what's your favorite amp?

My everyday home amp right now is a 70's Fender  Champ. I have owned it for 25 years and rarely used it. Right now after

a full restoration and speaker upgrade, it shines. With just a hint of Keeley Reverb, this little beast is tight and versatile.

The secret is the Keeley. Without it, it sounds very Champish. Floppy ,messy and disappointing. With the Keeley and an 

overdrive pedal, things are good and inspiring. 

 
For jamming, my Champ II.

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The girls of the week from my amp harem...one to drive a cab. the other to drive the Leslie.  Or a pair of combos or amps/cabs in stereo.  Sometimes I like one at a time, other times two is more fun.  Any more than that gets tedious.

 
This morning with coffee there is an Antique natural pre core H555 on the stand, seventh  of seven RedPlate Aurora 34 amp heads driving a pair of 2/12's stacked Dumble style with Altec ER-12S and JBL G125-8 in the bottom one,  Tone Tubby Purple Haze and Fane AXA Alnico 12 in the top.  A TST one of one Hiwatt DR504 build running a pair of Minuteman nuclear missile tech Bendix 6384's  instead of el34's drives the two rotor Leslie.  So much fun even at dinner house 80's DB sound levels!   Then the week after all that overdone geekery Igor the Frank-en-champ will come out alone like the mouse that roared...

 
For me the Heritage Liberty amp sets the standard that all of my other amps are compared to. 

This modern day 'high powered (45 watt) tweed-based circuit' brings the goods no matter what guitar it is paired with.  

It absolutely sings with my H555.

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Depends on what's going on.  For me, as of late, that's sitting in my chair, in front of the computer.  For that, the Super Champ X2 with the Eminence Ragin' Cajun or, no kiddin', the Roland Micro Cube.  Probably best tone ever for the stage, a Top Hat Super Deluxe 33!  

 
Oh crap... that's like asking which child/dog/cat you like best. At the moment, I'm going though a thing where of all the amps I still own after the covid BS, my current favorite is actually a pair of Blistertone amps. One was hand made by Doug Sewell himself in his Texas garage before he became the head of the amp division at PRS, and the other one is the result of Doug Sewell and Paul Smith himself tweaking the model and then releasing it under the PRS brand name.  I would characterize them as "We don't need to stinkeeen clean tones!" face melters.

So that would put my MESA Duo-Rectifier in second place and my MESA Mark 5:25 in third place.

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yoslate said:
Depends on what's going on.  For me, as of late, that's sitting in my chair, in front of the computer.  For that, the Super Champ X2 with the Eminence Ragin' Cajun or, no kiddin', the Roland Micro Cube.  Probably best tone ever for the stage, a Top Hat Super Deluxe 33!  
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I just gave my minister's kid my Roland Micro Cube. He's learning how to play guitar and needed some amplification assistance.

 
HANGAR18 said:
I just gave my minister's kid my Roland Micro Cube. He's learning how to play guitar and needed some amplification assistance.
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When we (Ed - bass, Gino - gtr. - and I ) were working up the arrangements for the twenty-five-or-so tunes for the multi-artist benefit project we spent the last two years on, Gino and I'd show up at Ed's a couple times a week with our Micro Cubes.  We could get a variety of useful tones at very low volume.  We could discuss while playing, and it was like taking my lunchbox to work.  I really love that little thing!  At home, my wife has tinnitus, but playing unamplified all of the time grew really old!  The Micro Cube keeps both of us happier.  Kind of miss winding up the Top Hat, though.  My god that thing was glorious!

 
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I'm crazy about amps- I like them even more than I like guitars and have a bunch of them!  I can't pick a favorite!

 
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Agree Don! Hard to pick a fave, but always fun to chat about it.

 Yoslate, I almost bought a Tophat super deluxe once: still kind of regret it! Was using a club royale but it didn't have the lower end oomph & grunt of the super deluxe. Sold the CR & was still on the fence when someone else grabbed the SD. Oh well. It sure sounded good.

 
 My most played amp these days is a little solid state Marshall from the 80s that I upgraded the speaker on. Saves wear & tear on my tube amps if I'm just noodling around etc.

Otherwise I'd have to say a '66 jtm45/100, loaded with real GEC KT66's & mullards all around. Running into a '68 4x12 with Scumbag speakers.

 Or the Vibro Pig, which is like a feral version of a princeton reverb.

 
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All I use anymore is the Randall/Egnater/Synergy stuff.......One amp with interchangeable tube pre amps that slide in and out.....currently using a Dumble clone and an AC30, a Synergy Friedman Dirty Shirley(built by Bruce himself....) and Steve Vai's signature preamp. For a smaller C&W gig, a tweed bassman and a twin or for a jazz thing, a Gibson GA50 that pairs nicely with my H-576. What could be better than taking four amps to a gig in one amp? And no GOD Damn models....tube heaven...the real thing!

 
bolero said:
Agree Don! Hard to pick a fave, but always fun to chat about it.
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In that case...

These days, I get the most use out of my Dr. Z Cure.  It has awesome edge of dirt tone- like a Vox, but with 6V6s.  It has a pre-phase inverter master as well as a post-phase inverter master (Level) and sounds great from quiet to loud.  It has a footswitchable, adjustable tone stack bypass.  It comes close to covering what my beloved tweed Deluxe 5E3 clone does, but with more versatility and at quieter and louder volumes.

When I really want to hear how a guitar sounds, I use the Mojotone Princeton Reverb clone that I built several years ago.  It's just an awesome amp.

My best sounding amp is a 1966 Vibrolux Reverb that I've owned since 1990.  It's in awesome shape, but seldom leaves the house these days- it's just too loud!  The Dr. Z Cure and Mesa Fillmore 25 get the job done.

I bought a used Mesa Mark Five:25 1x10 combo last week to replace one that I traded a guitar for last year.  It's not my main style, but is great for when I "need" that Boogie sound that the Fillmore 25 doesn't cover.  It only weighs 24 pounds so it's nice to drag it out of my "studio" and use it all over the house.

I still haven't picked a favorite and could go on babbling like this for quite a while (I just mentioned 6 amps!)!

 
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