for those wanting cheap valve amps...

[HTH AMPS]

This may be old news, but the Blackheart range of amps look like pimped out versions of the Epiphone VJ series, but are not that much more expensive.  Could be worth looking into.

For instance, their 'Little Giant' head with vol, bass, mid, treble and pentode/triode switch is only £114 from Thomann.

Their 1x12 combo version of this with an Eminence speaker is only £185 and I'm seriously tempted to get one of these myself.

Just thought I'd post this since there are always people after sub-£200 low watt valve amps and these ones seem to give a wee bit more scope to shape the tone than the standard Epi VJ amps.

[dave_mc]

just to add to that, the epi prices seem to have dropped considerably (i think the distributor changed, didn't it?); you can pick up a VJ head for £60 now. i think there are new versions now too (though obviously you'd need to check with the retailer just to make sure they are selling the new versions) with the correct impedance for the output transformer, the input resistor values fixed etc.. On the combo you can tell because they have eminence speakers now. Not quite sure how to tell with the head.

[HTH AMPS]

where can you get VJ heads for £60 ???

if thats the case, then there is some scope for modding them and selling them on without them costing a fortune.

[dave_mc]

andertons have them for £60, and i saw an ad in guitarist for hw music (something like that; i'd never heard of them either) selling them at that too. hw allegedly has free postage on most of their stuff too.

http://www.hwmusic.co.uk/shop/search.aspx?Search=epiphone+valve+junior (seems to be out of stock, though)

http://www.andertons.co.uk/ (i can't link you to the actual product, for some reason- just search for it)

if those are the new versions (i.e. with the "right" OT), you wouldn't even necessarily have to change the OT, which is the biggest expense in modding, at least as far as I'm aware.

:)

EDIT: of course, at that price, it's always possible that they're just blowing out the last of the older ones, with the wrong OT etc.