Inspired by the tube thread-

If you're like me you've given little thought to solid state guitar amps.

Who among ye have used a solid state guitar amp which you would describe as having a good tone?

I used a Traynor Group One head on our last album and loved it. Also have a TS-50 1x12 combo that's great. All of the Quilter amps I've tried have been really good. I have the pocket sized one and used it at the one show I've played in the last two years and it was great.

I've heard that the current Fender SS amps sound great but haven't heard one.

I tend to like SS Amps, although I also tend to like things very trebly.

I have a Traynor 50 1x12, also have an old Harvard Reverb II that I think sounds great.

NOT comprehensive but stuff I can vouch for in my limited experience

old school
Traynor TS series
Acoustic 270
Sunn Beta Lead
Sunn Concert Lead
Peavey Bandit/Special
Peavey Musician - best bargain
Roland JC120

new school/current production - surprisingly difficult here since for the most part solid state amps have been given short shrift for development in favor of Tube amps for like 20-30 years. Nevertheless there are a couple surprises/standouts.
Quilter stuff - probably top of the stack tbh
Orange CR120H
Roland JC120

Ill say this too. I have heard those goddam Kemper amps in multiple settings and I begrudgingly have to admit I think they sound good. At least recorded. It's one of the first one of these faker profiling/modeling/cyber-whatever that ever sounded good/convincing to me (and obv at that price point they damn well oughta). The music industry has tried for years to convince us of this line but honestly, "I couldn't hear the difference." Or more to the point, it didn't sound "off" to me. Y'all may have better ears than me, I dunno. I think the JHS channel did a pretty good run-down on it if you don't find those dudes insufferable which if you do, yeah I get it they walk that line closely for me.

That being said, I think LIVE and LOUD is usually where solid state really reveals its inherent weakness in my opinion (the times I've heard the Kempers on stage it was "straight into the snake" so my experience maybe is not the best gauge for that specific model). The MusicMan HD120 & the Peavey Deuce/Mace got it right w doing the solid-state on the preamp instead of the power section. They sound great. But as the tube craze hit, it was hella cheaper to throw a starved-plate 12AX7 into the preamp and call it "tube" than it was to continue using power tubes on the output. And for the most part, for many mfgs, it worked.

Also don't be afraid to try a lower-wattage bass amp for guitar. FM Penningtron here killed it when I saw him w/ Lardo running a GK 400RB into a TL806 (but maybe could also argue that example may be more proof that good guitar players can make anything sound good).

I own a handful of late 70's Yamaha solid state amps which I think are awesome.
Twentyfive112, Fifty112, and Hundred410 all have great stock speakers and whacky good reverb.
The Yamaha RA-50 rotating speaker cab is also pretty nice.

People love the Traynor TS series, but I'm convinced a lot of that is hype by non-Canadians who weren't saturated with Traynor/Yorkville crap haha.
I had a TS-120 which sounded quite bad and had just about every other part replaced in the time that I owned it.

I replaced that with a late 70's Peavey Classic (ironic right?), which isn't fully solid state but combines a SS preamp section with a 100 watt dual 6L6 power section.
WARNING: VEERING OFF TOPIC
Got it for $100 and it right away it sounds pretty good next to the TS-120, right? Turns out only one of the power tubes it came with was a 6L6!
Not sure what the second tube was but there were pieces of loose filament rattling around inside it - no idea how the thing every fired up.
Put in a pair of Sovtek 6L6GCs (lived in my 68 Bandmaster for about a decade before I bought it) and was just blown away.

brownreasontolive wrote: I own a handful of late 70's Yamaha solid state amps which I think are awesome.

Joel Phelps played thru a Yamaha G100 in early Silkworm, seemed like it always sounded cool.

I bought one for cheap a few years ago, and hey, it wasn't my imagination.

I don't prefer it over my main amp or anything (old Super Reverb)...but the clean sound is very credible, and there's a certain kind of nasty top end you can get out of a SS amp with the right pedals that tube amps don't have--the tubes sorta scrub off the spikes or something. I'll use it on a record sometime, no doubt.

IIRC Bob Mould used the head version in early Husker Du, which I only found out years later (we loved Husker Du).

The speakers in the combo versions suck, though--must replace. And the onboard distortion is no good.

Andy Cohen played through a JC-120 in early Worm, was not missed when he ditched it. I played through a Peavey TNT 130, also not missed. A lot of people sing the praises of the little Peaveys--had a few, not missed.

Garth wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 7:16 pm running a GK 400RB into a [12" guitar speaker]

I saw FM Pepper do it first, and unlike me he wasn't using a square wav octave fuzz that makes everything sound the same anyway. Just a straight up glassy G&L sound that I doubt anyone would've suspected wasn't a tube amp.

Garth wrote: Mon Mar 14, 2022 7:13 pm NOT comprehensive but stuff I can vouch for in my limited experience


Peavey Musician - best bargain

The Peavey Musician 400 Series Bass MK 1 Heads are great. One of my favorite amps of all time. Great for Thick distorted guitar, and pretty damn good for bass too. They love a single 15". I bought a Standard 260 (guitar counterpart) when my 400 finally ate shit. It isn't great, but I'd buy another 400 in a heartbeat. Usually under $300 too.

The lead guitarist in my band is using my Traynor TS-50 1x12 combo and it sounds great, so I'll 4th or 5th the recommendation here.

The other guitarist just got a Roland JC40 because his 15W Pro Jr wasn't cutting it on stage and his Orange Crush wasn't clean enough.
The JC40 sounds fine. The two 10s maybe need a little more beef behind them, but it's loud enough for our gigs, easy to transport, and he actually uses the chorus on a couple songs.

I've yet to see a mention of the grey-line/orange-line Randall RG/RB-series stuff in this thread, but I've always like those. Kinda regret not getting that snakesking torlex one years ago when it was posted here.

As far as newer stuff goes, the larger Boss Katana combos are perfectly serviceable as well, in my experience.