Low Watt Guitar Head

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Trace

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Hey guys I have spent the past hour or so looking in the archives for a low watt guitar head, and I couldn't find a whole lot. Ideally what I am looking for is a Class-A tube amp 5-25 watts. I am looking to spend $300 give or take few $(ebay prices).

The class-a is just a preference and I am certainly open to any suggestions you guys have. I am planning on running this through a 2x12 cab, and I play rock style music. I don't need a lot of stuff (reverb ect) just a sturdy machine with a decent tone. This thing will be used primarily to record so nothing too noisy.

I appreciate any feedback, hell even if it is you guys giving me a hard time for not just getting a combo.
 
Trace said:
even if it is you guys giving me a hard time for not just getting a combo.
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Combos are dumb for recording if you ask me. They tend to rattle and make noise from the speaker shaking things up. If it wasn't becuase I am a lazy sob, I would only by heads.
 
Yeah I am definately with you on that. I think I may just start looking into combos that have the speaker out option. I just hate to do that because I have a cab sitting in my studio with 2 celestions and it seems like a waste. Right now I am running a Vox Pathfinder through it for the 12" sound and a head seems like the next best move.
 
I think you're going to have a really hard time finding your criteria.

You can find low watt class A heads all day, but I have never seen one for $300. The ones that come to mind are the Marshall 18 watt h/w and clones, THD Univalve, the DrZ amps, the Matchless low watt amps. They are all awesome sounding, especially for recording. But none of them are anywhere near $300.

I dunno in that price range. All I can think of are class a/b amps, and cheaper ones like the Sovtek MIG amps when you can find them. Maybe a 70's Fender bassman head that needs a tuneup.

H2H
 
I'm with H2H on this one...Class A point to point quality even in a low wattage head will be hard to find at that price.If you are liking the Pathfinder through the cab then whats the prob??I'll use my Fender Blues Jr. through a cab whenever I need the spread of more speakers or a Princeton with an extension box live anytime.The nice thing that happens there is the impedance goes down the power curve goes up and the natural compression of the increased satuation makes them nice and creamy.If I need more watts I use a bigger amp.Or mic the crap outta it.
 
I agree with that. I have used my Pro Jr through a 1x12 or even 4x12 Marshall and liked what I got out of it. Really good tube breakup without a ton of volume. Some people think the Pro Jr is class A, but it's not. It's just a/b biased really hot.

If you wanted to do something like that, there are several small tube amps out there now. You'd just have to find the ones with speaker outs, or be able to wire up one yourself.

H2H
 
How about some vintage amps that are not named fender marshall or vox? I have a class A danalectro from the 50's that is great. And if you don't like combos you can always drive a separate cab with a pigtail if the speakers are hardwired.

Silvertones could be great too, though some run in class A/b. Another thing to do would be to find a cheaper a/b amp and buy some yellowjackets or GT substitubes to run el84's in there. I did this in a 68' bassman head and changed the sound from a totally clean honky scooped sound to midrange vox crunch city.
 
You guys are awsome. I put some thought into it and decided to go the combo route with the idea of running it into the 12" Celestions. In retrospect this probably is the best idea simply because of cost and I can now carry the amp if I just want to go out and goof off. So with this decision I headed out to a local Music-Go-Round and found an Ampeg J-12T (w/ four 4" speakers). Grabbed it for $179, the reverb was broken and evidently this had driven off a few other prospects so they just bottomed out the price. Got the thing home, fixed the reverb in about 20 minutes, wired it up to the cab and I must say I am very happy with the results. The stereo tremelo and reverb are even cool little extras. What do you guys think?

I don't think I could have done this any cheaper.
 
sounds like you got yourself a winner :-)

i like those kinds of stories
alfred
 
i picked up a 76 Champ off of a member here and while i can't say i'm a fan of the internal 8" speaker, i hooked it up to a 12" sheffield i've got sitting in a dead Peavey, and MAN did it sound good. dripping with tone.

didn't get a chance to turn it up past 4, since it was 2am when i was playing around, but i'm gonna give it a crank tonight. i'm a big fan of low-wattage amps running through larger speakers.

gonna pick up a Vox Pathfinder 15 sometime in the next 2 weeks. i'm thinking about getting a 2x12 cabinet and running both the champ and vox into it and using an A/B switch out of the guitar to determine which amp i'm running into. should be a KILLER live rig.


cheers,
wade
 
I would have suggested a Matamp C7, Vox Ac15 (if you can find one), Super Champ, or any of the older low-wattage Supro amps (of which Led Zeppelin I was recorded with).
 
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