Amps you didn't get on with

[richard]

Most disappointing amp you've had ? Mine was a Marshall JCM800 channel switching combo. I had it on loan for a couple of months. When I first plugged in I was impressed. It was the first Marshall to have usable pre-amp drive. The honeymoon didn't last. The 'clean channel' was awful and , after a while, the lead channel got very irritating - it produced some rather odd, unpleasant frequencies every now and then as well as some very square-wavish distortion. Couldn't wait to give it back to the owner who kept dropping the price because he didn't want it either.

Didn't have a Marshall for a few years until I got gig with a cabaret band. I was low on funds so I bought a Valvestate 8080 combo from the first range. Reasonable drive channel but the clean channel was an embarassment. Totally characterless. Replaced with all solid state Laney GC120 combo which was much better. I liked that amp and would like to have a try of one again someday to see it's as good as I remember.

[_tom_]

Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Nice clean but the OD channel was weird. It was thin yet muddy and fizzy sounding.

Still have a sort of love-hate with my Laney GH50L. Sounds great but it's very "dry" and hard to play for lack of a better description. Just seems to fight against you somehow haha. I want to try out a V30 cab with it as well since I'm still not sure on the G12H30s, bit fizzy which I think is the speaker breakup.

[Telerocker]

- Koch Multitone 50 combo: clean channel ok, crunch I never got right and a bit too thin, leadchannel too much fizz and needed much gain to sound acceptable.
- Most Marshalls and Mesa's don't do it for me, but that's not the amps fault. I prefer a good vintage sounding clean channel in a channelswitching amp. I cannot find that in most Marshalls and Mesa's.
- Fenders are love and hate. Clean and light crunchy they can be a delight. Drivesounds are most of the time poor.

[TheyCallMeVolume]

Any Mesa Boogie amp. I never have enough time to sit down with one and really find a tone in there, as many say to do, so I never really got the hype of them.
 
I was also thisclose to getting an Orange Rockerverb, but something just told me not to. It was the right call!

[Elliot]

Marshall Class 5 - I just can't get any good sound out of it.

[HTH AMPS]

Any Orange amp I've ever tried - the boxy mids just do my head in.

[TheyCallMeVolume]

Marshall Class 5 - I just can't get any good sound out of it.

Forgot about this one! Definitely one of my least favorite amps ever.

[Philly Q]

Hmmm, I can't get a good sound out of any amp....

[dave_mc]

Still have a sort of love-hate with my Laney GH50L. Sounds great but it's very "dry" and hard to play for lack of a better description. Just seems to fight against you somehow haha. I want to try out a V30 cab with it as well since I'm still not sure on the G12H30s, bit fizzy which I think is the speaker breakup.

yeah it probably is partly the speakers. it's a bit gritty rather than smooth anyway, but g12h30s sort of accentuate that. I actually like mine with (heritage) g12h30s but it did take me a while to get used to it. It's definitely smoother and more modern-sounding with v30s... but also a little generic, maybe. I prefer it with more vintage celestiony style speakers (which is not to say you necessarily will, of course).

I didn't really get on with the genz benz el diablo. I really liked it when i tried one ages back in a shop, but then i picked one up recently from gak when they were blowing them out... just didn't "feel" right (I found out just before it arrived that it's not all-tube, which may have skewed my perception of it, but still...). the more i used it the more i was starting to like it, though- it was a bit tricky to dial in, it's quite complex. But then the thing died on me and rather than get another one and maybe still decide i didn't like it, i took that as a sign and just took a refund :lol: GAK was very good to deal with, fwiw.

[Dmoney]

- Marshall Valvestate VS100: My first big amp. I thought it sounded better than the AVT's which had just come out around the same time. I used this thing for years but at bigger shows it really lacked power and never really honestly had the tone.

- JCM900 4100: My first valve head. Better than the valvestate. This also the first amp I modded and repaired. The lead sound is horrible in comparison to other things.

- JCM800 2205: Better than the 4100 but a long shot. This is a cool head. Forget the clean channel as its useless. Turn the channel volume on the OD channel up to max, and use the gain control to add gain (like any other preamp gain control) and use the master vol to set the overall level. That is the best way to use that head as far as i'm concerned. First amp I did any major changes to. I still have it but its in bits. Not an ideal sound.

- Peavey 6505: Absolutely too noisy.

- Mesa 3 channel Dual Rec: Just couldn't get what I wanted out of it. Didn't find it easy to dial in, didn't like the channel switching, didn't find a real consistency between channels.

- Soldano Decatone: Lead channel wasn't as nice as my Soldano Avenger.

- Bogner Uberschall: Really struggled to dial this thing in to where I wanted it. Just couldn't bond with it.


I still own a Soldano Avenger and SLO100. I just get exactly what I want to hear with either of them, in various different ways.

[Twinfan]

Anything with EL84s.  I find they're set up to do the Vox thing, which to my ears only works for singlecoils.  Buckers + Vox = thick muddy mess.

[_tom_]

yeah it probably is partly the speakers. it's a bit gritty rather than smooth anyway, but g12h30s sort of accentuate that. I actually like mine with (heritage) g12h30s but it did take me a while to get used to it. It's definitely smoother and more modern-sounding with v30s... but also a little generic, maybe. I prefer it with more vintage celestiony style speakers (which is not to say you necessarily will, of course).

Yeah I like the sound with the G12H30s and it sounds great in a band (I think the fizz helps it cut through a bit or something) but I often find myself wanting a more modern/smooth tone. Although I think I'm just looking for any excuse to treat myself to an Orange 2x12 or 4x12 :lol:

[dave_mc]

^ haha you're preaching to the choir about the addictiveness of speakers and cabs :lol:

But yeah I actually quite like (some) fizz too. But sometimes you want more smoothness, too. actually the eminence swamp thang/texas heat combo sounds pretty good with the gh50L... though they're pretty american-sounding, so if you want to stay with british tones, that's probably not the way to go. Or eminence v12s might be worth a look, they're kinda like more laid-back/already broken-in v30s. They're also pretty cheap. But if you're getting an already-loaded cab there probably wouldn't be much difference in price.

[JJretroTONEGOD]

I used to own a marshal TSL601 combo which is the harshest and shitetiest sounding amp I've ever heard, especially the dirty channels, it sounded awful so I had to get rid of it within only a month or so, I also didn't get on with Tech 21 amps, but most other amps have been fine.

[gwEm]

I more or less found a setting I liked on all the amps I've tried, but I've not always liked the speakers they might have been connected to.

Sometimes I've tried amps where I didn't like one of the channels though.

The stock Epiphone Valve Junior was pretty bad though.