My Stage Right 15 Watt Tube Amp Udate

[mihcmac]

I am really enjoying this amp as I get used to it. Easy to find the sound I want, usually running the gain on 5 (12 o'clock) produces a rich range of tones, for use with or without my pedals at most volume levels.. Currently these 15w Monoprice tube amps are listed as "out of stock" for some reason on most websites and causing the price of used SR 15's to increase in cost to around $300 and up. I wanted to get another new one but missed the last one being sold for $249... Anyway it sounds great with my P90's going through it..

Note: They are available with the Harley Benton brand, but they are Euro power only..

Edited June 6, 2020 by mihcmac

[merciful-evans]

Not familiar. So this is a Thomann amp?

... and you need an adaptor to use at home.

 

I have a home amp on order too. Hopefully later this month.

[gdecantoo]

I was skeptical when i bought mine at the $199 sale price. A 15 watt all tube amp for under $500, there must be a catch.  So far, no gotcha's!  These are great little amps.  I've been waiting  for another sale to snag a second one but as mihcmac mentioned the prices are going up. Amazon has them for $279. Up  30 bucks from original price just a short time ago.  So far i haven't let the smoke out of this thing yet even after a little abuse from the grandkids! Great buy!

[mihcmac]

21 hours ago, merciful-evans said:

Not familiar. So this is a Thomann amp?

... and you need an adaptor to use at home.

 

I have a home amp on order too. Hopefully later this month.

The "Harley Benton Tube 15 W" is a Monoprice Stage Right 15 built specifically for Euro power requirements for Thomann to sell..

The Mono Price Stage Right 15 is for US power only..

 

Harley Benton Tube 15 at Thomann...

Edited June 8, 2020 by mihcmac

[mihcmac]

5 hours ago, gdecant1 said:

I was skeptical when i bought mine at the $199 sale price. A 15 watt all tube amp for under $500, there must be a catch.  So far, no gotcha's!  These are great little amps.  I've been waiting  for another sale to snag a second one but as mihcmac mentioned the prices are going up. Amazon has them for $279. Up  30 bucks from original price just a short time ago.  So far i haven't let the smoke out of this thing yet even after a little abuse from the grandkids! Great buy!

I am enjoying mine, built really well, tough as nails. While some reviews recommend upgrading one of the pre-amp tubes and or speaker, I like the stock configuration. Having played it side by side with a Blues Jr, my SR 15 holds its own quite well..

Edited June 7, 2020 by mihcmac

[mihcmac]

On 6/7/2020 at 4:38 AM, gdecant1 said:

I was skeptical when i bought mine at the $199 sale price. A 15 watt all tube amp for under $500, there must be a catch.  So far, no gotcha's!  These are great little amps.  I've been waiting  for another sale to snag a second one but as mihcmac mentioned the prices are going up. Amazon has them for $279. Up  30 bucks from original price just a short time ago.  So far i haven't let the smoke out of this thing yet even after a little abuse from the grandkids! Great buy!

The Monoprice Stage Right 15 watt Tube Amp came back in stock today, again for $249.99 with Free shipping...

Hmmmm, very very temped to get another one..

I just ordered my second one from the Monoprice eBay store...

[brad1]

OK! We get it! You like the amp ! 😄

[mihcmac]

1 hour ago, brad1 said:

OK! We get it! You like the amp ! 😄

Yep... Ok I'll stop now... 🙂

[uncle fester]

7 hours ago, mihcmac said:

The Monoprice Stage Right 15 watt Tube Amp came back in stock today, again for $249.99 with Free shipping...

Hmmmm, very very temped to get another one..

I just ordered my second one from the Monoprice eBay store...

Very cool.  Why get a second, keep in different locations or would you ever be in a situation where you'd fire them both up at once?

[kidblast]

3 hours ago, uncle fester said:

Very cool.  Why get a second, keep in different locations or would you ever be in a situation where you'd fire them both up at once?

once you start using a stereo rig, it's hard to go back,  even something small and compact like these.

[mihcmac]

10 hours ago, uncle fester said:

Very cool.  Why get a second, keep in different locations or would you ever be in a situation where you'd fire them both up at once?

6 hours ago, kidblast said:

once you start using a stereo rig, it's hard to go back,  even something small and compact like these.

2nd amp partly as a backup, I could leave one where I jam and stereo sound is very cool. Also multiple amps slightly out of phase with each other creates a really nice sound texture, kind of a Phil Spector Wall of Sound kind of thing. I have a few other amps like my Fender Deluxe 900 modeling amp, and a Fender 100 half stack, but tone wise the Stage Right 15 kicks their A S S. In addition I have 6 battery powered Roland Micro Cubes that I acquired one at a time for practicing off the grid, like at a beach or jamming with Drum Circles. I do sometimes hookup all of my amps, but lately the simplicity of using the SR 15 and learning to tweak it has been very appealing. 🙂

 Each of these Rolands with controls set slightly different..

Edited June 11, 2020 by mihcmac

[kidblast]

4 hours ago, mihcmac said:

2nd amp partly as a backup, I could leave one where I jam and stereo sound is very cool. Also multiple amps slightly out of phase with each other creates a really nice sound texture, kind of a Phil Spector Wall of Sound kind of thing. I have a few other amps like my Fender Deluxe 900 modeling amp, and a Fender 100 half stack, but tone wise the Stage Right 15 kicks their A S S. In addition I have 6 battery powered Roland Micro Cubes that I acquired one at a time for practicing off the grid, like at a beach or jamming with Drum Circles. I do sometimes hookup all of my amps, but lately the simplicity of using the SR 15 and learning to tweak it has been very appealing. 🙂

 Each of these Rolands with controls set slightly different..

Holy CRAP!  That's frikken awesome... 

[mihcmac]

Hmmm. New video of the Tube 15 that runs exclusively on 230V..

 

Edited June 13, 2020 by mihcmac

[Marky Forrest]

It's all good, mihcmac, I'm lovin' mine, too.

[mihcmac]

Dave Simpson on the Harley Benton Tube 15 (Stage Right 15 in disguise) in-depth review..   Good explanations on how all the tone EQ's work..  And a really nice intro.....

 

I found it interesting that he re-tweaked the EQ for different guitars and drive levels and through the whole demo Treble was at Zero or -5 as he called it, but  in every situation was able to get sound that he liked. He didn't run the Gain past 1 for clean headroom while using his pedal board and could take the Volume to about 6 safely. The last half was direct into the amp with a few different guitars.

I have found that my Stage Right 15 is still pretty clean till after 2 on the Gain and the tone seems keep getting richer with a little more Gain.  Currently I like to use mine with the Gain between 4 and 5 with a single pedal that has 3 boosts, with Delay and Chorus in the effects loop.

Edited July 26, 2020 by mihcmac

[mihcmac]

On 7/25/2020 at 3:24 PM, ghost_of_fl said:

Wow that amp sounds really good.  I like that strat shaped object he's playing too. 

 

They do sound good and being tube amps its just a matter of dialing them in to get the sound you want. Two of them sound even better, so many different ways to adjust the sound I want and ways to use them. So now for $500 I have 30 watts of tube power with 2 x 12" Celestions and many different ways to use them.. Most of the time at my jams I am just using 1. 

Since I use P90's exclusively on my guitars my sound starts out driven a bit, I have learned to reduce the amount of Drive on my pedal with stacked Boosts. I have just acquired an Ibanez with openface ceramic humbuckings that will be converted to GFS Mean 90's.

And sill have my Roland stack previously mentioned..

Edited July 31, 2020 by mihcmac

[uncle fester]

My main amp at home is a Fender blues jr.  For conversation sake - have you ever tried one of those, and how would you say it compares to these?  

[mihcmac]

18 minutes ago, uncle fester said:

My main amp at home is a Fender blues jr.  For conversation sake - have you ever tried one of those, and how would you say it compares to these?  

I had tried a couple of used Blues Jrs including a new one in store, that had been sold while I was thinking about it, and decided that I wanted to get a new one. Searching the internet I kept finding that the Stage Right 15's were constantly being compared to the Blues Jr with good reviews. With a price of $249.99 and free shipping, I decided it was worth the risk to find out if it sounded as good as was being reported. Since these are tube amps and most of what you hear is produced by the combination of tubes and the speaker, its not advanced electronics, I felt that with a decent EQ I could get the sound I was looking for. Most tube amps are judged against the Blues Jr.. 🙂

[uncle fester]

12 minutes ago, mihcmac said:

I had tried a couple of used Blues Jrs including a new one in store, that had been sold while I was thinking about it, and decided that I wanted to get a new one. Searching the internet I kept finding that the Stage Right 15's were constantly being compared to the Blues Jr with good reviews. With a price of $249.99 and free shipping, I decided it was worth the risk to find out if it sounded as good as was being reported. Since these are tube amps and most of what you hear is produced by the combination of tubes and the speaker, its not advanced electronics, I felt that with a decent EQ I could get the sound I was looking for. Most tube amps are judged against the Blues Jr.. 🙂

Appreciate the reply - makes sense as well.  May you have many years of silence shattering enjoyment!

[mihcmac]

On 7/31/2020 at 7:42 AM, uncle fester said:

Appreciate the reply - makes sense as well.  May you have many years of silence shattering enjoyment!

Several other popular amps in the 15 watt range that I demo'd didn't make the cut, specially used ones, the Blues Jr easily won out. One contender a 55 watt Riviera Sedona acoustic amp with a 12, just sounded like sex as soon as I turned it on, but at over $800 used it fell out of the running..

If  anyones amp uses ECC83 or 12AX7  preamp tubes and needs to get more clean headroom. Some are recommending the 5751 preamp tube that doesn't overdrive too easily and is reported to be one of the better sounding of the cleaner alternative tubes..

Edited August 1, 2020 by mihcmac

[OrdinaryNimda]

On 7/31/2020 at 7:24 PM, mihcmac said:

I had tried a couple of used Blues Jrs including a new one in store, that had been sold while I was thinking about it, and decided that I wanted to get a new one. Searching the internet I kept finding that the Stage Right 15's were constantly being compared to the Blues Jr with good reviews. With a price of $249.99 and free shipping, I decided it was worth the risk to find out if it sounded as good as was being reported. Since these are tube amps and most of what you hear is produced by the combination of tubes and the speaker, its not advanced electronics, I felt that with a decent EQ I could get the sound I was looking for. Most tube amps are judged against the Blues Jr.. 🙂

One question on the  quietness of the StageRight and also Blues Jr. Do they produce any hiss or unwanted noises?

[mihcmac]

10 hours ago, OrdinaryNimda said:

One question on the  quietness of the StageRight and also Blues Jr. Do they produce any hiss or unwanted noises?

My Stage Right amps are surprisingly quiet, you can make them noisy over boosting with a pedal or gain. My oldest Stage Right is about 6 months old and not really that many hours of running time, I did notice that as the tubes burned in, as with any tube amp I think, the sound seemed to get better.

The older Blues Jr's I tried out had varying degrees of noise depending the condition or age of the tubes. To be fair one that was doing the "snap crackle and pop thing" looked to have been rode hard and put away wet a few too many times. New ones were pretty quiet.

When you put a new set of tubes in any tube amp, its almost like getting a new amp. I started with tube amps in the 60's and these new ones in general are way better for noise and everything else. In the old days we tended to just replace just the tube that burnt out with Sylvania, GE or RCA that we found in the grocery store tube testing station .. The idea of matched sets didn't come about till late 70's or 80's..

Edited August 3, 2020 by mihcmac

[ChanMan]

Just browsing the thread... couldn't really tell if you were fond of this amp or maybe looking for something different....🤣

Seriously... I just got a new amp but now I want to try out one of these!!

[mihcmac]

19 hours ago, ChanMan said:

Just browsing the thread... couldn't really tell if you were fond of this amp or maybe looking for something different....🤣

Seriously... I just got a new amp but now I want to try out one of these!!

Hmm. I think everyone who took a chance on them seems to be enjoying them..

Edited August 5, 2020 by mihcmac

[TheKid56]

I’m picking up a used Stage Right 15W tomorrow and will let you know what I think.  Like others I’ve been eyeing the Blues Jr. for some time waiting for a decent used one at a decent price - not gonna happen.  Came across these while researching and listened to several YouTube demos and this thing sounds awesome.  And a real spring reverb tank to boot!  Some are upgrading the tank while others say the stock reverb works for them. Can’t wait to plug in.  I’m a novice beginner at the age of 64 trying to learn on my own - I have a Fender SuperChamp XD 15W tube hybrid and can’t wait to hear with the Stage Right in stereo.  I’ve had a Fender CyberDeluxe modeler and a Line6 Pod XT modeler and some other solid state and DSP amps but got rid of them - going to tube sound with pedals.  Will let you know after I pick up the Monoprice (what a weird name - like it’s a budget outfit like the Dollar Store).