

The exchange rate still works in your favour in the states. The cost of shipping adds a bit to the price, but I figure a US dealer should be charging around $600 for a YCV 40. Like I said, its hard to justify paying the kind of prices that Fender, Marshall, and Mesa Boogie are charging. The Yorkville site has a listing of dealers on it.

I'll vouch for the quality of Traynor amps. I own the YCV40, and paid $599.00 CAD for it a year and a half ago. I'm not sure if the price has gone up from that, but that translates to about $365 USD (using an exchange rate of 1.65).

It's 40 watt all tube amp, with vintage distortion and reverb. Two channel with separate tone controls for each channel, two-button footswitch (one's a boost switch), 12" Celestion red label speaker, Accutronics extra long (or something like that) reverb springs.

It has a great crisp clean tone, although the Celestion does have a bit of a piercing high end - but some people dig that, or you could eliminate it with an equalizer or compressor or by turning down the treble knob. The distortion is wicked, too - a nice rumbling vintage distortion when the gain's at about 5, or hard rock at 10.

Well, I'm done raving. Check it out.

It's good to see that Traynor is keeping up their good name!

Well, while were on the topic of tube amps... I got a couple questions.

1. Why tube amp? how are they different?
2. How does the actual tube part of the amp work?
3. Are they cheaper or more expensive?

thanks...

Originally posted by BlackBox
Well, while were on the topic of tube amps... I got a couple questions.

1. Why tube amp? how are they different?
2. How does the actual tube part of the amp work?
3. Are they cheaper or more expensive?

thanks...

1. This thread on the Amp Tone website gives some indication. Check out the links.

2. I think Amp Tone may be able to answer this one for you. There's a lot of material in there, so be ready to spend some time poking around, reading articles and following links.

A Google search is always a good way to find answers.

A search through previous Tech Talk threads will reveal many pages of learned dissertation on this subject as well.

3. This one even I can answer. Watt-for-Watt, transistor amps are always cheaper to design and build. Marketing considerations distort that simple engineering truth into unrecognosable shapes sometimes.

I live in a condo so Volume isnt that important but tone is. I use a Fender BLues Jr and love it, and let me tell you the thing is loud. Its only 15 tube watts but this thing screams. I also played through a mesa boogie 22 watt amp, that sounded good. And a fender musicmaster vintage amp. They were origanlly made for base but have a cult guitar following since the tone is soooooo good.

All in all I got my blues Jr for $285 with shipping on ebay and love it. Your tone is made up of several factors; Your guitar, effects, amp, cables, your hands (lol). I wouldnt go nuts on an amp, I am more into pedals and tweaking than huge power amps. I have awesome tone and my guitar can play at any level and sound good. It doesnt need to be cranked up.

Good luck,

P.S tube is the only way to go, once you get one you'll never go back.

you can get mini amps if you are going for cheap.....marshall makes a sick mini amp, its about $400.00
but is sounds huge...it also has a line out in the back so that you can hook straight into a P/A for live gigs..