Marshall 1W 50th Anniversary Amps

[Chris]

So I'm thinking about getting a new small amp for the bedroom, and when I say small I mean really small; less than 1W would be ideal.  The only thing I've been able to find are the Marshall 1W Anniversary amps which have an attenuator built in.  Anybody got any other good options?  I've heard good things about the blackstar HT1, but I figure that looking at the price point it probably isn't a match for the Marshalls...

If I do go for the Marshall I'm thinking either the JCM1 or the DSL1.  I'm not sure that the earlier amps would have the gain for heavier stuff, but I'm not sure I want a totally modern sound either.  Does anyone have any experience with these?

Obviously the best thing to do is to play them all to try them out, and I will do this, but I really hate trying out amps in shops so I like to do as much research as possible beforehand!

Any thoughts based on your experiences would be welcome, or any other ideas that I might try.

[Telerocker]

The Hughes & Kettner Tubemeister 18 has a built-in attenuator that goes from 18 to 1 watt and even to silent recordering (zero). They have a 5 Watt-version too.

[ToneMonkey]

Smokey? Cheap and cheerful.

[TheyCallMeVolume]

I have played 3 of the 5 1 watters, the JTM, JMP, and JCM. I own the JMP, and believe me when I say the thing kicks @ss. I also own a JMP 2203, the real deal, and they really sound alot alike. Granted, it is only 1 watt and it is going through a 10 speaker, but when you run through an external cab or especially slave through the FX loop of a bigger amp, it sings.

I liked the JTM, sounded great for the clean kinda stuff and low gain, Hendrix-y stuff. The JMP covers anything from hairy cleans to late 70's rock, especially with the extra pre-tube boost engaged. I did not like the JCM at all. It had the potential to be great but just did not deliver in my opinion. I was not thrilled with any tones I was getting. I highly recommend the JMP, it covers the most ground outside of the dual channel JVM, and with a good overdrive pedal your options are limitless. People complain about the price and only being 1 watt, etc. but these are great amps.

[Mr. Air]

What about a Noisy Cricket amp - http://www.beavisaudio.com/projects/NoisyCricket/

Or you could get a small lunchbox amp and have power scaling installed so you'll be able to get a good drive sound at very low volume.

[gwEm]

Laney Cub has two output options - less than 1 watt output, or 15w

[Lucifuge]

The current version of the Class 5 has a low power option, though I think it's only on the combo and not the head for some reason.

Also, there's the Cornell Plexi 7 which has different power settings from 7 watts down to 0.05 watts or something.

[Capelo]

The Ht-1R is a really nice little amp, especially when using a cab with 12 inch speakers. I own one and it's perfect for home use, they only thing I miss is a 3-way EQ. The ISF is quite a nice feature too. Try one out if you have a chance.

[Chris]

Thanks for all the suggestions!  Lots of good info in there.  I'm going to try the Hughes & Kettner, and whatever others I can find tomorrow.  I'm still kind of edging toward the Marshalls, but I have found a shop near me that does the Blackstars too.

I have played 3 of the 5 1 watters, the JTM, JMP, and JCM. I own the JMP, and believe me when I say the thing kicks @ss. I also own a JMP 2203, the real deal, and they really sound alot alike. Granted, it is only 1 watt and it is going through a 10 speaker, but when you run through an external cab or especially slave through the FX loop of a bigger amp, it sings.

I liked the JTM, sounded great for the clean kinda stuff and low gain, Hendrix-y stuff. The JMP covers anything from hairy cleans to late 70's rock, especially with the extra pre-tube boost engaged. I did not like the JCM at all. It had the potential to be great but just did not deliver in my opinion. I was not thrilled with any tones I was getting. I highly recommend the JMP, it covers the most ground outside of the dual channel JVM, and with a good overdrive pedal your options are limitless. People complain about the price and only being 1 watt, etc. but these are great amps.

I'm interested to hear that, because the JCM was the one that I was most excited about trying...  I wasn't sure whether the JMP would have the gain for heavier stuff - Do you think your JMP can handle Van Halen levels of gain?  Maiden?

[TheyCallMeVolume]

With the boost engaged it can definitely handle Maiden, and maybe VH in a stretch. I wouldn't use it for anything past that. I'm not extremely crazy about the boost because I like using cleans, and with it on you can't clean up well enough. With a good pedal, yes it will cover VH and beyond easily. I was actually just rocking out to VH, GNR, even Metallica through it last night and it sounded great. Stepped off the pedal, and I got from Aerosmith to Hendrix and Clapton with the twist of my volume knob! Very versatile amp, and IMO the closest of the 5 to the original amp it was modeled after.

[TeeBee]

Something a bit different would be the Wienbrock Hobo?  If you want more crunch/overdrive type of sounds you will need to stick an overdrive/distortion pedal in front etc.  It's really good for getting the best out of your guitar and very well made, plus very loud for around 1W:

http://www.wienbrockamps.com/hobo.html

[Lucifuge]

There's also the MJW Cub and his other amps can be built with power scaling.

At the other end of the price range from all these hand wired amps, the Bugera V5 has 1 and 0.1 watt settings.

[HU55K3Y]

Have you had a look at the Laney Ironheart? Great amp that you can control the wattage. Extremely versatile as well.

[Chris]

Thanks for all the advice guys.  I tried out all of the Marshall 1-watters except for the JVM, and I didn't find the right amp for me.  They're all really good amps, very articulate and really transparent with what's happening on the guitar, but a few things weren't right for me...  they are still loud enough that I can't really be getting power amp distortion without waking up the kids!  Engaging the low power mode helped with that, but also thinned out the sound a bit :-(  Also, none of the amps have enough gain to cover everything I want to play - even the DSL seemed lacking a bit.

In the end, although the amps were all good (the JMP was my personal favourite), none of them excited me enough to spend that kind of money.  So in the end I bought the Blackstar HT1 for much less than half the money, which I'm impressed with and will do me for now, and I'll keep looking for my perfect home practice amp...

There were a few suggestions here that I'm curious about, but I haven't been able to find examples to try out, but I will keep an eye out for them on the off chance.

[Lucifuge]

The Ht-1R is a really nice little amp, especially when using a cab with 12 inch speakers. I own one and it's perfect for home use, they only thing I miss is a 3-way EQ. The ISF is quite a nice feature too. Try one out if you have a chance.

I do like the ISF feature, but IMO it works best in combination with a 3-band EQ, as on the HT-5. I tried the HT-1, and thought I would prefer to have a conventional tone control than the ISF by itself.

Still, if you like the "Blackstar sound" you can get pretty much the same thing with the HT-dual pedal plugged into just about any clean amp, even solid state - or direct to a mixer. Obviously it won't be identical because the power amp & speaker add their own characteristics, but it can sound very close.