Low Watt Tube Amps These Days?

DriftingByTheStorm

Yeah.

I just started playing on my Lead 1 again recently (thought it had blown tubes, but it was actually a very dirty volume pot causing volume to just cut out randomly) and am actually loving it more now that i can "squeeze tone" out of it.

It's One Tiny Watt of Terror ... really like a half watt that distorts out at max to a watt.
Mine drives a 1x12 decent, and the same for a 2x12. I can't imagine it pushing a 4x12 as claimed to any stunning effect. Even on a 1x12 i would NEVER call it "loud". It does have great tone. Plenty of pinch harmonics to be stolen from this thing, but just not quite loud enough for me ...

WHICH IS WHY I'M ASKING,
*** What Other New Low Watt Tube Amps Are Out There This Century ***
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
I'm not talking about valve-jr's, or Oranges, dang it.

I could (based on the Bumbox) probably go for a really cool 2 watt amp. MAYBE a 5 (though the ValveJr was LOUD. lolz)

mccreadyisgod

Z.Vex Nano, Fender Greta, Mahaffay Little Lanilei, Vox Lil Night Train.

Out of those, I'd probably be most into the Z.Vex, but I did GAS for a Lil Night Train for a while (especially when I was apartment-living).

Gotta love the idea of 12A_7 tube types being used as power tubes.

itsevolution..baby

I love my bad cat mini. 5 watts and I replaced the crap 10" Jensen with a weber silver bell. Some gold JJ tubes and it's all good. I love the nice breakup and smooth tone. It doesn't have a ton of clean headroom, but nothing at this power level will.

Peace and chicken grease...
heath

DriftingByTheStorm

itsevolution..baby wrote:

I love my bad cat mini. 5 watts and I replaced the crap 10" Jensen with a weber silver bell. Some gold JJ tubes and it's all good. I love the nice breakup and smooth tone. It doesn't have a ton of clean headroom, but nothing at this power level will.

Peace and chicken grease...
heath

WHOA.
Nice!
The ONLY thing i don't like is THE PRICE ($800+ ???eek)
How dirty does this amp get?

@MiG:
yeah, i like the Nightrain amps, and i was shocked when i first saw one, got up close, and realized it was a VOX! The only thing i don't like is, just like my Bumbox, where "dirty" for me starts, both of these amps (bumbox & nightrain) seem to end. I like that the Lil Nightrain cleans up reasonably well, but i wish it had just a TAD more gain. Maybe that's asking to much in a tiny little amp.

mccreadyisgod

I love the gained-up tones of the Nano that I've heard in the demos online, maybe that would be closer to your flavor. It's definitely tiny, though. And pricey... $$$!

As for my personal tastes, I've found many of the small-tube power tube types to be really fizzy, and that makes it tough for me to get into micro-tube amps. I'm okay with a 6V6GT (6 watts in most solo applications), but it's worth noting that the 6V6GT tends toward a glassy clean and blackface-style overdriven tones. I've got my Vibro Champ, so I'm set.

I also feel like speaker pairing can dramatically affect tone with low-wattage amps, since the wattage being delivered to the speaker is dramatically less than the operating range of almost any guitar speaker out there. This is definitely one area where I would go Greenback or G10 Greenback over Vintage 30 or G10 Vintage.

DriftingByTheStorm

mccreadyisgod wrote:

I love the gained-up tones of the Nano that I've heard in the demos online, maybe that would be closer to your flavor. It's definitely tiny, though. And pricey... $$$!

Yeah. I didn't even bother looking at it cuz I hear "Z.Vex" and "$$$" is what it translates to!
But I DID just check it out ... and
".5 W dirty, .1 W clean" ... WHOA.
that is WAYYY SMALL. lol.
And it has an internal .4w amp ON THE BOTTOM PLATE? weird!
lol

mccreadyisgod wrote:

As for my personal tastes, I've found many of the small-tube power tube types to be really fizzy,

Yeah. I think they ALL are. I think it's just the "nature" of electric circuits at that load. I think it also probably has to do with volume and bass as well. None of these little guys put out that subsonic frequency or "move" anything. But hey, a bedroom amp is a bedroom amp.

mccreadyisgod wrote:

and that makes it tough for me to get into micro-tube amps.

Feel yah. But my Girlfriend (her presence) makes it REAL easy for me to get into them.
Otherwise, she would be like, "GET OUT!"

mccreadyisgod wrote:

I also feel like speaker pairing can dramatically affect tone with low-wattage amps, since the wattage being delivered to the speaker is dramatically less than the operating range of almost any guitar speaker out there.

Yeah. I JUST figured out a way to fuck with this at home. Until 5min ago my choices here were a 2x12 cabinet (with 1 35w and 1 75w i think, stereo ins,wanna say 1 is a emm. legend, and the other a greenback, but???its a closed solid maple cabinet. doh) and the 12"black shadow inside my Mesa.

But as of 5 min ago, I just figured out that if i very carefully stick my hand inside my buddy's Fender Champ 600, i can unplug the amp from the 1x6 and, using a funky cable with a female end and a male end patch it over to my Bumbox ... that way i don't have to play a 1w amp through a 2x12 or a 1x12.


ITS EVEN MORE FIZZY\TINNY, but more overdriven which is great ... just went from like "a bad Slash sound" to "an Okay Brian May sound" (yes i played We Will Rock You) ...



I do NOT get all these people (the guy on the Z.Vex page says he likes to play that -- .5w really? -- amp through a FOUR BY TWELVE ??? WTF ???)

What does that sound like, a guitar farting?

mccreadyisgod

Honestly, I feel like a small Line 6 is the best bedroom amp out there. I've heard some decent reviews of the Roland Cube amps, and even the Fender Mustang amps. Most of this is the lack of tonal difference between low-volume and high-volume operation of a solid-state amp. And the tube-modelling capabilities of these amps really has come a long way. Besides, you can plug straight into the front and use the onboard effects, so you wouldn't need your pedalboard to dick around with some basic stuff. If you want the sound of a 40+ watt tube amp at bedroom volumes, I feel (personally, now) that a Line 6 Spider III or IV will sound better than almost any micro-tube-amp. YMMV...

DriftingByTheStorm

mccreadyisgod wrote:

Honestly, I feel like a small Line 6 is the best bedroom amp out there. I've heard some decent reviews of the Roland Cube amps, and even the Fender Mustang amps. Most of this is the lack of tonal difference between low-volume and high-volume operation of a solid-state amp. And the tube-modelling capabilities of these amps really has come a long way. Besides, you can plug straight into the front and use the onboard effects, so you wouldn't need your pedalboard to dick around with some basic stuff. If you want the sound of a 40+ watt tube amp at bedroom volumes, I feel (personally, now) that a Line 6 Spider III or IV will sound better than almost any micro-tube-amp. YMMV...

Yeah.
I have a Cube 20x.
It's decent.
Better than crap for practice.
Definitely better than the SHIT Crate I had when I was young(er).

The onboard effects ARE "okay".
Clean channel, and 5 other selectable from "tube drive, metal stack, metal, distortion, overdrive, acoustic" and 2 effects "channels" ... one can be chorus, or flange, or phase, or tremolo. The other can be "delay" or "reverb".

I almost exclusively use "tube drive" and "metal stack". Clean is "passable".
The effects are pretty bad, except for "reverb" and "tremolo". All of the other 3 chorus type effects are pretty much unusable. I was really sad at how shitty the phase was. The delay suffers horribly from lack of speed \ decay settings etc...

The "metal stack" is pretty damn good for bedroom wankering.
Also it has a "power squeeze" button if you're still too loud. I try not to use it, cuz I hate "attenuating".

I also promised myself i would never get a Line 6, but now here I have a fucking Roland, so whats the diff, i guess?
lol


Thanks as always for playing, mig.

mccreadyisgod

You could always go this route:

H.Chinaski

If your on a budget i got one of these to use at the apartment and it isn't terrible.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/amplifie ... -combo-amp

Pacomc79

mccreadyisgod wrote:

You could always go this route:

or you could hoard blackface vibrochamps!

but if you want dirty driftin, you could look into blackheart or blackstar.

That said, I just bought a POD and plug in the headphones.