i want a new head

M

Mike Cleary

New member
no. no no no. an guitar amplifier tube head

ha
I'm looking at the Line 6 Spider Valve HD100
and it looks rather bada$$

but I'm a little spoiled and used to play out of my old guitarists VHT head which is about another $1500 that i dont have.

Does any one have and reviews or feed back on the line 6?

I've only played it a few times in guitar center and I wasnt able to really crank into it much


oh btw, I play in a pop punk band
www.myspace.com/surroundthesun

but i like to dabble into metal on occasion
so a versatile head would be ideal :)

thanks in advance
 
I sat in guitar center a few weeks back and messed with the combo version of that particular amp. I was really curios about the tube Line 6

For me, I couldn't find the tone I was looking for. You play punk so obviously your taste will be different then mine.

I'll admit, I'm not a big fan of amps with the a lot of built in effects, especially on tube amps. I'd rather have a decent tube amp, and if I where going to use modelers, I would just get an external modeller. This way when newer effects and modelers come out, you just toss out the old one. This way the modeler is not part of the amp.

But if you like it, that's all that matters.

At around 800$, you do have some decent other options.
 
GAH! NO! BAD! Step away from the trash, my friend. "Amp Modeling" is an ancient Latin word for "Shit Tone". Think about it: Line6 started with all-solid-state modeling shit, then noticed their tone sucked so they added pre-amp tubes and advertised it as "new valve technology!!". Their amps still sucked (due to the fact that good distortion comes from over-driven POWER tubes), so they've now just released an amp with pre-amp tubes AND power amp tubes. They've just now come to the realization that you need tubes to get good tone (for anything but antiseptically clean tones), which is what pretty much every good amp manufacturer has been doing since amps started.

My point? Get a Marshall or a Fender and then be all happy n' stuff. If you were into metal, I'd have a whole lot of sweet amps to point you towards, but for Pop-Punk, a simple amp is best.

Good luck! AND DON'T FUCKING GET THE LINE 6!!!!
 
steve.h said:
GAH! NO! BAD! Step away from the trash, my friend. "Amp Modeling" is an ancient Latin word for "Shit Tone".
Click to expand...


Much more succinct than I could have said it.

Find a simple amp, a head if that's your bag, and turn it up loud. You'll be much happier that way. When it comes to amps, remember this mantra, "Simple is good, complex is bad." Or maybe, "the more knobs the worse." (And an amp which needs MENUS!!!) Or I guess we could go with the old KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid!


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
OKAY OKAY! hah
no line 6 then.

i am pretty into metal. To be honest most of my practicing goes into learning btbam songs and getting my sweep picking technique cleaner and faster. So a head that can handle the distortion required and low frequencies of a guitar tuned way down would be my ideal. Which is why i was looking at the line 6. they make all their equipment for metal, but it can still be set up for the lighter distortion and high mid sound of pop punk. So what other heads would you guys recommend, seeing as im on a relatively tight budget.

thanks in advance
 
i love the tiny terror. it's only 15 watts, but those 15 tube watts would easily compete with some of the higher watt modeling solid state amps. still it's probably more in the classic hard to modern hard rock territory.
i've heard some awesome clips of the fender prosonic heads. they still may not be totally metal, but if i needed a higher watt head, i'd definitely be looking into one of those.
maybe a krank amp or a used peavey 5150?
 
This one here I have not played, but I have heard a lot of great things about, and you can get it new for less then the line 6. It's Steve Vai's signature series amp.

https://www.carvinguitars.com/products/single.php?product=VL100

I owned a Carvin MTS 3200 at one point and it sounded really good. But I sold it after I got my current amp (I wish I would have kept that for my backup)

Here is another Carvin. It is a re-issue of an older model that was used on a bunch of albums.

https://www.carvinguitars.com/products/single.php?product=X100B
 
Mike Cleary said:
OKAY OKAY! hah
no line 6 then.

i am pretty into metal. To be honest most of my practicing goes into learning btbam songs and getting my sweep picking technique cleaner and faster. So a head that can handle the distortion required and low frequencies of a guitar tuned way down would be my ideal. Which is why i was looking at the line 6. they make all their equipment for metal, but it can still be set up for the lighter distortion and high mid sound of pop punk. So what other heads would you guys recommend, seeing as im on a relatively tight budget.

thanks in advance
Click to expand...



Given all that, for all that I dislike them, A Mesa of some sort may be the best thing for you.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
steve.h said:
GAH! NO! BAD! Step away from the trash, my friend. "Amp Modeling" is an ancient Latin word for "Shit Tone". Think about it: Line6 started with all-solid-state modeling shit, then noticed their tone sucked so they added pre-amp tubes and advertised it as "new valve technology!!". Their amps still sucked (due to the fact that good distortion comes from over-driven POWER tubes), so they've now just released an amp with pre-amp tubes AND power amp tubes. They've just now come to the realization that you need tubes to get good tone (for anything but antiseptically clean tones), which is what pretty much every good amp manufacturer has been doing since amps started.

My point? Get a Marshall or a Fender and then be all happy n' stuff. If you were into metal, I'd have a whole lot of sweet amps to point you towards, but for Pop-Punk, a simple amp is best.

Good luck! AND DON'T FUCKING GET THE LINE 6!!!!
Click to expand...

While I agree that better tone can be obtained from straight-up tube amps, I've never seen any Line6 equipment that just had preamp tubes... as a matter of fact, a lot of people questioned why they didn't use a 12AX7 in their 'new' modeling equipment (Pod XT line) when VOX and Zoom were.

Anyway, I owned a Pod XT Live and it actually sounded pretty damn good. Did it sound like anything it was trying to model? No, not really but most of the models were quite unique. And, with some fiddling, I could get quite useable sounds out of it. That said, I ended up selling it and going back to all-tube amps because: I found myself fiddling with settings more than playing productively. It was really too much. I've been playing for 15 years and I know what 'my sound' is. A one-trick pony is truly all I'll ever need.

Mike, don't get too hung up on the opinions of purists, go try it out and buy what works for you. The fact of the matter is, when playing live, maybe 1 person in 100 is going to be able to tell the difference between a Spider Valve and an all-tube amp. And the cork-sniffers are the last of your fans you should be concerned about.

I don't play your style music, but I used to listen to BTBAM a little. If I were in your position and on a budget, I'd be looking at B-52s, a used Carvin V3, or a Peavey Valve King.
 
sarge117 said:
I have long considered one of these for my backup

http://cgi.ebay.com/Peavey-6505-Plu...52|39:1|66:2|65:12&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14.l1318

New they are around 1000, which isn't much higher then you were gonna spend on the line 6.

These things do Metal extremely well. You can go and look them up on Peavey's website where it says they are essentially 5150's.

Here is the link to the new base model.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Peavey-6505-120W-Guitar-Amp-Head-481431-i1145623.gc
Click to expand...

Hell the Windsor head @ 399 would be perfect for his brand of music. Its always a little dirty. effects loop.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Peavey-Windsor-Tube-Amp-Head-104003298-i1166254.gc
 
MatchBookNotes said:
Hell the Windsor head @ 399 would be perfect for his brand of music. Its always a little dirty. effects loop.

http://www.guitarcenter.com/Peavey-Windsor-Tube-Amp-Head-104003298-i1166254.gc
Click to expand...

Can the Windsor do Metal? Never heard it so I don't know,maybe so. I have heard the Valve King and while I think it was a decent sounding amp, I don't think it handles metal well (IMO).

6505 is a great sounding amp that IMO would not only do it, but do it extremely well.
 
apratsunrthd said:
The fact of the matter is, when playing live, maybe 1 person in 100 is going to be able to tell the difference between a Spider Valve and an all-tube amp. And the cork-sniffers are the last of your fans you should be concerned about.
Click to expand...
True, but it's not about the fans, it's about how "your" tone sounds: if YOU can tell the difference, that's what matters! (And if you can't, just buy something your favorite guitar player uses: guaranteed it's got tubes 9/10 times :P)
 
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