A nice clean on a head with an effects loop for the chorus flange, with Distortion pedal though the input is the way for me to go i think...
I disagree - you stated in your first post that after
"hearing how much better the other bands sounded with all valve amps over mine I want a change" but by not using a valve amp's distortion, you're no closer to getting an "all-valve" sound doing this than with your current rig.
I don't think you should go single channel because you said you want a crystal clean.
+1 - winding down the guitar's volume to get clean is fine with a mid-gain crunch kinda sound, but doesn't really work with mega-filth - & it will always be a bit "gritty" rather than angelic-clean :)
going from clean to metal is not something a lot of amps can do.
I disagree - there are
dozens of valve amps - at just about every price range - that will do this.
...but i'd prefer to sacrifice the cleans to get a better distortion. Especially if you'll be using distortion, say, 80% of the time.
+1
I would say Distortion is more important to me, as I'm in a Hard rock/ old school thrash. It's difficult to say, we're sorta like G'N'R in my band but I like to have a sound like Megadeth from my amp.
Then take care of your "main" sound first, rather than compromising it to accommodate a clean sound.
i prefer having most of my sound coming from the amp itself in general.
Me too - IMO a decent quality valve amp will give you better high gain sounds than sticking pedals in front of an amp's clean channel.
My 2p worth :)
