Need advice on amp purchase

em0

You will get pretty high gain distortion with that Marshall. Enough for you? Who knows?

What most guitarists do today to get that amazing tone is use a good pedal through a good tube amp. The pedal will give you the high gain distortion you want, the tube amp will give you that heavy, warm, smooth powerful bottom end you are looking for. The real deal.

Looking at your budget, I would probably suggest the Peavey Classic 30.
This is a famous amp used by thousands of gigging musicians. It is right up there as one of the very best amps ever.

Peavey Classic 30

Read the reviews here and on other sites like Harmony Central. This is one of the best amps around. It is in your price range.

Used in combination with a good distortion pedal this amp will knock your socks off. It is plenty loud to gig with. You can also add an extention cabinet later if you want a half-stack.

I'm sure others like Joe (Forrok Star) will come on and give their ideas. Listen to Joe, he knows his stuff.

But this is a great tube amp in your price range.

Wes

amp buying is one of those things that you have to just do on your own, in my opinoin. Sure, you can ask fo advice to narrow things down into your general area, but after that its up to you to try things out and do a lot of research. I'm been researching tube amps for nearly a year now, trying to figure out exactly what I want and am willing to pay. Wes's comment on the use of an OD/D box in conjunction with a tube amp is a good one.

I just got this pedal, haven't used it at a high volume, but its versatile, sounds great and is reasonably priced (like most Boss stuff)

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=home/search/detail/base_id/36291

By the way, Wes what do you think of the Peavey Delta Blues? I've been considering it, as i've heard its a bit of a diamond in the rough in terms of rock amps, especially with a pedal over it...

MattyPretend116

I've looked at the Peavey Delta Blues before. When I'm interested in a new piece of gear I look up every review possible. And the PDB gets excellent reviews.

Peavey Delta Blues

You know whenever you read reviews you will always see someone who says it's the greatest amp ever, then the very next guy says it's junk. You kinda have to look past both those types of reviews.

I just look at the overall rating mostly. If an amp rates 9.36 out of 10 for quality (like this amp does on MF) and there are many ratings, then it has got to be a very good amp.

You have to also consider who is doing the rating. A person into Punk probably wouldn't care for this amp. But a Blues player or Classic Rock would probably love it.

The reviews say it has a very good clean channel. So you should be able to get anything including Metal out of this amp with a good pedal. And with that 15" speaker, this amp must have HUGE bottom end.

Yeah I thought it looked great as well, but just wish it had a bit more power. I know you've mentioned this before, but is 30 w really big enough to gig with? Does it just barely make it, or is there a fair about of headroom? (I've never gigged with a tube amp...or that much at all for that matter :wink: )

Thanks! Matt

I have a Peavey Classic 30 - it has more than enough output to gig with :!:

I usally need to keep it very low (between 1 $ 2 out of 12) so I don't disrupt the household. Could not stay in the same house with it fully cranked 8).

Find a dealer and give it a try.

BS :D

I've still on occasion run two old 12 watt tube Gibson Falcons for venues, plus even run attenuator's on them to clip 4 dB's off the top end. Their still plenty loud, combined with a mikes to the board. They run with the best of them. Without miking them 12 watts is loud, if the others are over powering you ask them nicely to turn down or mic yours. Running a tube amp at it saturation point is what makes the world go round.

Joe

Matt

Joe and Bob are right. 30 Watts is WAY louder than you might think.

12dB (decibels) is considered a doubling of volume (twice as loud).

Every time you double the watts to a speaker you get a 3dB increase in volume. This is a small but noticeable increase.

Take a speaker with an SPL (sound pressure level) rating of 100dB @ 1W/1M. This means this speaker will produce 100 decibels of volume with only ONE watt of power applied at one meters distance. This would be pretty darn loud! And with only one watt. This is also called Efficiency and/or Sensitivity when you look at speaker specs.

Double that. Now 2W (watts) will produce a 3dB increase or 103dB.

Double that. Now 4W will produce 106dB

Double that. Now 8W will produce 109dB. Starting to get pretty loud.

Double that. Now 16W will produce 112dB. You can play small venues with this.

Double that. Now 32W (where your Peavey amp is) will produce 115dB. This is loud.

Double that. Now 64W will get you 118dB. Getting REAL loud now.

OK, you see the pattern.

So, a 60 watt amp is only 3 decibels louder than a 30 watt amp.

A 120 watt amp is only 6 decibels louder than a 30 watt amp.

In fact, to be twice as loud (12 decibel increase), you would need 480 watts! But it is generally said you need 10 times the power to double the volume.

You would probably be able to play most anywhere with a 30 watt amp. The only time you might not be heard is because another guitar player with a more powerful amp is drowning you out.

I play with a 40 watt amp (Hot Rod Deluxe). It is incredibly loud. But the other guy in my band has a 65 watt tube amp. It is super loud too. He always plays at much higher volumes than me. Now I can turn my amp up and be heard easily. But you know what happens? He just turns his amp up more. :evil:

If I played this volume war with him the whole band would be deaf.

So what I'm saying is this 30 watt amp will play anywhere as long as somebody else doesn't drown you out.

And bass players like to do this too!

So, you've got to get your act together and play at reasonable volume levels. When everybody in the club is shouting at each other from one foot away, you are TOO LOUD!

Ok cool, really good explanation of the wattage : volume ratio. Yeah I've never liked playing loud when I used to jam with friends a while ago; the articulation of everyones playing seems to come out clearer when things are reasonable. (ie with an attentuator).

Thanks a lot for the info! I'll try to avoid the volume war :wink:
Matt