what's your favorite amp?

[DetroitBlues]

On 2/7/2022 at 10:30 PM, hinesarchtop said:

A friend loaned me his 1964 super reverb. It sounds and feels so friggin good. I can't get enough of it.

I'd love to play one of those!

This kid just kills it on Fender amps.... But he can play them at the right volume to find their sweet spots for tone.  Amazing player, he can emulate SRV better than just about anyone.  

 

[TalismanRich]

On 2/27/2022 at 4:37 PM, Jaguarguy said:

My divided by 13 FTR19/37 is my favorite amp

My best sounding amp is a Dr. Z Prescription followed closely by my Dr. Z Stingray (#001) previously owned by Brad Paisley

I just noticed the nice pic of Buddy Whittington.  I love his playing.   It's a shame most of his touring is either in UK or Texas.  It would be really cool to see him live.

[Jaguarguy]

I've met Buddy a number of times.  He played at a Windsor International Blues Festival and I loaned him my Maz 38 (silver head behind him in picture).  He is a fantastic human being as well as a great guitar player!  John Mayall once called him "the greatest Bluesbreaker" which would put him a rarified group of guitarists (Mick Taylor, Walter Trout, Clapton, Coco Montoya, Peter Green)

 

[jac70]

Headstrong Verbrovibe.  As a long time Marshall guy, I never thought I would enjoy an amp like this as much as I do.

 

 

[Schotime5]

Yup

[ElChoad]

The more I play with the amps I have, the more I love my Supro Black Magick Reverb. So many great tones in one amp. It just sounds right.

[greywolf66]

It depends on the instrument and style of music I'm playing.   For Hollowbody guitars, fiddle and jazz  I love my Mesa Rosette (300w  2x8 w horn) . For Electric my trusty Mesa/Boogie Studio .22+ I've had for 30+ years , for bass my Mesa Subway WD800 with it's 2x15 and horn. 

[rockabilly69]

On 6/4/2022 at 5:29 AM, greywolf66 said:

 "For electric, my trusty Mesa/Boogie Studio .22+ I've had for 30+ years"

I've been a fan of the Studio 22+ since they came out, other than the hissy preamp which bothered me in the studio. I had one, the 5 band EQ version, but it was stolen from me, and I miss it to this day. As a live amp it killed, I toured for 5 years with it, and it never failed to give up the goods. It also sounded great as a head through a Marshall 4x10 bottom. I went through a bunch of smaller Mesa amps to try and replace it, but everything came up short, until I found a magic DC-2 that did the trick, especially when I replaced the stock speaker with a Weber 125A.

But a little more than a month ago, I bought a Mesa Fillmore 50, and it surpasses every Mesa amp that I've owned. It is a phenomenal amp with two identical channels. And for me, not being able to dial in a good lead tone that worked with my slightly crunchy rhythm tone, had always been the achilles heel with every Mesa that I'd owned. The lead tones were always too mid-focused for what I wanted. 

But on the Fillmore, the lead channel distortion tone is very tweed like, open and balanced across the frequency spectrum, which is what I love, and I can dial either a slightly pushed tweed-like tone or a clean blackface-like tone on the rhythm channel. The reverb is out of this world, it is so deep that I hardly bring it past two on the dial! And any guitar that I plug into it sounds great. It also has the best tone stack I've ever used on a Mesa, making it very easy to dial in the tones, unlike most every other Mesa amp. And it's a reasonable weight for a Mesa (under 50 pounds).

For "my kind of tone" it's the best single amp Mesa has ever made, and yes, I've tried them all. I have a bunch of great amps (Vintage Fender, Marshall, Victoria, Clark, Tophat, etc), and the Mesa is my favorite. It's so good, it's the only amp that I keep in my house now, and that's where I write most of my songs and do most of my demos for those songs! The only thing I wished it had was a tremolo circuit. 

 

 

[bolero]

Rockin' at the Fillmore!

 

That's a nice looking amp

[rockabilly69]

54 minutes ago, bolero said:

Rockin' at the Fillmore!

 

That's a nice looking amp

Rockin' The Fillmore just like Humble Pie,,

 

[greywolf66]

Nice Zemaitis~

[rockabilly69]

4 hours ago, greywolf66 said:

Nice Zemaitis~

Thanks, I love Zemaitis guitars, and I love modding them to make them sound the way I want.. The disc-top was custom wired by pickup guru Tom Short, the two in the next picture have Tyson Precious and Grace Humbuckers, and Gabojo Mr2000 DeArmonds, the last one has custom Zemaitis/DiMarzio pickups and a rangemaster circuit built into it.

 

 

[ElChoad]

I am quite partial to my Supro Black Magick Reverb with matching 2x12 cabinet. It's just a great all-around amp and is super touch responsive. I have yet to plug a guitar into it that doesn't sound good. I feel bad that my Orange pretty much collects dust now. 

[GuitarsGuitarsGuitars]

On 4/21/2022 at 8:00 PM, ElChoad said:

The more I play with the amps I have, the more I love my Supro Black Magick Reverb. So many great tones in one amp. It just sounds right.

I got the Black Magick "Jimmy Page" with the Jensen P12Q .... Fantastic Amp.

[JRL]

DR Z Prescription.......Mike, I still want that green one you have!

[zguitar71]

I’ve narrowed down my favorite amps to the three that I own and use.  I’ve gone through many amps in my time and I’m very satisfied with these. I get compliments from all three, though I do get volume complaints from one. 

My favorite but least used is a ‘62 Brownface Concert with the killer tremolo. It’s the least used because it is SO LOUD!  It is also SUPER HEAVY! I don’t use pedals so to get the amp to its sweet spot is unbelievably loud. 7.5 on the non Trem side is like heaven and can be felt deep in your body, it’s a beast to say the least. With Trem I run it at 4, a very slight bit of breakup but the tone!!!! IMO the Brownface amps are the best Fender made. That could get some peeps stirred up but I stand firm on that. They are ready to breakup and get nasty like a Tweed but stay tight all while not being ear piercing like BF and SF amps can be. 

Next is my little giant, a SF Champ that is modified with a modified Marshall tone stack (I used a 250k mid pot instead of 25k), a Scumback speaker, a negative feed back pot (turns off the NF) and a Classic Tone Output trans that lets me run 2 6v6 tubes for 10 watts. Mostly I run it at 5 watts and it gets raw and nasty. It lives up to the name Champ and is my go to for brewery gigs and small clubs. It also makes a great jazz amp with the mids all in and the volume around 3. For Allman Bros it’s mids all in and v around 7, nasty with an underlying clarity, something pedals cannot do, I’ll argue that till I die too. 

Next is the Tungsten Creamawheat, a divine amp. It sounds great no matter what its plugged into it. I’m running it with 4x10s now but sometimes run a single 15, 4x12s or a 1x12. They all have different sounds and characters and all sound great. I usually run the three knobs at high noon. Last night though, I played an outdoor fest on a ranch 70 miles south of Missoula. The neighbors came down because they could hear the guitar from a mile away, that makes a guy feel powerful! Sound caries there and probably they could have heard the 5 watter from that far too. I played Whipping Post with the channels jumped and the two volumes at 8 (it goes to 12), at that setting the amp is giving all it has without getting muddy and it gave a lot, very 70s rock. It is probably the most versatile amp I have, especially as a 1x12 in the original cab it came in, it’s small and weighs less than 30 pounds that way. It also makes a killer jazz amp. 

So there it is, my elitist amp opinions and my anti pedal opinions. 

[DetroitBlues]

Going back to the original post, I'm enjoying my current setup.

Marshall DSL20c, running the clean/classic channel.

Speaker was swapped for a Scumback Cream back 12".

I keep the channel gain low and volume high so the channel stays relatively clean.

But I have three drive pedals for different flavors.

• Timmy Clone for mild breakup
• Earthquaker Plumes set to medium gain/boost
• JHS Andy Timmons AT+ for distortion.

I find the flavors, depending on the guitar and my picking attack are rather dynamic and cover nearly every sound I can think of.

[mars_hall]

Surprisingly enough, this gets the job done for me.  You are able to dial in the amount of bloom you need and I run it through 4x12 cabinets into which I have installed Celestion-made Vintage 50 Black Shadows.  These are the speakers that would normally go into Mesa Studio 22+ combos.  They do a good job of taming any overkill in high frequency content you might expect from a Soldano design.

[DetroitBlues]

2 hours ago, mars_hall said:

Surprisingly enough, this gets the job done for me.  You are able to dial in the amount of bloom you need and I run it through 4x12 cabinets into which I have installed Celestion-made Vintage 50 Black Shadows.  These are the speakers that would normally go into Mesa Studio 22+ combos.  They do a good job of taming any overkill in high frequency content you might expect from a Soldano design.

Jet City is a highly underrated amp in my opinion.  Had a few over the years, their 20HV was amazing, but so much louder than any 20 watt amp I've played.  Matched mine with a vertical 2x12 with Celestion Greenbacks.  That had way more headroom and volume than just about anything I've played.  

[greatmutah2112]

[Steiner]

1 hour ago, greatmutah2112 said:

That 2x12 is akin to hound's teeth these days.  That photo sounds good!

[greatmutah2112]

1 hour ago, Steiner said:

That 2x12 is akin to hound's teeth these days.  That photo sounds good!

Guy local had bought it from Motor City and sold it when he moved towards a Fuchs rig.  He even got George to sign it on the back haha.  And it sounds glorious.  Biggest sounding 2x12 ever.  Big Cab Energy.  I had another 2x12 with Creamback 75s in them so I moved those over to this guy.  

[Steiner]

12 hours ago, greatmutah2112 said:

Guy local had bought it from Motor City and sold it when he moved towards a Fuchs rig.  He even got George to sign it on the back haha.  And it sounds glorious.  Biggest sounding 2x12 ever.  Big Cab Energy.  I had another 2x12 with Creamback 75s in them so I moved those over to this guy.  

You've done well.  Creambacks, greenbacks and blackbacks do very well with these amps.  Those 2x12s sound really big too.  Can you spell jealous?!

[JeffB]

1981 fender concert. Its just worked for me for 37yrs regardless of what sort of music I used it for.
When I sold off all my amps after working my way through them all I was surprised It was the last one standing. I only use the clean channel.

Light bulb moment amps were, a little JTM45 head, a Deluxe Reverb and a AC30 and AC15. Once I heard them at volume I couldnt un-hear them.
I did sell them though.

Mesa ElectraDyne. Absolute stand out as far as sounds. But, too big, too loud.

 

[Gitfiddler]

1 hour ago, JeffB said:

1981 fender concert. Its just worked for me for 37yrs regardless of what sort of music I used it for.
When I sold off all my amps after working my way through them all I was surprised It was the last one standing. I only use the clean channel.

Light bulb moment amps were, a little JTM45 head, a Deluxe Reverb and a AC30 and AC15. Once I heard them at volume I couldnt un-hear them.
I did sell them though.

Mesa ElectraDyne. Absolute stand out as far as sounds. But, too big, too loud.

 

Mid-80's Concert amps are sweet rigs.

I LOVED mine and still miss it.  The only reason it was sold was due to it somehow getting heavier over the years.  Or maybe I got weaker over the years??