Practise Amps - 10 watters and similar

[Kilby]

Theres quite a few to choose from which are pretty highly thought of

roland / korg cubes 2 -> 15 watt
Vox pathfinder or ad15
the fender gdec (15 watt but does midi backing tracks which may be useful for your purposes)
Pignose  have the 5 or 15 watt pignose (battery powered) or the 10 or 20 watt gorrilla.

Just about everybody do of hat ilk fender, laney & marshall also have practice amps in and around 10 watts, I even saw some badged as HiWatt (oh god what a thought)

Even 10 watts would be loud in a classroom so I included the microcube and pignose models.

The Vox AD15 allows has power scaling if you want to avoid accidental volume issues in a classroom.

Rob...

Rob...

[ElTel]

If you are after a valve amp, then 10W will be far too much juice for a practise amp.

Personally I don't think you can do much better than a Matamp Minimat, available in 2W or 4W flavours and with either 6V6 or EL84 valves, plus customisable tone tweaking, and your choice of finish. There's a head to head comparison on the forum here:

http://bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5196

or visit www.matamp.co.uk for the official spec. Great toneful amp which is suprisingly versatile considering it's minimal 3 control setup.

Failing that there is the Cornford do two practise amps depending on your budget, and there's always the Zvex Nano for a bit of wacky 1/2W valve dirt.

*Rahnooo*

+1 for the MiniMat

The Epiphone Valve Junior has also been getting great reviews for the price. Then there is the old tried and tested standby that will cost the most of any of these, a Fender Champ.

Hi,

Thanks for the links. Found them all very interesting - especially the Matamp. I did'nt make it clear that I'm after recommendations for 10 watt trannies [schools and portability] ... but that Matamp link has got me well interested..... oh dear.

Cheers

ElTel

[WITH FULL DISTORTION]

i suggest you getting a Crate GX 15
or a gx30
you will like
good cleans, excellent distortion.
very good for hard rock, metal.
i use. Q:p

[fps_dean]

I use a Marshall Studio 15 as a small, 1x12 15 watt practice amp.  All tube, classic Marshall sound, and it has a built in attenuator so you can plug the speaker into the headphone jack and have it be super quiet (but it doesn't sound as good).  They have skyrocketed in price however since I bought mine.... however a Fender Blues Jr. or  Peavey Classic 30 will do very nicely for the cleaner side of things but you'll want a distortion pedal of some sort to boost up the gain (DHA, Mesa Bottle Rocket, Soldano Supercharger) but the general tone of both amps are great.  I'd say that's the way to go....

A 1x12 Peavey Valveking may also be worth checking out as well.  I have no experience with them personally...

[Elliot]

The Vox Valvetronix AD15VT is cheap cheerful - as is the very portable Vox DA5.

talking about school amplifiers - in my school there was an original Marshall JTM 45 doing nothing - and no one knew what it was except me - I tried to buy it but some Christian kid got it because he needed it for his church band - it probably is still sitting in some Pentecostalist church waiting for its inner devil to be revived.

[rahnooo]

[quote="ElTel

Hi,

Thanks for the links. Found them all very interesting - especially the Matamp. I did'nt make it clear that I'm after recommendations for 10 watt trannies [schools and portability] ... but that Matamp link has got me well interested..... oh dear.

Cheers

ElTel[/quote]

Heh, Jeff and the boys at Matamp will have to start putting me on commission for the Matamp related GAS I drum up on here... I wonder if it'd be enough to pay for a 1224 Mk6. Hmmm...

[broken cord]

Song Works makes a 1/4 watt tube amp that has great sound and is excellant for practice without waking the house up. I can play with my 5y/o sleeping 2 doors down.


http://www.songworks.com/14watt.html

[headtheball]

Ibanez Valbee?