Low-Watt tube recording amp

Best Low-Wattage Recording Amp

  • Fender Champion 600 5W

    Votes: 4 5.5%

  • Blackstar H-5H

    Votes: 4 5.5%

  • Blackheart BH5H

    Votes: 3 4.1%

  • Epiphone Valve Jr.

    Votes: 8 11.0%

  • Gretch Guitars Electromatic

    Votes: 1 1.4%

  • Palomino V8 (5w)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Palomino V16 (15w)

    Votes: 3 4.1%

  • Fender Blues Jr. 15w

    Votes: 13 17.8%

  • Other amp (please specify)

    Votes: 37 50.7%
  • Total voters
    73
nate_dennis said:
I don't fully have it set yet. I can't see myself being able to spend much more than 500-600 but if I could spend less and still get what I need/want I would love it. A wife and two kids don't lend themselves to lots of amp investment. So, lets say between 300-550. That should be good enough of an estimation for now.
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Most 5 watt amps on the profit margin oriented retail market are just plain P.O.S. I haven't found one yet that is worth the trouble or that is anything more than a novel toy. Let me know if you find different results...... Now, a real vintage black face Champ is a whole nother story, along with the real Super Champs! WOW!

You aint gonna gig with a 5 watt amp. If you do you will wonder why you bought a 5 watt amp.

For your money you can compare side by side the Super Champ XD with the Vox VT50. The VT50 will be the most versatile and easy to dial in amp you can find in your price range, with a power soak built in for bedroom volumes and will still have enough full power to do any church gig. Plus you can save your settings and sounds, andplug in to a bigger cab. Put the right premium speaker in it and it will impress you. For the money, in that class of build quality and budget versatility, nothing beats it yet......
 
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soundchaser59 said:
Most 5 watt amps on the profit margin oriented retail market are just plain P.O.S. I haven't found one yet that is worth the trouble or that is anything more than a novel toy. Let me know if you find different results...... Now, a real vintage black face Champ is a whole nother story, along with the real Super Champs! WOW!

You aint gonna gig with a 5 watt amp. If you do you will wonder why you bought a 5 watt amp.

For your money you can compare side by side the Super Champ XD with the Vox VT50. The VT50 will be the most versatile and easy to dial in amp you can find in your price range, with a power soak built in for bedroom volumes and will still have enough full power to do any church gig. Plus you can save your settings and sounds, andplug in to a bigger cab. Put the right premium speaker in it and it will impress you. For the money, in that class of build quality and budget versatility, nothing beats it yet......
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I have a VOX VT100 that is the best sounding amp I have heard in a looooooong while and is versitile as hell. I agree.
 
I'm really surprised at how many votes the Blues Junior got.
I have one and of the couple of dozen amps I've bought in the last 10 years, it's the ONLY one that sounds 'meh'.
I have no reason to hate on it .... I own it and paid for it and haven't sold it yet (250 gets it if someone wants one) but out of the 13 amps I currently own it's the one that I wouldn't care about if it fell out of the truck and got ran over by a SUV and then a semi and then caught on fire and was put out by 50,000 gallons of water by the fire dept. and then crushed in a compacter. :)
It's not awful ...... I gig with it often but only because it's small and light and with enough pedals in front of it it sounds acceptable. But never better than just acceptable. It doesn't quite suck but it doesn't sound that good either ....... IF you can crank it it gets better but not by much and I would vote any of those other amps before the Blues Junior for recording purposes.
 
Lt. Bob said:
...it's the one that I wouldn't care about if it fell out of the truck and got ran over by a SUV and then a semi and then caught on fire and was put out by 50,000 gallons of water by the fire dept. and then crushed in a compacter. :)
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:D

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It's an "OK" amp...but I was always rather underwhelmed by it and couldn't figure out why some people liked it as much as they did.
But everyone has their faves, so I don't want to burst any balloons here.

Anyway...not sure what price range is being talked about here, but if anyone is looking for some classic R&R tones in a small amp...check out some of the Tungsten amps: http://www.tungstenamp.com/

I've owned a Tungsten Cortez (12W version) for a couple of years now. It does some great overdriven tones in that American R&R flavor that would make Neil Young proud.
Just recently I sent it back to Adam Palow, the builder, to mod it up one class into his newer model, the Crema Wheat and now it's got even more tonal dimension, just check out some of the Greg V sound clips of the Crema Wheat and some of the Cortez sound clips on the website…and you'll agree.
While Adam and I have developed a really good rapport the last couple of years...this isn't just a shameless plug for his amps....
...they really DO have that R&R sound. :cool:

There's more than enough power in the Crema Wheat or the 25W Cortez to do smaller gigs without a mic...and for the studio, they are absolutely SUPER! The smaller 12W Cortez just churns and crunches from the first turn of the Volume knob.
 
I'd forget the Champ 600 (I have one, I like it, but there's no power to it compared to some of those others listed. Great for squeaky cleans with a SDC in front of it but not much else), the Gretsch (which is pretty much just a re-labelled Champ 600) and the Blackstar (there's a bit of a "jack-of-all trades, master of none" thing going on there...plus the ISF doesn't do shit).

The Epi Valve Junior I like. It's a little boxy, to be sure, and it's a little dark sounding with even with single coils - there's also no EQ either. But with a compressor and the gain at about 10' o clock, notes sound pretty thick and full. As with alot of these amps, breakup is determined more by the player and the guitar than by the setting itself.

If I wa safter a 5-watter, I'd go Vox AC4TV (switchable from 1/4 of a watt, to 1 watt to five watts...pretty much like three seperate channels and great to record with) or a Marshall Class 5 - very, very responsive.
 
miroslav said:
:D

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It's an "OK" amp...but I was always rather underwhelmed by it and couldn't figure out why some people liked it as much as they did.
But everyone has their faves, so I don't want to burst any balloons here.
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Like it alot with a strat in the neck pup and a compressor. But then again I like pretty much everything with a strat in the neck pup and a compressor. Blues central. Also nice with one of those Dano re-issues in the middle position.
 
TelePaul said:
Have to call BS on that...




Yeah and that too. Sorry! :(
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Dont be sorry......it's all opinions and taste, man.....I could stick a great mic in front of my blackface Champ and with a good soundman on the monitors I could gig, but why would I want to? Why run it thru the coloration of a mic and a monitor when you could just have a giggin amp for the job to give you real live first generation tone? Why would any self respecting guitarist do that to hisself? It can be done, but it gets old real fast.... if it works for you, awesome. We need more HAPPY guitar players with tube amps....
 
soundchaser59 said:
Dont be sorry......it's all opinions and taste, man.....I could stick a great mic in front of my blackface Champ and with a good soundman on the monitors I could gig, but why would I want to? Why run it thru the coloration of a mic and a monitor when you could just have a giggin amp for the job to give you real live first generation tone? Why would any self respecting guitarist do that to hisself? It can be done, but it gets old real fast.... if it works for you, awesome. We need more HAPPY guitar players with tube amps....
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Agreed on the opinions front, wasn't trying to brew up a shit-storm! With that in mind:

With regard to micing a small valve amp, saying it 'gets old real fast' is very different to saying it 'can't be done'. It can be done, and not even with a great mic, it can be done with a 57 rammed against the grill...shit, you wouldn't even need a good engineer on the desk, electric guitar is probably THE easiest thing to mic, track and mix...and thank god for that :) And if you wanted live, first generation tone, hey, forget the amp, let's go all Geddy Lee and D.I our guitars (well, basses, but the point stands). It's probably also worth reminding the OP that when The Edge takes to the stage in front of 80,000 people, his AC30s suffer the coloration of mic and monitor - not a big U2 fan, just making a point.

I had a TSL601, Groove Tubes and a Mercury Magnetics modded output transformer. It was big, it was loud, it was heavy, it had enough dials to bring the Apollo 11 home. But most importantly of all, it didn't sound all that great. It didn't sound bad, but yeah, it didn't sound great. I'd much rather take my chances with mic coloration on a great sounding source - and to me, the epi valve jnr, ac4tv and class 5 are great sounding sources - than blast 60 watts of aural sodomy from stage left.
 
I have to say the AC4TV was a terrible clean amp. It was a decent overdriven amp, but overall I thought it was way overrated.

I ended up with the Champion 600. I mainly wanted it for the cleans and its great for that. I am in the process of upgrading the components in the amp. For $99 is great for what it is. There is a noticeable hum when you take your hand off the strings. That may just be my dimmers in the house though. I need to investigate that further.
 
The Fender Vibro Champ is the PERFECT studio and small club gigging amp. Here's some clips of my '73 VC in action.

'73 VC in standard combo form:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=633883&songID=4866873
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=633883&songID=5790437
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=633883&songID=5749483
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=633883&songID=5831316
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=633883&songID=5810907

'73 VC in Piggyback form:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=633883&songID=5997305
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=633883&songID=5982673
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=633883&songID=5974759
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=633883&songID=5956330
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=633883&songID=5967537
 
I have had LOTS of small tube amps. 5-30 watts.
(I will assume you are thinking less than $500 here)

The thing with some of them is that you need to determine your style.
I LOVE the clean tones of the Fender Champion 600. The distortion is obtained by driving the gain (no other controls) and you probably won't be impressed by the tones if you like real crunches.
Crate=Crap to me. The Palomino's seem to be a bit better in tone, but not by much. They do have a pre-gain which is a nice thing. I don't like the fuzz.
The Peavey classic 30 has got to be the BEST one (below $500) available
Blues JR & Pro JR are OK. A bit too muddy & bluesy for my taste. $400
I bought a Johnson Laredo 25 for $300 and put in a Fender speaker. Set the gain on 2-3 and add pedals and this thing sounds like a dream. They can be had used for about $200-but need modded a bit.
The Marshall 5 watter is cool if you like that tone at $400
The Vox...OK, but nothing special
The Carvin 16 watter. Loud as crap. Terrible overdrive, but sings with pedals.
Guild...same as the vox
Epiphone...junk sound.
Blackstar. OK but not great cleans.
Blackheart. Like the Epi, but a bit better
Bugera...dark and muddy. They are prone to break downs.
Fender super champ XD. TONS of tones. Great all around amp. $300 I think

I think that many of these sound great with pedals. If you don't like pedals, I would say the Super Champ XD is the way to go. And of course my fav the Classic 30, but that may be too much wattage with 4 EL84's
 
Just bought a Super Champ XD a few months ago. Incredible amp for the money. The clean channel sounds great with my pedals, and the built-in effects channel provides a very versatile palette of diverse sounds for recording.

I went into the store fully intending to buy a Blues Jr., but after playing them back to back, the SCXD made the Blues Jr. seem like a bit of a one-trick pony. Since I find myself playing raunchy grunge one moment, bluesy rock the next, and pop rock the next after that, I was intrigued by the versatility of the SCXD. The fact that it was only a little more than half the price of the Jr. didn't hurt either. Really, for me, the decision was a no-brainer.

PS--it cost me $330+tax up here in Canada.
 
nate_dennis said:
I don't fully have it set yet. I can't see myself being able to spend much more than 500-600 but if I could spend less and still get what I need/want I would love it. A wife and two kids don't lend themselves to lots of amp investment. So, lets say between 300-550. That should be good enough of an estimation for now.
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In that price range, I would get an Egnater Tweaker. Its $579, but you can always talk 'em down a little at the store.
 
I just bought an epiphone valve junior, the stack with the 12 inch speaker, and I am literally ecstatic. It can be super quiet, or loud enough to play in big bar, and it still sounds awesome.
 
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