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What is it? Are those little Epiphone tube jammys what I'm looking for? All my amps have too high of a noise floor. I want to mic it and possibly go direct too, so a preamp out would be preferable.

EDIT: added poll and changed title

EDIT: The Vox Pathfinder is giggity-great.

I would guess that the quietest is almost certainly going to be a solid-state amp. They're also cheap and small.

Laney LC15 is nice.

The Epiphone is ok, but stock it doesn't do much more than simple clean sounds and Rock N Roll overdriven sounds. The ones with the little speakers sound crap too unless you use a cab obviously.

There's a bunch of those Epihones at my work (in the head/1x12 cab format), and although they seem to get a lot of praise on the web I have to say I thought they were total wank. Maybe a decent speaker would improve things but if you've already spent £200 I think the money could go a lot further.

tarandfeathers wrote:although they seem to get a lot of praise on the web I have to say I thought they were total wank.

There are several things which don't look right with the circuit design. Possibly errors. You can make them a lot better with a few component swaps.

Laney LC15
Fender Pro Junior can be noisy but with new tubes and some care it can be silent. Great Rock Sound. no pre-amp out tough.

Benny wrote:Laney LC15
Fender Pro Junior can be noisy but with new tubes and some care it can be silent. Great Rock Sound. no pre-amp out tough.

I would say if you're running a good quality guitar straight into a Pro Junior, nothing beats it.
Also, old 80s Peaveys are great. Sound is not half bad and they're quiet and dependable.

I've got a Laney LC15r and I really love it, pretty cheap too. I paid £150.

i've heard great great things about the Vox Pathfinder.
15 watts through an 8" speakers (which you could swap for a weber or something to make it even better), built in spring reverb and tremolo. it's got a lot of love over at the tape op forums. i was acutally thinking of going out today and picking one up.

Rodabod wrote:The Epiphone is ok, but stock it doesn't do much more than simple clean sounds and Rock N Roll overdriven sounds. The ones with the little speakers sound crap too unless you use a cab obviously.

Simple clean is ok as the tone-shaping will be done with a Boss graphic EQ and a TubeWorks OD, plus other preamps and fx pedals here and there.

Fuck me, that Vox Pathfinder looks like a good deal. $120 at Sweetwater, $27 for the footswitch but I could prob find a generic 2-button fsw for less.