Musician Forum - Band Discussion Board - BandMix

As much as I dig all my overdrive/distortion/fuzz boxes. I think a lot of us will agree that a cranked tube amp is IT for really nice tone. I've got several amps of different wattage, but find that for a lot of jam/gig situations I'm missing an amp to bridge the gap between my Fender Champ, and my 2x12 2x6L6 Supro. The Champ sounds great, but as soon as a drummer is involved..fuggetaboutit. The Supro, even at just 30 watts, is too loud for a lot of situations. I'm looking to score a single 10" or 12" combo amp around 15 watts. Do any of you guys have suggestions for this size of amp?

Not exactly what you are wanting...a little more actually...however, I have had for about two years now, and I absolutely LOVE it:

Epiphone Blues Custom 30 Watt 2 channel,2X12, Class A in 15 watts or Class AB in 30. Makes it very versatile. Also has a tube rectifier, and tube driven reverb. It's a killer amp, 100% tubes. ALOT of amp for the bread. The cooling fan is a little loud I'll grant you, but that is the only bad thing! Could use some side straps too-very heavy amp-about 70-80 pounds.

Lots of guys mod them...I was gonna...but speakers broke in and I decided they were very nice.

Two words.

Fender Princeton.

1x10 combo, around 18-20 watts. Sounds fabulous. Tom Petty's guitar player, Mike Campbell uses one onstage. I'm sure they mic it into the PA since Tom uses a 50 watt Marshall or I think it's a 50 watter...one of the videos of them I have shows Tom with a pair of Marshall half stacks, Campbell with about 4 Fenders, one is a blackface Princeton, I can't make out the name tags on any of the others. As a side note he also has a Fender standalone reverb unit, the one they made in the early 60's before they started to build them into the amps. I've heard several Princetons, they sound really good. I'm betting even better with a 12" speaker.

JW 123 has a nice Mesa 22 watt 1x12 combo that he's used for quite a while. It sounds very good too. I think there's another amp out there that is in the 20 watt range with a 12, but can't remember what it is.

Dajax,

I have a 20watt 2xEL84 Mesa Subway Rocket it has a ten inch speaker. Its an awesome classic rock amp is all I can say.

Soldano makes a little one also, Subatomic is what they call it I think.

When i go in music stores these days there just seems like hundreds of small tube amps, so there shouldnt be any trouble finding one.

The Subway Rockets are discontinued but pop up on E-Bay in the $400 range. The current Mesa amp along this line is The Express 5:25, they are pretty awesome.

Ooops...I thought your Mesa had a 12" speaker...my bad...

Dax,
A few years back, I asked my old guitar player from the 60's if he could come fill in for our regular guitar player, who was unable to play that night. Although he hadn't played out for several years, the brother said he would come wing it none the less. He came packin his Tele and good old vintage Ampeg Reverberocket Two, which I miked just a bit, and his playing and sound was awesome!

Some people can make nearly anything sound good.

Howlin'

I bet that AMpeg Rev.Rocket was sweet. They make great gear. Not by any means in the same league, but still nice, I have a pair of Ampeg SuperJet Reverb 1X12 combos. Need to replace power supply on one 'cos I fried it...had it frankenstiened to power a Motion Sound speaker cab...but for a time I was running both in stereo and it was a really nice sound. I would always consider AMpeg gear.

Back to the original question-I forgot to mention:

Vox AC15? There are a few sub models to choose from...but the AC15cc is around a 600 dollar amp...they go up from there.

They are damn nice too. One of the ones I regret letting get away...

But I'm serious about that Epi Blues Custom 30 I mentioned earlier. They are really under rated, sleepers kinda really. Epi hasn't been known for amps for a long time. Check out any tune in my profile, that's the recorded amp, in 15 watt class A . They run around 700 or so.

I was looking at the website of a music store near me in toronto http://capsulemusic.com and they have something called a Kalamazoo Reverb 12 that might do the trick
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