Let me start by saying that what follows is not a joke, or sarcasm, or anything remotely clever. It's just legit.

A friend of mine has a Peavey practice amp, something super small and low-wattage. I'm pretty sure it's the same as this. With the gain cranked and the master volume down (I think they're called "Pre" and "Post" if I'm remembering right), it gets a pretty cool heavy distortion sound. And it takes pedals great, too. Really low volume, bedroom kinda volumes, with heavy saturation. Solid state. Fun to play.

I'm pretty sure that's the right model, but am not positive. Anybody have an old 80's Peavey solid-state practice amp that saturates nicely?


Traynor, yeah. My TS100 kicked ass, loud as hell *OR* bedroom volumes, or anything inbetween. Tree has it now, and as far as I know, he's liking it. A little bigger and heavier than a normal "bedroom" type amp, and that's probably why it can do band volume so well, too.

Of all the other solid state amps I ever owned (Crate B80XL, Peavey TKO, Nemesis NC115P, Roland JC120, Traynor TS10, and VT DeciMate) the only other ones that got a good distortion sound are the Traynor and the VT, but the VT's distortion sound is better at volumes that are a little too loud to be "bedroom". Like, your neighbors wouldn't like it as loud as it needs to be to get the good distortion sound. Which is funny, cause it's only 10 solid-state watts. The others didn't do a distorted/saturated sound so great, though I was happy with the bass sound I got from the Nemesis. A little bark and grit, but nothing I'd call distortion.

If I ever get around to building a 1 or 2 watt tube amp using one or two 7199's, I'll let you know if it's interesting. That would probably be about $50 worth of parts, and might be made to sound kinda awesome. A couple tubes and tube sockets, some resistors and capacitors, and an output transformer... Similar to the Z.Vex Nano Amp, but way the hell cheaper. Yeah, that paragraph is so not solid state. Sorry about that!

Thanks, Scott. I've been missing my Rage 108 lately, and I may buy that one.

A good MOSTLY solid state amp is the Vox Cambridge Reverb. They made a single speaker version and I don't think it had reverb, and it's great, but the one that I love is the Cambridge Twin Reverb.

2 10's, a good optical tremolo, 2 channels, switchable, reverb, and 30 watts.
Very Voxy looking, with the chicken head knobs. It has a single 12ax7 in the preamps, but beyond that, it's all solid state. It sounds GREAT and you can find them for about $225.

I miss mine sometimes.

-A

TS-25B... awesome

scott wrote:I'm pretty sure that's the right model, but am not positive. Anybody have an old 80's Peavey solid-state practice amp that saturates nicely?

My roommate modded something like that one for bass and used that as his practice amp for years. Sounds like crap.

But.

Recently, we ran a line out from his Ampeg B100R into it, and set it to the scuzziest distortion possible so this hideous, trebley distortion cuts through over the proper bass sound. Woot.

I really really like my new Traynor Reverb Mate 40. Spring reverb and 2x 8" speakers, and CHORUS!

I have a beat up Fender Stage 160 first generation, its dosen't work now, but that amp had a great sound

There are two solid-state combos that I love:

1) Sunn Beta Lead (the 2x12 combo) - My favorite. Hands down.

2) Yamaha YTA-45 - Somewhat rare, Nippon made, from the early 70's (?). I can get some crazy sounds out of this amp.

What you want if you're man enough for some full-on, rasping, bleeding, farting, solid-state distortion is a Marshall Mother Fucking Master Lead Combo.

This was my first 'proper' amp, and I wish, wish, wish that I had never sold it.

What it doesn't do is sound remotely like a valve amp.



Oh, and for loud, clean, good-sounding-on-a-budget you can't do better than an 80s Carlsbro Rebel 90. Not only does it sound ace, but it's a 2x8 so you can use it as a tiny combo or as a head avec cab.

Adam CR wrote:What you want if you're man enough for some full-on, rasping, bleeding, farting, solid-state distortion is a Marshall Mother Fucking Master Lead Combo.

This was my first 'proper' amp, and I wish, wish, wish that I had never sold it.

Oh man! I've been looking for one of those (in good condition) for YEARS.