i've been thinking about getting a new amp, a head, possibly vintage. i'll also probably most likely be getting an american amp and shipping it over to england.

are there any worries about getting a vintage amp? are there any worries about running an american amp in england? apart from getting a step down power converter or something?

i'd also greatly appreciate some amp recommendations....

currently i own a fender blues deluxe, which i do really like the sound off, but the power and the lack of an external speaker output isn't really enough for my current needs.

i play pelican, sunn O))) type stuff for quite a bit of the time, and i know that they are advocates of the sunn - model t. in addition i like to favour clean "country" like sounds a la earth (new stuff), dirty three, merle haggard sounds for a lot of the time.

unfortunately, i think the sunn - model t is out of my price range, but amps i have been looking at have are
fender showman/dual showman
fender bassman
sunn - various models
ampeg - vt22 head/v4

i'm leaning towards the fender route, as i have some experience with that kind of sound, but to be honest i have never used any of the amps that i am looking to buy! so it's an educated guess more than anything.... i've used quite a few marshalls (living in england, it's kind of hard to escape them!) but i'm not really a fan of the el34 sound.... too crunchy...

the price range i'm looking at ir around $600-800...

thanks for your time....

The Blues Deluxe should definately be able to cover the clean twangy sounds you need for Dirty Three et al.

Why don't you look into buying something like a Sound City 120 for the heavier stuff? They go for cheap over here (around £250-£300 for a good one) and are ridiculously loud...

ah cheers for the quick reply, yeah i had come across them on ebay. completely forgot about them, i'll try and check one out at sometime!

I thought one Pelican was using the Singular/Dual/Tipple/Quadrangle Rectumfrier?

I would steer clear of the Sound City 120. As it was made, stock, it's kind of a dog. I totally gutted the preamp section from mine, and will be redoing the power section, too. Nice looking transformers. Nice looking head box, and it's all wired on turret boards using the same pretty components that you find in old Marshalls and Hiwatts. But that was the most sterile, lifeless amp I've played through, as far as all-tube amps go.

I would take an Ampeg V4 a million years before a Sound City 120. If we're talking stock, and not with a mindset of "I'm going to be doing work to fix up or redesign this amp", I mean. The V4 isn't the easiest amp to work on, but it's not the worst. A totally cranked V4, if you have a fan on it to keep the output tubes from frying, gets a really thick distortion that's great for a doomy/stoner kinda sound.

And c'mon, guy, you're in England?!?! Get a Marshall for cryin out loud. Get yourself a 100W non-master Marshall, and if you think it's the EL34's that you don't like, just swap them out for 6L6GC's. Which is what you'll have in a Fender. Have a good, reputable tech put in a new quad of 6L6's, and while you're at it, have him change out the cathode bypass caps for more low end (and subsequently, less high) and that should sound kinda awesome. It should take him maybe one hour to put in a few pounds worth of parts and get the bias set right.

Then you won't even have to worry about your voltage issues with the whole US vs UK thing.

Lazybones wrote:I thought one Pelican was using the Singular/Dual/Tipple/Quadrangle Rectumfrier?

I've seen pictures of them using marshalls, but on their webpage they were making a request to anyone who had a sunn - model t to sell at a reasonable price, so i don't think they use mesa boogie amps.

scott wrote:And c'mon, guy, you're in England?!?! Get a Marshall for cryin out loud. Get yourself a 100W non-master Marshall, and if you think it's the EL34's that you don't like, just swap them out for 6L6GC's. Which is what you'll have in a Fender. Have a good, reputable tech put in a new quad of 6L6's, and while you're at it, have him change out the cathode bypass caps for more low end (and subsequently, less high) and that should sound kinda awesome. It should take him maybe one hour to put in a few pounds worth of parts and get the bias set right.

Cheers Scott! Almost such a simple solution it seems to obvious, cheers. I'll start rooting around for some non master volume Marshalls.

Thanks once again!

s

when i saw Pelican play a year or so ago they had Sunn Model T amps - they weren't exactly loud though.

And their drummer was rubbish

dash-x wrote:i don't think they use mesa boogie amps.

Think again. Look at mr. bass player. When he moves, you can see a big fat shiny rectumfrier on top of a big fat rectumfrier cab.

V4 is a great one.

Musicman Musicman Musicman.

I really like these amps - loud, thick, blary and weird. It will sound like whatever your guitar sounds like, but more saturated and a tinge off. They absolutely cut through everything live, are well under your price range, and mine has been extremely reliable. The thread above has more information - good luck.