Amp recommendations

I am trying to find an amp that is $600 and under, and that is also a great pedal platform.

Do you have a speaker cabinet? If so, there are lots of options from tube heads to pedalboard amps. If you need a combo? Hmmm. Tricky. The dollar isn't woryhqhat 8t used to be.

im trying to find a combo

That rules out pedalboard amps.

600 bucks isn't much scratch anymore. These days I'm not sure what you can get in all tube combos for that money that's worth using. Maybe a used silverface "68 custom" fender deluxe reverb reissue? That's the best current production deluxe to my ear and the cheapest. Probably 300 bucks over budget though.

The 70s hybrid musicman amps are insanely good pedal platforms but they're not as cheap as they used to be. Its clean solid state input circuitry with a tube power amp designed by Leo Fender himself. 112 or 210 HD combo could be a 100+ dollars over budget. You might be able to make an offer on reverb.com if you find one close enough to you to pick up. Shipping a combo will kill your wallet these days. But those are great sounding clean amps if you're into that... extremely durable and easy to service if needed. I don't think I've ever seen a broken musicman.

You may be able to obtain a less desirable vintage traynor for 600. Theyre some of the best built amps, crazy durable. The combos are big and stupidly heavy but sound great with a bold clean tone. Again, shipping would put it out of your price range. You would need to find one local to you or score a crazy deal.

I recently encountered a boss katana that sounded pretty good on it's own for what it is, but the owner's pedals didn't sound so hot through it. Coulda just been her. YMMV. I find the orange crush amps to sound tolerable, especially set clean, but a fellow tech i chat with all the time recently serviced a combo and the build quality is awful. The chassis construction is too flimsy to gig. If you're moving it regularly it will break eventually.

Combos are tough, there's a big cost jump between durable ones and flimsy ones... to say nothing of sound. Maybe you can up your budget to a grand? The days when you could score a vintage marshall from a pawn shop for 600 bucks are over.

For what purpose , playin in Band , Small Room, Garage , Bedroom, Gigs in bars , Church, only at home ?

Whats about your Fender Mustang LT25 25W ??? Its not very pedal friendly , you wanna go now for Tubes, I guess ?

You might wanna Test Out a Roland Jazz but they are very cleanish and but not for Metal you said playing also Metal, or a Bugera Infinium, or a Blackstar , a VoX AC10, maybe a cheap Fender blues junior but they are not so much a pedal plattform but this is also not for Metal and might be not loud enough for small Gigs, but would be in that price range ..

To Buy an Used AMP is risky , you might have a local shop got used Guitar AMPs you can try out, then you might get a used VoX AC15, Fender Hot Rod, Marshall DSL20, when you play Rock and Metal something like a Marshall or an Orange would more for you , I would not blind order an used AMP just online.

Maybe just save some more money and take your time and buy then an AMP you more looking for, I am savin Money at the moment too, and will go for a Marshall 800 Head

or go out and test used AMP if possible at a local Store... you might also wanna see what sound you want to achieve, not exactly but the direction of it and buy an AMP from there, because there is a lot to have very different in sound, for 600 maybe something like a Blackstar would also fit your needs for Rock and Metal , also when it is not really a pedal plattform.

You might wanna Test Out a Roland Jazz but they are very cleanish and but not for Metal you said playing also Metal,

The jc120 is a good solid state amps but finicky.

or a Bugera Infinium, or a Blackstar

Maintenance nightmares

To Buy an Used AMP is risky ,

Depends on how well made the amp is. Vintage amps tend to be very easy to service with simpler circuits that can be easily diagnosed so even if you have to go to a tech at some point the bench time will be less and therefore the cost if the repair tends to be lower than say a mesa or even a jazz chorus which are hella complex and not service friendly. Also, pcb amps tend to be less durable. There are exceptions but not for 600 bucks. Theres a huge list of amps I won't even work on. It would be cheaper to replace it because it's going to take me so long to diagnose, disassemble and repair that a new amp is cheaper. The list features "high end" amps that are utter garbage inside like 90s mesas loaded with obsolete jfets in the switching circuitry that are extremely prone to failure when exposed to heat and have stacked pcbs so some parts of the circuit are hard to access safely... or the marshall dsl amps that tend to warp and crack their pcbs lifting the traces over time. Fender hot rods have become more annoying to work on every version. Still, fender is top of the heap for serviceability... only a few models have proven to be completely frustrating.

Maybe just get some more money and take your time and buy then an AMP you more looking for,

This. When you settle on a dream amp, save up for it. Buy no other gear until you get the amp for you. If you can only gave 1 amp stay away from "all arounders" and settle on YOUR sound and get a durable amplifier that does the thing you want most of the time. Save your money, test lots ofamps to narrow the list, read reviews to determine roadworthiness, and buy the amp that fits the bill.

or go out and test used AMP if possible at a local Store...

If you can't get a used amp from a store you can safely bet on vintage amps as long as the seller can provide photos of the electrolytic filter capacitors. If these aren't new then it's a bad bet. They have a shelf life and are quite expensive. Also not a safe DIY job for a novice. Even if you go to a store, if an amp is more than 20 years old you should ask if it has been recapped and unless you trust the proprietors ask them to take the chassis out so you can examine the internals.

for 600 maybe something like a Blackstar would also fit your needs for Rock and Metal , also when it is not really a pedal plattform.

Not reliable and hard to service with the exception of their little 5 watt single ended models. My son has a friend whose dad has 2 of them. They sound good and though they've gone down on him they're easy enough to fix and modify that he DIYed them every time even if he's had to ask me for advice. My experience with the other black stars left a bad taste in my mouth. Flimsy pcbs with poorly spaced components, lots of low voltage solid state parts makes for complex power supplies with more failure points.

I had to check reverb, GC and SamAsh to find out that used fender bassbreakers are in your price range. I have a friend with the 18 watt one. Its loud, has rich clean sound, a good classic rock grunt when pushed and he hasn't asked me to service it once in 5+ years. Seems like any model from thus line trades for 700 or less. Not sure what people don't like about them.

Yes I agree , also AMPs like the Fender Hot Rod are not that good and break after a while, because of cheap builds inside.

Yes, to buy an used AMP is risky , specially when not tested before that it does function at all, when you know how damaged capacitors are looking like , leaking, signs of overheating like black burns, fat grown blown capacitors ... Fotos can help to make a choice before testing the AMP and be sure its not used to death.

"This. When you settle on a dream amp, save up for it. Buy no other gear until you get the AMP for you. If you can only gave 1 AMP stay away from "all arounders" and settle on YOUR sound and get a durable amplifier that does the thing you want most of the time. Save your money, test lots of amps to narrow the list, read reviews to determine roadworthiness, and buy the amp that fits the bill."

Yes totally agree here , better save money and buy what your target is in sound and AMPs are mostly not allrounders, when they are, they mostly have their issues or are very digital, or just good in one of all the sounds, an AMP is the most important to spend money on and for the right Sound where you have to focus on what you wanna go for.

Yes, to buy an used AMP is risky , specially when not tested before that it does function at all, when you know how damaged capacitors are looking like , leaking, signs of overheating, ... Fotos can help to make choice before testing the AMP and be sure they are not used to death.

Wear is generally good. The signal caps tend to drift if an amp isn't powered up regularly. If stored in a humid environment carbon based resistors tend to take on moisture and drift upwards. This can cause issues but the worst us when a resistor goes open in a PSU rc filter. Super dangerous. Better for the resistor to short out. A well worn but maintained old amp will probably be a better bet than one that was sitting most of the time. Running the amp a lot is actually better for the parts than if its sitting, even filter caps last longer when charged up regularly. When electrolytic caps sit around without seeing voltage, especially if exposed to high ambient temperatures they tend to go leaky, both electrically and as you mentioned actually buldging with dielectric trying to drip out of the housing.

I've had good luck with road warriors. My cleanest looking amps gave needed a lot maintenance. I used to tour with vintage amps. I know what I'm talking about. My main stage amps never went down and they were in shabby cosmetic condition. Well loved workhorses that threw down every night.

Yea heard about the problems of AMPs not been played a while.

this should be another Post, but the next AMP I am going for is an Marshall 2203 JCM 800 Reissue Head, I was also thinking about an Marshall JVM410H Head but I did rule that one out , because I heard different things about this AMP, some say the JVM410H wil last long and is good build , others say they are not good at all, some even had an JVM410H delivered and it was already dead so I will go for the Marshall 2203 JCM 800 Reissue, but also here , I know one person had that AMP just last about 4 years then he did replace it with an Orange. What do you think of those AMPs , you know em for sure ?

+1 for traynor, I played one a friend has I think it was a ygm3? Little 1x12 thing but definitely punched above it's wattage rating

I had a jcm800 4104 combo that sounded really great. Early 2204 circuit with the vertical inputs with flying leads. Never needed any work, it just wasn't my sound. I also had a split channel before that and a 900slx. Both very solid cock rock Marshall's but the 50 watt 800 combo was hands down the best sounding bar gig marshall of the bunch. I actually prefer the laney gh50l though for THAT sound, that's neither here nor there. Those are great sounding 800 cousins though. I think the 2203 is just a squinch too loud for the average guy. The 2204 isn't half as loyd but the sweet spot on the master is low enough to use at home sometimes. The 50 watt power amps are a little different than the 100s and sound a little sweeter with the brighter preamps that came in with the JMP series. If it's got 4 inputs and shared v1 cathodes I like the superlead but you can't crank that amp anywhere these days.

I think my favorite 80s marshall I owned was the studio15. My wife bullied me into selling it and i really regret it. Theyre so rare. I basically got it for free too. Traded in a maestro fz1a I got from a friend as a gift... what a cool little amp. Only the tiny cab held it back. I shoulda put it in a head but I didn't want to deface a piece of marshall history that they only made for like a year.

If you're buying a 2203 look at an old jmp or the vertical input vintage JCM. The horizontal inputs are prone to pulling off the pcb. I think the reissue shares this issue. These are incredibly reliable amps and it's rare to see an old one that's not working unless it has a bl7wn OT from a transformer mismatch or something like that. Or there's the laney gh100L which sounds really really good and has quiet power, no hiss or hum at all unless you engage the goofy lead boost. Also can run 6L6es without modifications. It's not better built than a reissue though. An early 800 or JMP 2203 us virtually bulletproof.

The JVM is failure prone in so many places and they aren't as service friendly as an 800. Mire features jammed into a similar footprint.

The guitar mates are sweet little amps, the fender blues junior seems to have ripped off the basic circuit but the traynors will kill a blues jr all day due to the high quality components. My buddy has a 4x8 version that is really cool in the studio.

Traynor made great stuff. The new traynors are not the same.

have to say i didnt know there was new traynors, ive heard good things about the old monoblock bass heads, but sadly they seem to not exist over here

The most desirable traynors are the bassmasters. Jtm45ish. Not much of a bass amp. The bassmate combos are real sleepers for guitar or studio bass playing. But I really dig all the other models. Their voicemaster pa head was a great platform to do my first scratch design. It actually wasn't a bad GUITAR amp stock (can't imagine it as a pa head) and can be modded into an orange or80 pretty easily... I kinda wanted to use all those 12AX7es so I did something loosely hiwatt based.

You can't go wrong with most traynors. The more they look like fenders the better.

ah, ive definetely liked the ones ive tried, the guy who had the little combo also had a yba1 that i aaaaaalllmost bought off him but i couldnt get the money together, theyre really rare to find in the uk, maybe ill have to cough up the money to ship a monoblock over from the states but that would have to be a few years in the future...

Yeah, the yba1 bassmaster is the creme de la creme of traynor tweed bassman style amps... you'll run into another one. They made tons of them. The ones that look more like blackface fenders are the best versions for that sound but they're all nice if you can wind the amp up enough to get there.

just reading a different thread and some guy mentioned used amps they got, one being a bass amp... if you just want a pedal platform would that possibly be something to consider, getting a little bass combo might get you more wattage per £ than guitar stuff if youre just gonna get all your gain from a pedal. im not sure if thered be a downside to doing that though i cant say im much of an amp expert.

Yeah I've been thinking about buying used gear but I'm also thinking about buying what you said, the Vox AC10 but I'm also Looking at the boss Katana Because I've heard that that's also a great pedal plaform

Voxes are finicky about dirt boxs. Anything CAN work but settings are really important on both the pedal and the amp. The current ac10 is not really an ac10, nor is the current ac15. They're low power ac30s. Definitely try an ac10 with your signal chain before buying one. I love vox tube amps but I've had trouble incorporating a lot of overdrive and distortion boxes that I really like with other amp brands into a an ac30 rig. My experience for decades of vox ownership is that I can do a rat or a hot cake and I can get away with a modified boss sd1 type of pedal... otherwise its boosters and turning up so the amp distorts which is loud even on an ac10. The master volumes on new voxes are in the power section and sound pretty good at stage volumes if not as good as blasting the amp, but getting much below noon this style of master will sound thin. There are mods to improve it a bit but I wouldn't tamper with a new ac10, everything is pcb mount and the board isn't of very high quality.

My experience with the katana in a recording scenario was that it sounded shockingly good using the onboard gain and fx but not with the owners pedalboard. Again, test a katana with your stuff.