There's an article on GN about buying your first and second bass amp...but nothing for guitars. If you find an amp you like, what's a good testing method to make sure the amp is quality? I'd like to find a way to put a guitar amp through its paces.
-lunchmeat
There is a two part series of articles called The Quest for Tone (part 2 is here) that you might find helpful.
I think there are two important criteria for choosing an amp.
1) It must have great tone. It is better to have a small amp that has great tone than a huge stack that looks great, but sounds horrible. So most important, find an amp that has great tone.
2) Pick an amp you will use. Again, what good is a huge stack if all you do is play at home or occasionally jam with friends? Yes, if you are in a popular band that is trying to make it big and plays for big crowds, then go for the stack. But if you mostly play at home, or play at church, or with friends, pick a small portable amp that is easy to carry around. You will have far more fun with an amp you can really use.
A 1 X 12 combo amp is really versatile. If solid state, go maybe 30-50 watts. If tube, maybe 15-40 watts. You will be able to play this amp at home, but it will also be portable enough to throw on the backseat of your car and head over to a friend's house for a jam. And it will even be powerful enough to play a gig. So these are really great amps.
If you like to experiment with lots of different tones, the new modeling amps are great. It is like owning many amps, you can get just about every sound imaginable.
If you are dedicated to a certain style like Blues, then a tube amp would be better. While not as versatile as the modeling amps, they sound much better for certain styles like Blues or Rock in most people's opinion.
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
I'd change Wes' first point to make sure it has great CLEAN tone.
Distortion, reverb, and everything else is "fixable" as in the sound chain, but if the amp can't do clean well, then there's nothing that will ever make it right.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
