Most versatile AND\OR brutal guitar amplifier

[5150 Musician]

What do you think is the most versatile AND\OR brutal guitar amplifier out there now? Keep in mind these are STOCK amps and not modified ones. What are some of the things that you think make it versatile.

As far as brutal goes, I have the Bogner Uberschall in mind. It seems to produce a massive bone crushing distortion tone that is just made to perfection for any kind of heavy music yet still seems to maintane an extremely unique and noticable guitar tone.

For versatility AND brutality, id go with -yours truly- the 5150(Not the 5150II). For a mass produced amp that is banged out in a factory with satisfactory components - and for the price -, I think the 5150 is quite a versatile, brutal amplifier. I play my 1990 Gibson Les Paul Standard through it with only a noise reducer pedal between the guitar and the amp, and nothing in the effects loop (as of now). I only use the gain on 4 - 6, and thats PLENTY, even for the heaviest music. With a flick of the neck pickup and a roll off of the volume pot, it cleans up beautifully. With using a boss super overdrive pedal, and the rythm channel with correct settings, I was able to get a tone that compared side-by-side to my 50w Plexi with the same pedal. I can get tones that I can only describe as a higher gain Jcm800 or even the overpriced\overrated Rectifier.

[geet73]

I love my 5150.

It always sounds like a 5150, but it does so much.

[HogansHiro]

Marshall lead 100 Watt half stack. Shakes my teeth loose everytime.

[gitrguy87]

JCM 800, 100 watt half stack is where its at.

[mixmkr]

Originally Posted by gitrguy87

JCM 800, 100 watt half stack is where its at.

and an Ampeg V4 half stack will make the Marshall wimper for mercy, although maybe not as popular!! But for sheer brutality....

[RezN8]

The most versatile amp has gotta be the Mesa Boogie Mark IV.

You can get so many different sounds of this Boogie that it just boggles the mind.

And that's BEFORE you even plug in any stomp boxes. Add a couple different cabinets and you've got everything covered - including brutal.

[Zed10R]

Before anyone goes and buys a Marshall or Mesa POS you owe it to yourself to check out Hughes and Kettner. Thier TriAmp MKII is a beautiful sounding and looking piece of gear.

http://www.hughes-and-kettner.com/sc...e&lang=en&id=1

A guitar player friend of mine has one. It has destroyed any other amp I have ever heard, including Mesa's. The louder it gets, the sicker it sounds. It can be just disgustingly brutal. But only if you want it to be. The thing seems endlessly adjustable from a highly detailed spakly clean to raging phsychopath on meth. No stomp boxes needed.

Just try one....it never hurts to know what is out there......

[IronFlippy]

I'm going with Marshall, even though I'm a Fender fan. I love the sick, devastating crunch I can get with it. My friend has a Triple Rect. and it seems more smooth to me. Peavey does a good job, but still not as brutal. I haven't played a Soldano or Bogner, but my friend has a B-52, and that thing is pretty sick as well.

[Tadpui]

I'd say that the most versatile would have to be the THD series that let you basically hot-swap the tubes, and one of them has an integrated hot plate. That's pretty versatile.

Also, there's that Randall thingie that lets you buy seperate preamp modules and plug and play.

Then there's the whole modelling amp collection made by just about every manufacturer out there. I think that just about every amp brand has some sort of modelling amp.

As for bone crushing, I don't really care...I don't have much need to crush bones.

[Lopp]

Originally Posted by 5150 Musician

For versatility AND brutality, id go with -yours truly- the 5150(Not the 5150II).

I used to have a 5150 and I have to admit, it had excellent tone. "Brutality" seems to be a subjective term, but the amp did sing and scream! However, I wouldn't say the amp was "versatile." The clean tone was lacking. It was adequate.

The 5150 had one good tone and it screamed it with balls.

Originally Posted by 5150 Musician

the overpriced\overrated Rectifier.

Now that's a leading statement loaded with presuppositions.

[CyanJaguar]

the greek word for brutal is 5150 .

I dont know about versatile though

[nroberts]

Soldano SLO.

[dragonworks]

Originally Posted by mixmkr

and an Ampeg V4 half stack will make the Marshall wimper for mercy, although maybe not as popular!! But for sheer brutality....

I will second that.

[joro]

my Nomad 55 is the most versatile amp that I have ever played through....

I run the clean channel for my Taylor and there are 5 other stomp settings on the pedal for overdrive for my les paul along with a verb switch and a solo boost switch....

[riantide]

Brutal: Probably a 5150 or an old plexi. I played a 5150 in a metal band for years and it was perfect. Just mean. But it was far from versatile.

Versatile: Definitely old Fenders. Buy em dead stock but they are so easy to mod. I met the guy who built/maintained a lot of the amps for Queens of the Stone Age ("Songs for the Deaf" era) and while he wouldn't tell me exactly what they were, I was able to gather that they were all modded out old Fenders. And those tones are mean as hell. Even a dead stock blackface bassman on 10 is just about as "brutal" as any of the amps that have been mentioned so far. You can get those circuits to do just about anything with a little tweaking.

[Lopp]

No doubt Riantide.

I've heard Marshalls are pretty much just "tweaked" Fenders. And Boogies, Soldano's, etc. are pretty much "tweaked" Marshalls.

[riantide]

Totally, the first Marshall design (JTM45, I'm pretty sure) was schematically identical to a 5F6A tweed Bassman. British parts and British "mojo" accounted for all the difference in tone. Everyone uses someone else's circuit as the basis for their amps, so it's just a matter of tracing it back to the original, I guess.

Fenders rule.

[Markaholic]

KRANK Amps !!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.krankamps.com/Content/amps.aspx

Expensive as hell...but worth it..i recently demo'd one and was blown away!

[ibanezrocks]

Brutal and versatile are two very different things. For versatile I would go with a pod, but as far as brutal goes I haven't heard anything that beats a mesa. I haven't played a krank or a bogner, but marshalls and peaveys arent as heavy as a mesa, and I find soldanos to be really lifeless.

[capnkid]

For the price I would say the Peavey Transtube Bandit. I used to have one.

Now I have a marshall 18 watt clone, and it is all about the volume, there is somthing nice about playing a strat through it clean, and most definately somthing extry special about playing a nice humbucking guitar through it. Add a pedal and it gets brutaly brutal.

[capnkid]

Originally Posted by riantide

Totally, the first Marshall design (JTM45, I'm pretty sure) was schematically identical to a 5F6A tweed Bassman. British parts and British "mojo" accounted for all the difference in tone. Everyone uses someone else's circuit as the basis for their amps, so it's just a matter of tracing it back to the original, I guess.

Fenders rule.

and the bassman was copied from and old radio design.

[cavedog101]

Versatile would be a Fender Twin...in the right hands and a big enough venue to turn it up....On 8 or so these amps just sing clean and bluesy.

Brutal, while I gotta agree with both the posts about the Ampeg V4 stack,and the 100 watt Marshall half,(though the era of Marshall makes a huge diff), the AMPEG VT22 combo was much much more brutal than the V4 which did have some semblance of sweetness to it. The VT22 did not.
The Marshall 100 watt Super-lead(JTM series) was so friking loud that it was hard to tell what note was being played.And to think there were four of em in my band back in those days..........................Eh? whats dat u say????

[Toker41]

I've been using Mesa Boogie since the mid 80's. Back when everyone and their brother was using Marshall Jcm800. The reason all those bands back then all sounded the same was because there is only 1 good sound you can get from a JCM800. Not only does the Mesa kick the crap outta the crunch on the Marshall, but it's also a million times more versatile. I've used the Mesa Studio Stereo preamp since about '90 ( the one Kurt Cobain, and Mettalica used), and I now have added a Mesa Dual Rectifier. I use both amps in my rig when I play, which give me 5 usable great sounding channels all together.
Channel switching on a JCM800 was useless, and you had to add a ton of outboard gear (including EQ) to get it to sound good. I've yet to hear anything from Marshall after that line that sounds anything close to "great".

[dragonworks]

Originally Posted by cavedog101

Versatile would be a Fender Twin...in the right hands and a big enough venue to turn it up....On 8 or so these amps just sing clean and bluesy.

Brutal, while I gotta agree with both the posts about the Ampeg V4 stack,and the 100 watt Marshall half,(though the era of Marshall makes a huge diff), the AMPEG VT22 combo was much much more brutal than the V4 which did have some semblance of sweetness to it. The VT22 did not.
The Marshall 100 watt Super-lead(JTM series) was so friking loud that it was hard to tell what note was being played.And to think there were four of em in my band back in those days..........................Eh? whats dat u say????

The VT22 and the V4 are the exact same amps, check the schematics, the only difference was one was a combo and one was a head.
I know, I have owned two of each.

[moogyboy]

Kustom K200B-3 head. That's right, the old '60s tuck-n-roll kind. Mine has the Harmonic Clipper feature, which seems to be a built-in vintage style fuzztone circuit as opposed to a proper overdrive. Absolute sonic mayhem, to use a well-worn cliche. It's either on or off, and you don't need an effin' LED indicator. Of course, this amp is almost the opposite of versatile in the sense you're probably thinking. But very powerful and a good clean tone.

For versatile, I think the Peavey Transtube series (and my black/silver Bandit 112 in particular) is a reasonably priced contender.

cheers

Billy S.