there's a sound city 150 on talkbass for like $550 right now.

all of the matchless amps have a good place... that said, i am not a guitar player, but own some amps that make *rock* lawyers/doctors/insurance sales types, cum: or slash. so, as a customer, you have: carr, matchless, dr. z, etc all based off fender, marshall, vox, hi watt, etc. original limited design re-hashed with *superior* componets.

my take. buy the amp you play the best through, the amp that fits your needs (hey, if i rough it up cause i move it around and it will get banged up, still work, most reasonable people can work on it), then, i think, you have a good amp.

i think if you are playing out to 10 people every month/or six, rock a peavey, sunn, anything. the purpose is well suited. if you need to blast a way bunch of money to make yourself take up something seriously, i'll pm my paypal.

i hope your guitar is of the same extension of importances as the amp (set up to work as you expect), appliable pedal board, cause i am often surprised as the amp/guitar make is in a name, not in its use as a instrument or effect.

just saying...
nicely.
n.

chris jury wrote:Maybe i've just had poor luck, but i've never found a Sound City A: at a good price, even 5 years ago, or B: that sounded all that great. The ones i bump into most often (which isn't all that often) are called "concord" i think? and they always struck me a pretty lack-lustre. Didn't posses the Fender "sparkle" the marshall "drive" or the Vox "Blang-chug-Blang", -i remember thinking the last one i played sounded a lot like a crappy "Red Bear" head i owned for like a week. Maybe it needed more sevicing.

I don't know where you are, but over here, the Sound City amps that I've seen the most of are the L50's and the 120's. Both have the Dreaded MkIV preamp. THese came out @ 1970, and had rather lousy preamp design. I did manage to find an older SC100 which had the MkIII preamp. These were a lot closer tonally to older Hiwatt's, as Dave Reeves designed them. This was also the only MkIII that I've ever seen as well. --They're fairly rare over here.

Yes, they are very expensive. Even used. If you want the matchless sound get a clone. Ceriatone and giller both make muchless clones. If your not happy because it doesn't exactly like a matchless like some people are. Simply replace the transformers with mercury mags or something high quality. From what I have heard after that no one can tell the difference. People certainly will say they can hear a difference though. If you spent $3500 on an amp. That WILL sound better to them than to someone who spent between $800 and $1200 for the same sound!

<not spam, I swear>speaking of Dave Reeves, I started this thread on expensive Matchless amps and her I am selling all my combos and extraneous amps to buy a boutique Reeves Custom 30. I mainly want it for the LondonPower "Power Scale" attenuation feature (so I can record at home with the thing without cooking the tubes), but hot damn does the amp sound GREAT. Anyone else used the Reeves stuff?

http://www.reevesamps.com/</not spam, I swear>

Matchless are great. That was the first 'boutique' amp I had ever heard. I heard one around '95 in some crappy music store in Milwaukee and could never get the sound out of my head.

However almost all of the boutique makers these days are making comparible shit. IMO the best deal for your money is DR. Z. They retail for about 1/3 less than other boutique stuff. I picked up a used Maz 38 for about $1200. Its really well built. It will last for a lifetime. Its only 1x12 and it keeps up with super reverbs and twins without any problem. Alot of his amps are voiced in the vox realm, including this amp. Check out the Stangray model from Dr. Z, it's an amazing vox style amp.

If I could get a Matchless amp I would, but I don't feel like spending that kind of money on an amp.


I almost bought a Sound City mk 120. You know the one with six EL34's in it. I had always wanted one, but never had a chance to play out of one. I finally did. It was kinda lame. I was really bummed out. At least I still have 600 bucks in my pocket!

Does a Sound City with 6 EL 34's sound like a matchless? The only Matchless I played sounded like a Vox (it was not a super loud amp) I would think a EL34 type amp would sound like a Marshall. 6 EL 34s would be very loud.

Could be wrong about this. I did play a Dr. Z amp and it sounded quite nice and Bruno amp both seemed a lot like a Matchless in terms of being Vox-like. I had a friend who had a old AC-30 so I am very familiar with how Vox amps sound.

Isn't there a Laney that is pretty much a Vox? I would think that they would be a bit cheaper.

Here another way around that huge price tag. I just got a framus ruby riot head for $850 on ebay. Sounds VERY much like a matchless. Maybe just a little tighter. Not as much sag. But it completely has the it always sounds like new strings type deal.

If you want a matchless clone, these guys make em:

http://www.ceriatone.com/productSubPage ... $$DC30.htm