The Jemsite guide to amps

[horstausmforst]

*cough*

http://www.hughes-and-kettner.com/

[Mr Orange]

If you guys have hand-on experience with these Hughes&Kettners etc, please feel free to share as it's pretty easy for everyone to find all those manufacturer websites...


When it comes to VHTs, the Pittbull is a bad mutha. 3 channels, footswitchable graphic eq, half power function, power and gain to spare and tones modern as hell. Suits almost everything. Smokes your average boxes. A buddy's got a 2x12 Pittbull, I've gigged it a couple of times and loved it. Btw, the Pittbull won the 100 W GP combo shootout back in '92. The runner-up was the 30th Anniversary Marshall (yup, the blue one).

[sniperfrommars1]

How would you guys rate the lead tone of the jcm900 series of amps? Whats it sound like?

[Ke^in]

Originally Posted by sniperfrommars1

How would you guys rate the lead tone of the jcm900 series of amps? Whats it sound like?

I love mine. And I don't even use a boost.

[phlame]

For me it's all about my mesa boogie road king combo. Before I bought it I tried out a marshall tsl122 and considered a legacy but I stumbled onto a road king for $2200 so I jumped on it. I now have just about any tone imaginable at my fingertips in a convenient combo.

[phlame]

For me it's all about my mesa boogie road king combo. Before I bought it I tried out a marshall tsl122 and considered a legacy but I stumbled onto a road king for $2200 so I jumped on it. I now have just about any tone imaginable at my fingertips in a convenient combo.

[mattsmusic]

That's quite an article! Nice job, should be helpful to many that read it.

Matt

Matt's Music Center
35 Pleasant St
Weymouth MA 02190 USA
781-335-0700
www.mattsmusic.com

[Praetorian]

a brand I haven't seen on here is Hughes and Kettner, the Triamp and the Duotone are quite nice amps. Too bad the price is pretty much up there with Mesas and such. I myself am looking for a nice 2x12, and so far I've got it down to Peavey, Mesa/Boogie, and possibly Soldano (well, if they make one), oh and possibly Bogner if I can afford it. Used section here I come! Ha ha.

[Praetorian]

heh, my bad, I must have missed the two people who talked about H&K amps. I've played with the original Triamp onstage before, and it was very nice sounding. Unfortunately that was when I had only been playing for about a year, so I wasn't really looking for tone so much as just getting the job done. What I do remember though was that the clean was really pretty (lol, I believe I used a Squier as a backup for my Schecter [which was in drop B] so the clean sounded really bright, but I did get a chance to use my Schecter in standard tuning and it sounded great. Lot's of nice pronounced mids and such but with a nice high end and just enough bass), and the high gain channel was just great. Since I was playing a very heavy song, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was nicely surprised because the distortion doesn't break up when tuned low. Standard it's just all 100% wonderfully crunchy distortion. You can describe the distortion like chunky peanut butter! But yeah..ahem. It's a nice amp. Although I believe that I've changed my mind and feel like saving up a butt-load of money and getting a Bogner Uberschall. Yippee!

[gkelm]

Stumbled on this guy's website, several clips of various amps. Might be helpful to someone for reference.

http://www.chrissnider.net/amp_clips/index.htm

Enjoy.
Greg

[VanWyck]

I have been living with my Mesa Boogie Rect-o-verb 50w head and rectifier 2x12 cab for about three months now, and it inspires me every time that I plug into it. I disagree with whomever commented that Rectos do not deliver the clean goods, as my favorite tone are from the clean to slightly overdriven timbres. I primarily use the clean, raw, and vintage modes, occasionally using the clean/driven for blues, and modern for the recto tones. The presence control really helps to shape the tone, especially setting it optimally for chordal vs. single note lines. I highly reccomend that anyone trying out the amp read the user's manual regarding "correct"usage of the presence knob. I play a 2002 Jem 7 VWH and a '91 Strat Plus with EMG DG20 active pu's through my rig. The first time I heard my strat through the Mesa I knew I had found "it".

[dot-dot-dot]

Might I suggest adding Cornell - www.dc-developments.com - Denis is one of the tru British valve gurus...

[Ferrous Lepidoptera]

Did I just miss it, or did Mr. Orange and everyone else, fail to mention Orange amps? Maybe they just go without saying...

Not that I know anything about them, just struck me as funny.

[ukwan]

For me the ENGL tone is absolutly amazing!! no way is this amp a cheap Mesa copy. it's a totally different animal... imagine the presence of a Marshall with the balls and smoothness of a Mesa.

[power freak]

I would like to add the Koch line of amps, I am really liking these lately. They are "gainy" but not overly saturated if you get what I'm saying? They are compressed a lot as well, very smooth with definition too. My personal favourite is the Twintone, which has very similar features to the Bogner Shiva. There load box is also second to none IMO.

Also Dr. Z are very good, they are using ultra linear designs instead of the regular single ended or push pull approach. It has been used in the hi-fi world for a long time, nobody thought it would work for guitar amps but they were wrong! An ultra linear design attachs the screen grid of the output tube(s) (doesn't apply to triodes) to the same supply as the plate through specail taps on the output transformer. This makes it act like a cross between a triode and pentode: The triode has a lot of second harmonic going on and therfore is "sweet" sounding, the "complaint" is that its not as clear. THe pentode, on the other hand, has clarity but people complain that its not sweet. The ultra linear makes it in between the two! You can vary how much it acts like either tube by putting resitors in the correct places. Back to the tone: They use this design well, you can here the bass a lot better IMO, its not more bass its just deeper bass. These amps however are not high gain, you would need a booster to get a searing metal tone, but if you are going for clean or "progressive" marshall type sounds you could do much worse