Obscure/Under Rated Gear.

[38thBeatle]

I can't add much but the Sansamp (GT2 in my case) pedal is quite impressive.Maybe not obscure but not too glamorous with lights and buttons all over the shop but easy to get a great tone out of it I reckon.

[Copperhead]

Glad there aren't (too many) sour feelings then ;)

Believe it or not I'm actually a fun guy, but I suppose no one here cares for mushrooms either.

[dave_mc]

The ToneRider Superlush Chorus is my wolf in sheeps clothing.  In fact, I've also got the British Distortion and the American Overdrive and they've both superb too.  The chorus sounds as good as an old CE-2 but with true bypass, and the Overdrive sounded as good as my Maxon OD-9 which I then sold.  The Distortion is a Guv'nor / Crunch Box style pedal and sounds better than both of them.

For £60 each they're incredible.  True bypass, boutique tone and high street pricing.  Look past the name and go with your ears and wallet....

yeah, the chorus is really nice. I paid £67, though, stupid price drop... :lol:

And the distortion is that nice, is it? Might have to pick one up, eventually... how bright is it, though? My big problem with a lot of distortion pedals is that they can be really bright, and also quite noisy... :( Got an HBE big D a while back, which is very nice, but the brightness and noise are a bit annoying... I got it second hand on ebay, too, so not 100% sure it's not slightly faulty... :(

I got one of these recently, and it's really, really nice, especially for the (verging on ridiculous) price. Went up £20 since I got it, too...

http://www.valvepower.co.uk/index.htm

[Twinfan]

Not too bright Dave - I hate overly bright distortions too.  It's a bit like the Crunch Box if you'd tried that?

[murraymurray]

I quite like my redbear amp, had never heard of them until i was buying one.
dont like it quite as much right now though since it doesnt work

Ive always though laneys are underrated, I had an aor100 for a few years and it was mean.
they always seem to appear as the retarded cousin of marshall. mostly just through marshall being kings of marketing and laney not even understanding what marketing is. if i had the choice though id generally go the laney path

I also consider my jackson jj1 scott ian to be reasonably obscure, seems to be left out of any jackson talk since its not the typical metal guitar, more lowkey gibson styled. i got mine pretty cheap and then the other guitarist in my old band also got one for even cheaper. down here anyone who wants a gibson style guitar would rather pay big bucks for a gibson, anyone who wants a jackson doesnt want a gibson style guitar

[Twinfan]

Laney GH50L is very underrated - I really liked mine  :)

[murraymurray]

I tried to buy a laney GH100l last week, it was the only one they had in stock in the country at the local guitar place so was discounted bigtime combined with interest free Hire Purchase which I have preapproval for thanks to buying stuff previously through them, but someone had already put it on layby and the website hadnt been updated  :shock:
so yeah no new amp day for me

[dave_mc]

Not too bright Dave - I hate overly bright distortions too.  It's a bit like the Crunch Box if you'd tried that?

nope, haven't tried it, sorry. But if it's not too bright, it might be worth considering, thanks for the info dave. :D EDIT: how's the noise on it?

[HTH AMPS]

you can still get Selmer amps for under £300 - easily the match of any Marshall/Orange/Hiwatt/Fender/Vox of the same era.

[Twinfan]

nope, haven't tried it, sorry. But if it's not too bright, it might be worth considering, thanks for the info dave. :D EDIT: how's the noise on it?

It's pretty darn quiet to be honest, but I only use it at band volumes for rehearsals.  I have my small board at home at the minute so I'll try it and let you know?

[JamesHealey]

Miles Platting
Selmer
WEM
Linear
Impact
Wilsic
Watkins

All great vintage valve amps for so much cheaper than an old Marshall.

[Antag]

Mine doesn't have any effect on tone, but rather I find it a huge practical help:

Lehle 3@1 switcher

It makes guitar changes so easy:  simply choose 3 guitars, plug them into it, pick up the one you want, step on the corresponding button & play.  If you want to change, simply put it down, pick up one of the other guitars, step on the button etc etc.  Live guitar changes are so much easier (& quieter!)

It has 2 outputs so you can plug in a tuner with no signal loss.  Also, if you want to do A/B comparisons (say to compare different pickups :)) it's so much easier than having to unplug things.

[Fourth Feline]

Laney GH50L is very underrated - I really liked mine  :)

You just reminded me of my favourite gigging amp ( back in the day ) - the Laney LH50R-II.  For a 1950's to 1980's style(s)  covers band - It covered a lot of ground for me ;  from Fender-ish cleans on channel 1, to 'creamy goodness' on channel two. I had not initially submitted it for this thread, as I was not thinking of it as being lesser known.  

My current 'cut price contribution' is my budget Jazz guitar (Vintage VS575) - albeit pimped with new Grover machine heads, upgraded pots and caps - and a change of knobs to match the Manhattans. I can see that it might be considered invalid as a 'budget' item, if I felt the need  to upgrade components ;  but the value to me - was that the  woods, acoustic tone, frets, ease of set up to very tight tolerances, was good to go from the box. With all the upgrades, it still came in at half the price of a Peerless, and a fifth the price of a Gibbo or 'Boutique'.

The Phil Jones Cub 100 is my other 'little gem' .  :)

[Ratrod]

I was wondering if it would belong here.

It's my amp. The brand isn't obscure nor underrated but the amp itself is.

It's the Engl Classic Tube 50.

It's not like other Engls that seem to be orientated towards high gain and Swiss Army knives.

Those who look for a hot rodded (blonde) Fender tone don't tend to put Engl on their shortlist.

If this amp was made by Fender, it would have been a bestseller.

[Dmoney]

im gonna have to back the Laney GH50L.
To think these are reallly inexpensive here, you don't see TOO many people using them. I think it's a good as a 5150, probably better IMO since i prefer marshall tones.

im also gonna add using grolsch's rubber stoppers from flick open bottles as strap locks. pretty awesome and very inexpensive!