30 Watts loud enough?

[gwEm]

It depends a bit on how the wattage is measured.

A watt is a watt is watt... ;)

As a electronics engineer, I would like to agree. Naturally speaker sensitivity plays a part, but I also know marketing has its part to play in this, as well as measurement technique. As Dmoney implies, some frequencies are more cutting than others which may make things appear louder.

Unless I've measured something myself and know the method used, I prefer to take power measurements with a pinch of salt.

[richard]

You're on a tight budget but you're considering anything from the Orange, which is relatively cheap, to a custom built SLO type clone. If you're looking for a really good amp I'd say spend as much as you can afford. I know price is no guarantee of quality but it's also true that you get what you pay for.

I'd be a bit put off by the Terror because of the single EQ control for each channel. I really like to have a 3 band EQ for fine tuning at gigs. Also, for heavy-ish metal type tones you would generally be looking at 50w plus EL34 or 6L6 equipped out stages rather than Class A 4 x EL84 which are GENERALLY know to be a touch light in the low end department although I can't speak for the Orange.

Are there any local bands using a Dual Terror ? Can you get to hear one in action at a gig ? Anyone that would loan you one for a rehearsal ? Does the shop do amp hire ? I've made the mistake in the past of buying an amp that sounded great in the shop by itself but just didn't cut it in a live mix.

If you can afford a hand built amp then you must have a lot of amps to choose from. What else have you tried ?

Just saying - choose carefully and do your best to ensure you make the right choice.

[GuitarIv]

Richard, when I say tight budget, I'm saying it takes a long time to save up a decent amount of cash. Whilst I know that one shouldn't buy lots of cheap stuff and rather less, more expensive but better gear, I'm really hating the fact right now that I don't own any decent amp. That's the reason I'm looking for the best solution and best bang for the buck. Truth is I'd love to get myself the SLO type amp built by Toe-Knee as he's a really nice fella, the sound clips sound very promising and he really seems to know what he's doing, but that would pretty much mean saving up until the end of the year. Maybe I'm just unpatient, but I hate playing death metal through a Micro Terror (allthough it's serves that purpose better than expected :P).

As far as amps go, as said right now I only find the Dual Terror, the EVH 5150III 50 Watt and the SLO type to be the right ones for me. I don 't want a 6505 as the clean channel sucks, I can't find a decent 50 watt dual channel JCM800 that would not have to be modded and all the other manufacturers don't do it for me...

[Dmoney]

Maybe you could try a JCA50H. You might want the depth mod if you're playing metal. I like it... i know Toe-Knee isn't the biggest fan, but that shouldn't be hard to add. 2 channel sort of thing with shared eq.

[Toe-Knee]

Maybe you could try a JCA50H. You might want the depth mod if you're playing metal. I like it... i know Toe-Knee isn't the biggest fan, but that shouldn't be hard to add. 2 channel sort of thing with shared eq.

It's grown on me a lot since i've changed my cab and speakers. I think it was just the way it reacted with the v30s and the peavey cab was already quite hefty in the lows.

I was just going to recommend the JCA amps. I can't remember off the top of my head though but i think they only have the crunch/lead channels. However you can get some fairly decent cleans on the crunch channel if you set the amp up right.

[Dmoney]

I dunno what the differences are between the SLO clean/crunch and the HotRod circuit, maybe you could make it more clean.

I know the crunch channel is more like a JCM800 pre and a not all that clean, but at least with the dual master you could maybe crank the crunch master volume and control the level with the preamp gain. Should keep it cleaner or longer.

[BigB]

While a watt is a watt is  a watt... I wouldn't be surprised if some companies round down their clean output power.

Or round them up sometimes too - I don't know as much as you do wrt/ tube amps technology but I wonder how one might get *clean* 18+ watts from a pair of EL84 with no nfb...

But anyway:

If you can play with your own speakers all the time and your own amp thats cool. If you know that and every gig you'll be mic'ed up and have good monitoring then fine...
(...)
If it was me, I'd have a think about the situations I might find myself playing in. What might be available in venues you're likely to play as I mentioned above. I'd rather have a 50watt that sounds good at low volumes for high gain stuff, than drive a 30watt head way into power valve saturation trying to be heard. But thats just me.

Makes sense, lots of good points here...

Fact is I do play with my own cab (which is rather  inefficient so I don't think I could get _less_ output volume anyway <g>), and never had to play much louder than rehearsal level in a live situation - it was either loud enough or going thru the PA. FWIW I sometimes whished it _wasn't_ going thru the PA so I could run my amp at the sweet spot (fairly clean power section, so you got to push it to get that "about to break up" tone, sustain and response which is what I'm looking for - using the preamp and/or pedals for more distortion).

Now even through the same inefficient cab, using a Fender HRDx (40W) which is supposed to have a rather early breakup for a Fender amp, I just _never_ needed (nor even could) push it loud enough to get any power stage saturation - it just drowned the drummer way before that point (and I'm not talking about a jazz drummer here). I wonder who would ever play THAT loud that the drummer can't even hear himself ???

Just my 2 cents, really...

As a electronics engineer, I would like to agree.

Uhu... Ok right, looks like I should have shut up  :lol:

[GuitarIv]

Will check out the Jet City amps, thanks guys. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't I read something about them no longer producing them?

[richard]

I'm sure I've read that they've been discontinued. Andertons don't sell them any more. Their website seems to still be active though......

Amend: just had another look and the site's security cert has expired.

[Toe-Knee]

They aren't discontinued they've just been dropped in the UK and parts of the EU.

I imagine due to the fact they can be hit and miss where reliability is concerned. I've had to fix two in the last year alone. JCA100h & JCA100HDM

in the latter the OT was dud the other just had some burnt out screen grid resistors

[richard]

I watched a couple of demos of the Jet City stuff. I thought at lowish gain they sounded very nice but with the pre-amp gain up high they sounded awful.

[ericsabbath]

They aren't discontinued they've just been dropped in the UK and parts of the EU.

I imagine due to the fact they can be hit and miss where reliability is concerned. I've had to fix two in the last year alone. JCA100h & JCA100HDM

in the latter the OT was dud the other just had some burnt out screen grid resistors

this is actually the FIRST time I hear about broken jet cities in YEARS
maybe these were caused by bad tubes or use (no load or something), which is pretty common with any tube amp
I'd take a jet city over a modern laney, marshall or vox any day when it comes to reliability

[Toe-Knee]

They aren't discontinued they've just been dropped in the UK and parts of the EU.

I imagine due to the fact they can be hit and miss where reliability is concerned. I've had to fix two in the last year alone. JCA100h & JCA100HDM

in the latter the OT was dud the other just had some burnt out screen grid resistors

this is actually the FIRST time I hear about broken jet cities in YEARS
maybe these were caused by bad tubes or use (no load or something), which is pretty common with any tube amp
I'd take a jet city over a modern laney, marshall or vox any day when it comes to reliability

To be fair these are the only broken ones i have come across. It's not like theyre on a bugera level!

[ericsabbath]

I watched a couple of demos of the Jet City stuff. I thought at lowish gain they sounded very nice but with the pre-amp gain up high they sounded awful.

the 20w version only sounds good at a very narrow volume range
in my experience, around 3,5-4 with v30 speakers
in lower volumes they sound bad like the videos and over 4 (VERY LOUD), the el84's start to mud everything up, as with any other el84 amps under high gain situations

I've heard great things about the jca50 and 100, including from original soldano owners and most clips sounded pretty good to me

[Toe-Knee]

I watched a couple of demos of the Jet City stuff. I thought at lowish gain they sounded very nice but with the pre-amp gain up high they sounded awful.

the 20w version only sounds good at a very narrow volume range
in my experience, around 3,5-4 with v30 speakers
in lower volumes they sound bad like the videos and over 4 (VERY LOUD), the el84's start to mud everything up, as with any other el84 amps under high gain situations

I've heard great things about the jca50 and 100, including from original soldano owners and most clips sounded pretty good to me

The JCA50/100 do sound good! More so with an OT upgrade. With the OT upgrade i'd happilly put them up against a lot of modern amps tonewise