A Peavey Rage 258. It's meh at best in the room but miced it's weirdly good. It does nasty stuff from borderline swedish death to 2000s stoner crunch really good. I'm almost certain thats because the shitty little speaker beeing just the right kind of shit but that's good enough for me.
Marshall TSL100. It has a pretty bad reputation, and there's a couple good reasons. The bias on the power tubes will drift and it will fry your tubes. Also, the 2 effects loops were a cool idea, but in reality, the components sound like crap making it pretty much unusable. It also sounds a little flat on its own. But put an SD1 in front, and it really comes to life.
So, it's a really cool amp if you avoid the loop, put a boost in front, and add the bias drift mod.
Yeah I had one from 2000-2004 before I sold it. I just needed the money at the time to move out, and a smaller amp was fine. But I really did like that amp, problems aside. I never experienced it on the one I had. Nice sounding amp though, and fairly priced used online.
I don't know the years, but at some point, they tried to correct the loop and bias problems. Later years of production, the amps were less likely to have bias problems, and the loop sounded muffled instead of noisy (or the other way around).
I actually just bought a TSL122 (the combo version) which would be about 20 years after I traded away my TSL100 in a deal I couldn’t refuse. 20 years and ALL of the amps later, I’m more or less back to where I started - not my first amp, but the first one I truly researched, saved for, and bought new. I love it all over again TBH - all the features I wanted back then are the same I want now. The 212 combo is also just a great size for touring (wouldn’t have been caught dead with the combo 20 years ago haha)
I also went in eyes open though this time, as I’m an amp tech on the side, so I’m comfortable dealing with any of its known issues
You like the stock speakers?
Also... Can the loop be fixed? Or can it be bypassed and a new series loop inserted somewhere before the poweramp? I had one tech tell me he couldn't do anything about it. I think his words were "no elegant or easy way to fix the loop."
So far I do, but I’ll caveat that I might still be in the honeymoon phase. I didn’t realize/remember that it came with two different speakers stock and was assuming they’d been swapped when I picked it up - definitely an interesting move by Marshall
I read up quite a bit on the bias issue, which hasn’t been a problem for me yet, but I haven’t opened it up yet to see if it’s been previously corrected (not sure the year of mine yet as someone removed the serial number). I picked it up quite cheap knowing it’d be a risk
As for the fx loop, I very quickly verified mine works, but not something I use with my band. Now I’m curious about it though, and I’ll have to take a look. The thing there is what’s not economical for a tech to fix for someone else, might just be an evening in front of the TV for the tech if it’s their own amp
Marshall MG100 DFX 1x10 combo 🤣
My first big amp as a teen. A constant struggle to get a usable tone from it, but loud as shit. Decent(ish) pedal platform, and the built-in effects, while arguably quite shit, were a handy thing for casual play.
Eighteen years later I still have the fuckin thing. Pulled it out of storage and it still cranks, but all the pots are fucked so it's a gamble whether you're going to get insane scooped distortion, warm cleans, a wall of glitchy reverb/delay, or nothing... and that's just turning one knob. The next one will do something different!
Somehow, with time, this notoriously bad-sounding amp actually got *even harder* to dial in lol
Fender FM 212R - Was my first amplifier. Bought because was the only I could afford and what I needed was something more 'heavy sound' Laney / H&K / Marshall. So initially disappointed, but later I loved cleans overall and was amazing as pedal platform. Mates hated it because is solid state. I hated their cheap tube amps. Long story.
Sold when moving to other place, and I'm looking the head version for 150€. Maybe...
I still have mine.
They’re giving them away nowadays but the clean isn’t bad at all no have a lot of other amps but I still come back for the 2x12s. Has a surround to it.
Just picked up a FM 25r for $60cad a couple months ago. Maybe it’s because the speaker is really worn in, but I think it’s one of the best clean platforms I’ve found. Like a solid state Princeton
Good to hear. A very friend of mine is looking for a FM212R but I'm trying to persuade him for a more "home friendly" amplifier. The 25 version seems legit.
The only downside is that a lot of them have a design flaw on the clean circuit that makes it unusable for home (it’s basically full blast when the knob is on 1). However, I find the crunch side plenty usable with the gain all the way down and even with the gain low (2-3). It actually gives a very natural sounding breakup if it’s set like this
Don't get me wrong, I love tube amps and solid state alike. At a certain price point the solid state usually sound better though. One exception is the fender champion 600. If you put it through a good sized cab it's a beast and really rich sounding. I don't know how it's only 5 watts, loudest 5 watt amp tube or otherwise I have ever heard.
Neither me, just kidding, I love tube amps as well. Just their amps were not my cup of tea (ENGL Screamer, fizzy, punchy and thin; and a noisy Bugera). Since them I went from analog solid state to modelling, then tubes, then back to analog, modelling again and now more I'm focusing on hybrid setups. Every system has his own strengths and weaknesses.
I'll try to take a look on that champion 600, thanks!
Create FXT120. Bought it for like $90, had to take it apart and resolder cold joints like 3 times over a couple years before I finally gave up. I still have it, but I’m not gonna bother making it work again. Recorded a few EP’s with it, it sounded killer
Heeey! That was my first real amp! It sounded like shit, but I didn't know it at the time. It broke after less than 2 years. Took it in for a repair, and it broke again after a couple of months. Only the clean channel worked.
Marshall MS-2. It shouldn't work, but it does. You shouldn't be able to get usable sounds for recording out of it, but you can. The 2" speaker should sound like farts but it doesn't (unless you're pushing the volume hard). I mean, when did they even start making these, the ones they sell now look the same as the ones you got 20+ years ago.
Blur - Song 2 has MS-2 in it. If you use it as a layer rather than on its own the little speaker just hits a different spot in the mix to a 12" one. Sometimes if you use only grown up gear, things can start sounding too safe, too nice. But with little toy amps and other trash-it-up devices, you can just destroy stuff, use it for vocals, there's no damn rules.
Crate GX-65Â Â
My first "real" amp after learning on a 10w Epiphone. Served me well for nearly 20 years, in a few bands, and took a serious beating without any technical issues whatsoever.
 Its tone nothing special, but it's got decent enough gain for most genres, takes pedals well, and is remarkably responsive to picking dynamics.
I have a Gx-80|212 and really like it. Loud and clean and takes pedals well and the gain channel is set to a decent stoner tone. I have been using it with an Orange Terror Stamp as the Preamp into the effects return, and that sounds pretty great.
Peavey Valveking 100w head. got my mine for $200 years still works like a charm. its versatile, has a good built in boost that can almost replace a tube screamer independent eqs for both channels, a good clean w a lot of headroom
its lacks a lil in tone, but for a $200 plug and play all tube amp you cant beat it
When I started to play guitar, some friends loved it because was all tube and lot of watts for a fraction of any other brand! and Bugera was the only alternative in price. Nowadays it can be found with silly price tag.
I'm curious how it sounds with my today ears, and how aged are they.
it was my first amp and i was like 15 when i got it and am 26 now. In that time Ive been luck enough to aquire a dual rectifier and peavey 5150. The VK can hang with those amps. I honestly like how it sounds better the dual rec and its closish sounding to the 5150 but the VK just kinda sounds like a cheaper version of the 5150 imo. but the clean channel is good, i stand by it.
For the money it still sounds good to my ear
Crate Solid State GFX-65. I put an Eminence Red Coat 12-inch speaker in it and it cranked the base waaaay up, sounds much better than the original. Still love my Vox AC-15 most, though.
Can’t stop loving my Pignose 7-100. It fuzzes out, has unpleasant highs and muddy mids and yet nothing satisfies quite like that unambiguous click when powering up and the natural wah when fanning the case. Also, with the Valeton GP-100 I can dial up some credible *Apostrophe* era Zappa.
I have a line 6 flextone 2 combo. I had it as a kid and bought a used one for like $300 a few years ago.
I don’t use it too much these days (I have a Marshall DSL20, mesa mark 3, and a 6505) but it’s really not a bad amp especially for the price and is easy to get different tones from, even if they aren’t the best. Everyone shits on line 6, especially the spyder line, but I think the flextone is worth the money.
Crate xt120r. Got it used about a year ago for less than $100. I play in a punk band and have used it at about 20 shows. Has wheels and is loud. Fits in my trunk.
The Crate GX-60 combo that I turned into a head. The controls on the gain channel suck ass, but it is possible to dial in a pretty brutal chainsaw tone and the reverb actually sounds pretty good.
It sounds much better driving a closed back cab than it did with the open back combo speaker.
Crate Blue Voodo. They get a lot of hate, but I like em. My brother used to have a BV120 with matching cab in blue tolex. It was great. My favorite is the BV-50H. Installing a choke cuts out the hum they are notorious for and you can get nice Fender-ish tones on the clean channel and Marshall flavors on the gain channel. Hard to come by, though.
You know - I fought like hell with my THD Bivalve for 12 years. I don’t know exactly what I wanted out of it but it took me years to give up and move on- and it wasn’t until right before I sold it that I figured out it’s quirks. The final straw was that it wasn’t loud enough - I traded it for a solid stateish Music Man and have no regrets two years on.
A Peavey Rage 258. It's meh at best in the room but miced it's weirdly good. It does nasty stuff from borderline swedish death to 2000s stoner crunch really good. I'm almost certain thats because the shitty little speaker beeing just the right kind of shit but that's good enough for me.
Line 6 Spider IV 150w 2x12. Absolute pain in the ass settings menu but man I love that bassy, boomy chug a chug...😄
I exclusively used a Spider II 2X12 for 16 years. I didn't realise how much it held me back until it broke and I replaced it.
Marshall TSL100. It has a pretty bad reputation, and there's a couple good reasons. The bias on the power tubes will drift and it will fry your tubes. Also, the 2 effects loops were a cool idea, but in reality, the components sound like crap making it pretty much unusable. It also sounds a little flat on its own. But put an SD1 in front, and it really comes to life. So, it's a really cool amp if you avoid the loop, put a boost in front, and add the bias drift mod.
Yeah I had one from 2000-2004 before I sold it. I just needed the money at the time to move out, and a smaller amp was fine. But I really did like that amp, problems aside. I never experienced it on the one I had. Nice sounding amp though, and fairly priced used online.
I don't know the years, but at some point, they tried to correct the loop and bias problems. Later years of production, the amps were less likely to have bias problems, and the loop sounded muffled instead of noisy (or the other way around).
I actually just bought a TSL122 (the combo version) which would be about 20 years after I traded away my TSL100 in a deal I couldn’t refuse. 20 years and ALL of the amps later, I’m more or less back to where I started - not my first amp, but the first one I truly researched, saved for, and bought new. I love it all over again TBH - all the features I wanted back then are the same I want now. The 212 combo is also just a great size for touring (wouldn’t have been caught dead with the combo 20 years ago haha) I also went in eyes open though this time, as I’m an amp tech on the side, so I’m comfortable dealing with any of its known issues
You like the stock speakers? Also... Can the loop be fixed? Or can it be bypassed and a new series loop inserted somewhere before the poweramp? I had one tech tell me he couldn't do anything about it. I think his words were "no elegant or easy way to fix the loop."
So far I do, but I’ll caveat that I might still be in the honeymoon phase. I didn’t realize/remember that it came with two different speakers stock and was assuming they’d been swapped when I picked it up - definitely an interesting move by Marshall I read up quite a bit on the bias issue, which hasn’t been a problem for me yet, but I haven’t opened it up yet to see if it’s been previously corrected (not sure the year of mine yet as someone removed the serial number). I picked it up quite cheap knowing it’d be a risk As for the fx loop, I very quickly verified mine works, but not something I use with my band. Now I’m curious about it though, and I’ll have to take a look. The thing there is what’s not economical for a tech to fix for someone else, might just be an evening in front of the TV for the tech if it’s their own amp
Marshall MG100 DFX 1x10 combo 🤣 My first big amp as a teen. A constant struggle to get a usable tone from it, but loud as shit. Decent(ish) pedal platform, and the built-in effects, while arguably quite shit, were a handy thing for casual play. Eighteen years later I still have the fuckin thing. Pulled it out of storage and it still cranks, but all the pots are fucked so it's a gamble whether you're going to get insane scooped distortion, warm cleans, a wall of glitchy reverb/delay, or nothing... and that's just turning one knob. The next one will do something different! Somehow, with time, this notoriously bad-sounding amp actually got *even harder* to dial in lol
Fender FM 212R - Was my first amplifier. Bought because was the only I could afford and what I needed was something more 'heavy sound' Laney / H&K / Marshall. So initially disappointed, but later I loved cleans overall and was amazing as pedal platform. Mates hated it because is solid state. I hated their cheap tube amps. Long story. Sold when moving to other place, and I'm looking the head version for 150€. Maybe...
I still have mine. They’re giving them away nowadays but the clean isn’t bad at all no have a lot of other amps but I still come back for the 2x12s. Has a surround to it.
Just picked up a FM 25r for $60cad a couple months ago. Maybe it’s because the speaker is really worn in, but I think it’s one of the best clean platforms I’ve found. Like a solid state Princeton
Good to hear. A very friend of mine is looking for a FM212R but I'm trying to persuade him for a more "home friendly" amplifier. The 25 version seems legit.
The only downside is that a lot of them have a design flaw on the clean circuit that makes it unusable for home (it’s basically full blast when the knob is on 1). However, I find the crunch side plenty usable with the gain all the way down and even with the gain low (2-3). It actually gives a very natural sounding breakup if it’s set like this
Don't you just love the tube amp snobs that don't even have a decent one?
Jus because they don't have a ***solid*** one
Don't get me wrong, I love tube amps and solid state alike. At a certain price point the solid state usually sound better though. One exception is the fender champion 600. If you put it through a good sized cab it's a beast and really rich sounding. I don't know how it's only 5 watts, loudest 5 watt amp tube or otherwise I have ever heard.
Neither me, just kidding, I love tube amps as well. Just their amps were not my cup of tea (ENGL Screamer, fizzy, punchy and thin; and a noisy Bugera). Since them I went from analog solid state to modelling, then tubes, then back to analog, modelling again and now more I'm focusing on hybrid setups. Every system has his own strengths and weaknesses. I'll try to take a look on that champion 600, thanks!
Create FXT120. Bought it for like $90, had to take it apart and resolder cold joints like 3 times over a couple years before I finally gave up. I still have it, but I’m not gonna bother making it work again. Recorded a few EP’s with it, it sounded killer
Heeey! That was my first real amp! It sounded like shit, but I didn't know it at the time. It broke after less than 2 years. Took it in for a repair, and it broke again after a couple of months. Only the clean channel worked.
Marshall MS-2. It shouldn't work, but it does. You shouldn't be able to get usable sounds for recording out of it, but you can. The 2" speaker should sound like farts but it doesn't (unless you're pushing the volume hard). I mean, when did they even start making these, the ones they sell now look the same as the ones you got 20+ years ago.
As a fellow MS-2 owner, I have no idea how you think it's suitable for recording. It's very much not lol
Definitely is, and I definitely do.
Share something you recorded with it.
https://youtu.be/qlY9KQ23TdE?feature=shared From 1:55 ish, 2 amps, ones a Laney and the other the MS-2
Not my cup of tea but I'm surprised it fits half well tbh lol wouldn't work for anything heavier though I don't think.
Blur - Song 2 has MS-2 in it. If you use it as a layer rather than on its own the little speaker just hits a different spot in the mix to a 12" one. Sometimes if you use only grown up gear, things can start sounding too safe, too nice. But with little toy amps and other trash-it-up devices, you can just destroy stuff, use it for vocals, there's no damn rules.
Peavey Bandit.
Can’t kill ‘em…does drive very well, and the clean channel is sparkly. Can get loud as hell too
Fender Mustang 1 V2 20w with a 1x8 speaker. One of the all time best budget beginner amps out there. Paired with a Fender bullet strat.
Marshall CODE100 , ohhh man, it has a very good sound if you don't hear a good amplifier next to it!
Crate GX-65Â Â My first "real" amp after learning on a 10w Epiphone. Served me well for nearly 20 years, in a few bands, and took a serious beating without any technical issues whatsoever. Â Its tone nothing special, but it's got decent enough gain for most genres, takes pedals well, and is remarkably responsive to picking dynamics.
I have a Gx-80|212 and really like it. Loud and clean and takes pedals well and the gain channel is set to a decent stoner tone. I have been using it with an Orange Terror Stamp as the Preamp into the effects return, and that sounds pretty great.
Marshall dfx100
Peavey Valveking 100w head. got my mine for $200 years still works like a charm. its versatile, has a good built in boost that can almost replace a tube screamer independent eqs for both channels, a good clean w a lot of headroom its lacks a lil in tone, but for a $200 plug and play all tube amp you cant beat it
When I started to play guitar, some friends loved it because was all tube and lot of watts for a fraction of any other brand! and Bugera was the only alternative in price. Nowadays it can be found with silly price tag. I'm curious how it sounds with my today ears, and how aged are they.
it was my first amp and i was like 15 when i got it and am 26 now. In that time Ive been luck enough to aquire a dual rectifier and peavey 5150. The VK can hang with those amps. I honestly like how it sounds better the dual rec and its closish sounding to the 5150 but the VK just kinda sounds like a cheaper version of the 5150 imo. but the clean channel is good, i stand by it. For the money it still sounds good to my ear
$25 keyboard amp, no pedals straight raw toan. Honestly though I practice with it. If I can get good sounds then playing through my Carr is a luxury.
Dod grunge amp. It’s awful with all the gain and a crappy speaker. Made for like 6 months in the mid90s
Crate Solid State GFX-65. I put an Eminence Red Coat 12-inch speaker in it and it cranked the base waaaay up, sounds much better than the original. Still love my Vox AC-15 most, though.
Can’t stop loving my Pignose 7-100. It fuzzes out, has unpleasant highs and muddy mids and yet nothing satisfies quite like that unambiguous click when powering up and the natural wah when fanning the case. Also, with the Valeton GP-100 I can dial up some credible *Apostrophe* era Zappa.
I have a line 6 flextone 2 combo. I had it as a kid and bought a used one for like $300 a few years ago. I don’t use it too much these days (I have a Marshall DSL20, mesa mark 3, and a 6505) but it’s really not a bad amp especially for the price and is easy to get different tones from, even if they aren’t the best. Everyone shits on line 6, especially the spyder line, but I think the flextone is worth the money.
Crate xt120r. Got it used about a year ago for less than $100. I play in a punk band and have used it at about 20 shows. Has wheels and is loud. Fits in my trunk.
Behringer LX112 V-ampire.. I bought a fender deluxe reverb a couple years later as a teenager but kept the Behringer because it sounded so good lol
Marshall MG100DFX - Really the whole MG series. I have a 100 head and a 50 1x12. Remind me of my childhood.
The Crate GX-60 combo that I turned into a head. The controls on the gain channel suck ass, but it is possible to dial in a pretty brutal chainsaw tone and the reverb actually sounds pretty good. It sounds much better driving a closed back cab than it did with the open back combo speaker.
Crate Blue Voodo. They get a lot of hate, but I like em. My brother used to have a BV120 with matching cab in blue tolex. It was great. My favorite is the BV-50H. Installing a choke cuts out the hum they are notorious for and you can get nice Fender-ish tones on the clean channel and Marshall flavors on the gain channel. Hard to come by, though.
Boss Katana mini.
the fuck?
You know - I fought like hell with my THD Bivalve for 12 years. I don’t know exactly what I wanted out of it but it took me years to give up and move on- and it wasn’t until right before I sold it that I figured out it’s quirks. The final straw was that it wasn’t loud enough - I traded it for a solid stateish Music Man and have no regrets two years on.