These Epiphone Blues Custom/Grainger Blues Twin amps...

[Adam.M]

Say, has anyone tried one?

I was just thinking about a time when i tried the Grainger Blues Twin, the sound control copy of the thing which i really liked, especially for £299.

Now I clearly have no interest in the Buitique market, my cash wont spread that far for at least two decades. I've got a £3,000 camera and thats just the start of it, another £6k spent on lenses and we might be closer to the finish. Oh and a car!

So i'm looking at the details and the Grainger is EL34, the Epi is 5881's... now from what i can remember, these are interchangeable? just a bias and hey presto?

I say because, whilst they're the same amp, as far as i know at least, the proper Epiphone one looks far nicer but i do want EL34's in the thing.

It's a bit odd too, that it's a blues amp, yet it's got five pre-amp tubes... as far as i remember, thats soldano SLO 100 territory, but i guess it's how you use the tubes... wonder if it could be modded for real high gain stuff!

[kellar]

I tried out the Epiphone Blues Custom a few times and really liked it. I very nearly bought it. It has some excellent features like the 15 watt class A power or 30 watt class AB and the 3 speaker out options. I also liked the reverb. Epiphone is starting to put out some pretty nice stuff.

[Transcend]

and if yo want a full 50watt head... the epiphone so cal looks appealing./

[dave_mc]

do you want high gain?

[Adam.M]

do you want high gain?

I'm not sure, depends what you mean by high gain really... the highest i'd ever want to go to is like Andy Timmons like levels, like in this great track http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0cdLoB5Ehc

Though thats with a fairly high output pickup and pushed with a tubescraemer, i'll be pushing whatever amp i get with a T-808 or SD-1. Heck i'll be making my own BSIAB II pedal soon too, to get even more gain.

What i really want is a good amp at a price i can actually afford, £299 for the grainger is fantastic and i don't mind even if i have to mod it a bit, heck the epiphone branded one is £500 now!

Know of any other amps that might be better suited?

[dave_mc]

hard to say... i wouldn't really want the blues twin for that type of tone... to me it just sounded like a louder, more versatile valve junior (though i'm probably biased as i already have a valve junior lol)... i wasn't all that impressed to be honest.

laney vc30 might be worth a look (again kind of vintage-sounding, but probably could handle more modern stuff a little better than the blues twin)...

really depends what the budget is to be honest. even from grainger, i'd rather have the hammerhead for that tone than the blues twin. :)

good track by the way, timmons is great but i didn't know that track! :D