New Amp Advice

[Jonesy76]

Right, the time has come for me to consider the future of my beloved Marshall TSL601. 
It's still playing beautifully, but I never take it out of the house any longer due to the fact that the only gigs I do now are with my sublime Larrivee LV-19E acoustic guitar (I'll never own another acoustic from any othe manufacturer again after finding these beauties), or I'm singing opera.  My electric guitars are now for my own pleasure, and to be honest the old Marshall at 60W is possibly a bit too loud especially as we now have neighbours, and they've modernised the house next door so their old outhouse is now their office too - we're semi-detached!

I've been trying a Laney today - a VC30 - and to be honest I was very impressed as to what that little amp is capable of, but I have to admit to being a bit intruiged as to what the Laney Lionheart LT5 would be like as the guitar shop I tried didn't actually have one of them.  Yes it would be another £70 more than the VC30, but it does come with a footswitch and a dust cover, and the things I've read about the little Lionheart are amazing.  It sounds like the perfect home players valve amp.

What would you good people think?
Keep the old Marshall and it's 3 channels?
Get the VC30 with its 30W and more grunt?
Save for the Lionheart?

[tomjackson]

It really depends what you would use the amp for, The Lionhearts are really nice but are voiced a little dark for me, the VC30 is a little brighter and as you say has more grunt.  The Lionheart I have tried sounds great cranked but a little flat at lower volumes compared to the VC30 (although I'm comparing 112 with 210 speaker formats).
The Lionhearts look way nicer and feel better made but they are from the same camp tonally as the VC30's.

My favorite Laney is actually the VC15 which I owned briefly.

To be honest if you play only at home you won't notice much difference between 30 and 60W, either way you wont get the power stage working much.

I'd look at the VC15 or MJW (Martamp) for sopmething tonefull in the lower wattage ratings.  Or even the new Vox AC4?

The Fender Champ XD's are nice too....

[dave_mc]

^ agreed, the lionheart to me sounded like a "better" vc30 (though that wasn't head to head, just from memory). i thought the lionheart was nice, but a bit dear. a cornford would only be slightly more (granted, not as many bells and whistles, but still), and you could probably get a martamp/mjw for around the same money (which i haven't tried, but hear consistently great things about).

[tomjackson]

Well the ones that I tried at the Manchester meet were definitely a cut aboive the Laney, I'm thinking perhaps Martin could make you something lower wattage for not that much more than a Lionheart?

From memory they had extra sweetness and grit in the top end compared to the Laney stuff.  The 18 watter was great, lower noise also....

[Ian Price]

Well the ones that I tried at the Manchester meet were definitely a cut aboive the Laney, I'm thinking perhaps Martin could make you something lower wattage for not that much more than a Lionheart?

From memory they had extra sweetness and grit in the top end compared to the Laney stuff.  The 18 watter was great, lower noise also....

Damn you Tom! I've been trying to not think about selling my Lionheart and buyying an MJW!

EDIT - I recorded a little clip yesterday (apologies for posting this again) of the Laney with an Apached strat - playing needs to be smoothed out a little:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UNqdpp6NE4&feature=channel_page

The clean volume was on 3, bass on 8, mid on 2 and treble on 9. Bright switch was off, tone level was all the way up and there was a little reverb. I've played around with the settings a bit more today and dropped the bass down to 4. It now sounds less bassy/dark than it does in the vid.

[Philly Q]

If you want an amp for home use only, it must be worth considering some tiny amps with 1 watt (or less) settings, or maybe something with power scaling.   Even 5 watts can be hellaciously loud in a house or flat.

I haven't got any specific suggestions I'm afraid, just throwing the idea in.

[dave_mc]

yeah, that's true, 5 watts is still very loud, especially in a home environment. :)

[Lew]

I was speaking to Martin the other day about a 1W Roadstar he has in the works, not sure if I'm allowed to say that he didn't say it was a secret ;P

[_tom_]

How about the new Vox AC4TV? Looks pretty nice and can be scaled down to a quarter watt - http://www.voxamps.com/us/modernclassic/ac4tv/

[Ian Price]

I was speaking to Martin the other day about a 1W Roadstar he has in the works, not sure if I'm allowed to say that he didn't say it was a secret ;P

I'm pretty sure it's been mentioned somewhere on the forum before. Unless I dreamt it.

[tomjackson]

Well the ones that I tried at the Manchester meet were definitely a cut aboive the Laney, I'm thinking perhaps Martin could make you something lower wattage for not that much more than a Lionheart?

From memory they had extra sweetness and grit in the top end compared to the Laney stuff.  The 18 watter was great, lower noise also....

Damn you Tom! I've been trying to not think about selling my Lionheart and buyying an MJW!

EDIT - I recorded a little clip yesterday (apologies for posting this again) of the Laney with an Apached strat - playing needs to be smoothed out a little:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UNqdpp6NE4&feature=channel_page

The clean volume was on 3, bass on 8, mid on 2 and treble on 9. Bright switch was off, tone level was all the way up and there was a little reverb. I've played around with the settings a bit more today and dropped the bass down to 4. It now sounds less bassy/dark than it does in the vid.

Damn you Ian, now I want Apaches instead of my Irish Tours!

Really nice sound there, the one I played was pretty new so maybe the speaker needed breaking in a bit, I've heard the G12H's need a good break in.....The Jensens in my VC30 are well and trully broken in.

[Ian Price]

Damn you Ian, now I want Apaches instead of my Irish Tours!

Really nice sound there, the one I played was pretty new so maybe the speaker needed breaking in a bit, I've heard the G12H's need a good break in.....The Jensens in my VC30 are well and trully broken in.

 :D I had recently considered switching the Apaches for Irish Tours as well! I've had the Laney for a while now, it gets used for about 5 hours a week but not at high volumes. I've only really cranked it in studios or at practice with my ex-band.

[Jonesy76]

Thanks guys! :D

Well......volume is important.  Yes 30W is loud, and 5W will be nearly so (if things are to be believed), but I don't really want to drop down to 1W or less.  I want the grunt to make the walls shake a little for when I'm pissed off, and I would still like something that I can take out if I get the option to.

I also want 2 channels.  I love the sound of the Cornfords, but I'm not prepared to go totally boutique and have only one sound......seems pointless to then have to buy an overdrive pedal or something similar if I want to go from clean to dirty.  I would rather have 2 channels built into the one amp as that way I get the cleans and the drive that the manufacturer designed.  Bells and whistles is important, as I do like to play everything from the cleanest cleans through to hard rock.......I don't want a one trick pony to be brutally honest.

I only need something that works well with humbuckers as the only guitar I have with anything approaching a single coil is my Legra MG602 with its coil tapped Riff Raffs.   8)

And don't worry about Fender amps.  I've never played one that I like.......the cleans are superb yes - but they're far too damn trebbly elsewhere.  You're talking to a man who used to have a 100W Marshall head and a 4X12!  That's the kinda sound I've always gone for.
Going to have a look at MJW amps now though.

[Bradock PI]

I know you said no pedals but as posted elsewhere I just bought an Ac4TV with a Blackstar HTdist (although initially they gave me a HTdistX) pedal - where the AC4 drops off the HT picks up it gives a huge range of flexibility. (for those people that said the AC4 can't do really metally metal it can with a little help from the HT whether it should or not for such a cute amp is another matter). The base tone on the Vox is great and the 1/4W means you can toggle between clean and gutsy by just flippin the switch and twistin the volume. With the pedal of course it's even better.

I also think you should listen to the blackstar HT5 stack (wife has the combo and it's really cool).

Just for info I compared these to the Fender Superchamp XD, Pro Junior, Junior blues and Orange Tiny Terror combo

[Ian Price]

You'll have to post some clips up Bradock. For a person who was considering the purchase of their first guitar at the start of the month you sound like an expert already.