Newbie Question

How much money do you have to spend? Can it be solidstate or must it be tube? Should it be amp-only, or will you use distortion pedals?

ps. Why *must* it be 100 watts? Espescially if you will take a tube amp a 30W will be more then enough for most casual situations, and for large gigs you'll just mic it. For example, check out those small Mesa-Boogie combo's. 20W, but will give the uber-metal tone one might be after...

Thanks for the reply.
You have touched on a few things I need  some advice on.  I don't know much about amps, solidstate or tube.
What is the diff in them?
I will most likely be using destorion pedals.  

Right now I need a good practice amp, but figured why go ahead and get something I'll need later on too.  
That and I'm a loud freak.

Thanks for any advice given.

Well, here is the basics. Joe and Wes will no doubt give you a lot more info soon :D

Tube amps are what pretty much every pro band use. They simply sound better, no matter if you play blues or metal. However, for the average Joe, they have a few drawbacks:

-Expensive (both purchase and maintainance)
-More easily damaged
-Won't sound as good at low volume. A 100W tube is totally useless at home without things like loadboxes. To be specific, anything above 5W or so needs a loadbox to crank at home.
-Heavy to transport.

The advantages of solidstate:

-Cheap.
-Much harder to break.
-Will sound at its best at any volume.
-No maintainance at all.

if you are playing very varied stuff, you could also take a look at digital, modeling, amps (Line6, Behringer).

About volume, volume increase per wattage is not lineair. Or in other words, a 50W amp is only twice as loud as a 5W amp (ceteris paribus). A 30W amp will be no less then 70% of the volume of a raging 100W amp. So in general, you should focuss on tone quality, not on volume. And even if you happen to run in a situation where your amp is not loud enough, you'll just mic it. You can play a 50.000 stadium with a 2W tube amp, as long as the PA set is properly setup. Also note that the speaker has a lot of impact on volume. A 30W amp can sound louder then a 40W amp with a less efficient speaker.

If you give me a indication of how much you wish to spend, I can recommend a few things. Brands you might wish to look into for metal sounds are:

-Marshall
-Randall
-Mesa-Boogie
-Engl
-Diesel

and ofcourse many others :)

Thanks!!
Right now I can spend between $200.00 & $300.00 dollars.  

Well, that pretty much rules out any tube amp. The cheapest 15W tube amps start at $250. However, depending on where you live, you might find something like a Marshall JCM800 at ebay and other online acutions.

However, assuming you want to buy something new, there are a few things I can recommend. First of all, the Marshall 30W DFX. It's 30W, has a proper 10" speaker, a good onboard effect unit, and the famous 'in your face' distortion. Ofcourse, it remains solidstate, but it really is a good choice, espescially for rock/metal.

The second one is the Behringer GMX 212. Two 12" speakers bust out a total of 100W. Onboard effects, analog modeling. Behringer amps are not known for it's brutal distortion, but a simply distortion pedal through the clean channel will easily solve that.

You will find sound samples at the links. Hope this helps.

I'd go with that Behringer.  I am fairly certain the specifications on that were saying it would allow for extension speakers, in effect making a half-stack, which would really make for a fatter sound.  Of course those extension speakers could come down the road when affordable.

Yup, extension speaker, DI-out, FX-loop, Tape-in, Tape-out, it has it all.

You could think about getting a ADA Mp-1 it's a tube and solidstate pre-amp of e-bay, it may run around $100.00. About any solidstate amp will work.  What ada will do is allow you to dial-in some great metal sound.

You'll find a lot of pro guitarist will have an MP-1 hide in their rack effects.

Joe