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Big Tone Small Amps


Californiaman

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My two amps the GA-5 Les Paul Jr. and the Fender Custom Shop Two-tone are rated at 5 and 15 watts respectively.

Both are EL-84 and 12ax7 tube amps. Being since the Marshall Class5 is also an EL-84, I might not buy that one. But the Fender 57 Champ is a 6V6. I might be interested in this one.

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My two amps the GA-5 Les Paul Jr. and the Fender Custom Shop Two-tone are rated at 5 and 15 watts respectively.

Both are EL-84 and 12ax7 tube amps. Being since the Marshall Class5 is also an EL-84' date=' I might not buy that one. But the Fender 57 Champ is a 6V6. I might be interested in this one.[/quote']

 

Oh man!!!

 

You HAVE to try the 6v6s... And the 6l6s for that matter.

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I have my Fender Champ 600 converted into a head and cab.

 

Modified Epiphone Valve Junior head and cab.

 

My Mesa 5:25 Express head and cab that performs like a true 5 watter while on that setting, it is nice to have the 25 watt setting to get headroom and lows though.

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When it comes to clean tone' date=' small amps can rock your world.

When it comes to gain tone, small amps will sound like ****...well most of them. [/quote']

 

Another candidate for gobbledy-gook post of the day.

 

Tell us of your vast experience with small amps - and more to the point, small amps like, say, a Champ, a GA-5, or even a Firefly...

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When it comes to clean tone' date=' small amps can rock your world.

When it comes to gain tone, small amps will sound like ****...well most of them. [/quote']

 

My a**! Which low wattage tube amps have you owned? Which amps belong to this "most of them" of which you speak?

 

I guess for metal a low wattage amp may be a bit throaty and organic. But that's where a lot of great tube tone is.

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When it comes to clean tone' date=' small amps can rock your world.

When it comes to gain tone, small amps will sound like ****...well most of them. [/quote']

 

Sorry, thanks for playing but you're wrong.

 

The thing about small amps is that you can really crank them and the power tube really rocking which is a great sound when combined with the pre-amp tube overdrive.

 

My little two-stroke amp puts out great tone. With the 6L6 it's probably around 15 or 12 watts? I'm not sure since I've not actually measured it.

 

The beauty of that amp is that I can switch it out for a 6V6 without any bias adjustment and that lowers the wattage to around 8 watts.

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The beauty of that amp is that I can switch it out for a 6V6 without any bias adjustment and that lowers the wattage to around 8 watts.

 

 

And get yourself those really kickin-asses 6v6 tones.

 

6v6 is the sh!t.

 

Some small tube amps I've played were also very pedal friendly. That's really not the case of the Orange Tiny Terror.

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When it comes to clean tone' date=' small amps can rock your world.

When it comes to gain tone, small amps will sound like ****...well most of them. [/quote']

 

Ugh! Spoken like a true teenager.

 

Dem00n. If you don't get the Sweetwater catologue Pro Gear, call them and have them send you a copy of the latest issue.

There's a great read in there for you; all eight paragraphs of it.

 

Incidently, some of the greatest music recorded in the last 60 years were recorded with small amplifiers cranked up to the sweet spot. Educate yourself boy.

 

From the Fender Sight:

The tweed Champ is a terrific practice amp, and has been a prized possession of countless pro players for its great sounding, low-output, easy-to-record capabilities. It's well documented that this model has been used on recordings by Johnny Cash, Keith Richards and Eric Clapton (it’s the “Layla” amp). And with its rich tone and touch-sensitive response, the Champ is great for making cool new music today.

 

This is the same amp Brad Whitford of Aerosmith used for most of his parts on many of the bands early recordings.

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I've got a pair of 6v6s in my Blue Angel :-k ...imho, the amp sounds like something along the lines of a Princeton [drool] ...I really like the sound of 6v6s pushed to breakup [thumbup] . I can run the amp on the EL84s as well and it sounds very tasty too...or I can run the 6v6s and EL84s together...Come to think of it, the Blue Angel might be one of the best sounding amps of all time.[biggrin][woot]

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I've never gigged, so just out of curiosity...

 

Can you really pretty much just mic up a small combo if you're playing a larger gig? I mean, I'd imagine that, say 15W or so would be fine for anything from clubs up to medium-sized auditoriums even without micing it, but...I don't know. It just doesn't sound right to me.

 

I mean, if you can mic a small, low-wattage combo for a large gig, why would Brian May need a wall of AC30s? Why would Kerry King need a wall of JCM 800 cabs? Why would anyone need a 100W amp? Is it just because it looks cool? Sorry about my ignorance. Maybe I'm just not thinking about it right...

 

It's just that, if you can really just use a small, low-power amp for any gig, I'd be pretty pleased with that, and I could spring for that Fender Blues Junior 15W combo without feeling weird about it, or thinking about what-ifs.

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I've never gigged' date=' so just out of curiosity...

 

Can you really pretty much just mic up a small combo if you're playing a larger gig? I mean, I'd imagine that, say 15W or so would be fine for anything from clubs up to medium-sized auditoriums even without micing it, but...I don't know. It just doesn't sound right to me.

 

I mean, if you can mic a small, low-wattage combo for a large gig, why would Brian May need a wall of AC30s? Why would Kerry King need a wall of JCM 800 cabs? Why would anyone need a 100W amp? Is it just because it looks cool? Sorry about my ignorance. Maybe I'm just not thinking about it right...

 

It's just that, if you can really just use a small, low-power amp for any gig, I'd be pretty pleased with that, and I could spring for that Fender Blues Junior 15W combo without feeling weird about it, or thinking about what-ifs.[/quote']

 

Have you ever seen Vince Gill? He gets along just fine with a Deluxe Reverb (sometimes two) - @ 22 watts.

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When you see a wall of amps/cabs, 99% of them are dummies. A lower powered, <50w amp, pushing a pair of 4x12 cabs is massively loud...A 30w amp, pushing the same number of speakers is only a little bit less loud. I've never played an auditorium or even a big club...but my 90W Mesa Boogie Mk. IIb driving a 1x12 or a 1x15 was loud enough to play un-miked in every setting I ever played. There are a couple of demos on YT, of the new Marshall Class5 driving a half stack and it's pretty darn loud...so long story short, lowered powered tube amps can sound sweet and be pretty loud too.

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