Im looking for an amplifier

Im looking for an amplifier, both to use at home and to play at gigs in large bars.

I play indie rock, Im a rhythm guitarist. I use a hollowbody, but my idea is to buy a danelectro 59 soon.

I have thought about the VOX AC-30. Maybe you can recommend something different.

An ac30 with blue speakers us loud, it can keep up with a 50 watt plexi Marshall or blonde/blackface bassman no problem. Look at an ac15hw2. It's got enough projection for most venues and can be dialed down for home use as long as you dont play late at night - sounds pretty decent, its a half size ac30, if you want a real ac15 they don'tmake an accurate version anymore (or a proper ac10)... if your back is strong buy an ac30hw2. It's not fun to carry but it's also not easy to steal. I have one. It mostly keeps up with my '62 and has some useful features like a defeatable post phase inverter master, half power and a hot mode for the top boost channel if you want to be Brian may but forgot your treble booster... no vibrato channel though.

A marshall 18 watt reissue or clone is also a good choice if you'reconsidering el84 amps. Straddles the vox and Marshall sound.

EDIT Both these amps can be finicky with stomp boxes.

You also can't go wrong with a fender deluxe reverb. The silver reissue is the best bang for buck in current production. Has a few common mods to vintage ones as stock. If you can find one, the ampeg jet j20 from about 20 years ago is actually a brown deluxe based circuit and sounds pretty great.

In old amps you might enjoy a fender bandmaster rig, not the most popular fender head so its affordable - it's got a tight bass end and a steely twang that transitions into respectable cowboy crunch around 5 on the volume... the channels are in phase and can be jumpered like a plexi, unlike other blackface amps. Not particularly loud but can reach the back row in a small theater.

A blackface princeton paired with a small tweed like a fender deluxe, Harvard, Gibson titan, lancer, ranger etc can be a formidable rig.

thats a good way to think about a heavy amp... hopefully my sound city will never be stolen the thing weighs like 30 kilos

You did give too less informations... To play a AC30 at home is too loud, to play a AC15 even is loud if you wanna play it crank at home a AC15 at Home is OK when you just use Pedals for the Gain Stage and play it crank , when you do not got neighbours or on special days maybe a short time. Then you mention VoX AMPs do have a british crunch gain stage , you can also go for Fender but they are more good for cleans their Gain Stage is not often used but it takes pedales very well you can use , Fenders are also loud but can be played at home on Volume 1-2 like the AC15 but without the Gain Stage then. When you live alone without neighbours you might get the AC15 and play it crank in room when your family is OK with that. You also did not tell something about your budget , you might wanna buy an AMP like the AC30 for your Gigs and at Home playing something like the UA Ruby to a interface and normal speaker output. When you got a great Budget you might go for the MORGAN AC20 instaed of the VoX they are going in the same direction when comes to the Gain Stage and buying an attenuator to play at home like the Universal Audio OX Amp Top Box. To buy just one Tube AMP for home and for the stage is possible, but you can not really crank it at home when living in sensitive situations, you will be limited down to pedals for Gain, what can also be nice and OK for some people and for others it might be annoying and not acceptable.

There are so many possibilities. 1st you wanna to find out what kind of sound you want (unsure because you said something different) and if its important to play an AMP crank at home or not (not mentioned, but I guess Yes as a Rhy Player of a Rock Band) and look at your budget and go from there to choose an AMP. (not mentioned) also not mention if it has to be a Combo or can be Head And better try out an AMP in a Store or from other people, you will see then how quite they will go.

If we're recommending boutique amps don't forget Dr. Z. Mike is a great guy and I like every Dr Z model I've tried. The Ghia is pretty sweet. Then there's a slew of ac30 derived amps with Brad paisley's wreck and candy panels as the benchmark as well as weird vox/fender hybrids. His prices are reasonable as these fancy man brands go. If I needed a new amp I probably would start with the Z line.

I've only ever tried 1 Morgan with a pentode channel back when they first started turning up used and I don't remember being that impressed. Definitely was more into the classic Matchless DC30 for the ef86 thing... which I'm just not as excited about as I used to be. No one makes a good ef86 anymore anyway. If you dont have some NOS, don't bother. All the new ones literally sound dull in an ac15 type preamp. I dont know why.

The OP could also build an amp. Always fun.

Yeah, when I was younger I would play with huge heavy stuff and I think my band was the only band in Philly that never got ganked. Plexis, showmans, an SVT with the fridge cab. No one wanted to deal with the logistics of stealing stuff like that. Heavy and... CONSPICUOUS in a world of mesas...

One thing to ask yourself is how you think the amp will sound in the mix with a microphone on the speaker because that's how everyone but you will hear it, whether live or on your recordings. If you can test that out before buying, then do so. It's a big investment. Hit up a good store and make yourself a nuisance. If they want your business they'll work to make the sale and have you return for your next gear purchase because you're still so satisfied with the amp you purchased.

Go somewhere that deals vintage gear so you can compare the new stuff.

And disregard whatever you read from Hashimoto up there about "the gain stage." He doesn't know what he's talking about, just repeating junk he's heard. If you want to know more about vacuum tubes, small signal preamplifier and power amplifier topologies I can break it down for you in a mostly math free way. Most people g ou ave over though and go " gain stages? Gain stages." A hiwatt for example has 3 gain stages but us clean as a whistle because it throws a lot of the potential gain voltage away via small 47nf cathode bypass caps, lossy tone controls and voltage dividers. Everything is circuit dependent.

oh how i would love a fridge cab... maybe in the future.

dont disregard older peavey stuff too, its all personal preference but ive got a peavey bravo 112 i quite like i think it could get pretty loud if you push the volume but the distortion channel might be a bit metally for some. i dont really know much about any of the other models but im sure theres probably some decent stuff?

One thing I've found in the studio is that every big bass amp (or bass friendly guitar amp) sounds more like it should through an SVT 8×10... even just placing a mic on 1 speaker, the coupling from the whole system really works. But you need a free ISO booth if you're tracking the rhythm section live. Gobos won't cut it.

I don't know how I resisted the urge to reply to a thread called "I'm looking for an amp" by asking the OP if he remembered the last place he saw it.

Yes there are a lot of possibilities, the Morgan AC20 was just an exsample when you wanna put more money into it and go for an attenuator used between head and speaker at home, the Z Amps I can not say someting about it, never heard one in person, but is also then an exsample for more money and attenuator for home use I guess, because it will be too loud cranked, or you will play it with Pedals for Gain at home, you can also go for a VoX Head in combi with an attenuator at home, then you will need to pack more for Gigs. He did not say, if it has to be Combo or a Head is possible.

Gain Stage is important when buying an AMP , 1st its important for the sound you looking for, and 2nd it is important to look out for if you want to crank the AMP , there are some you will not play at home at all, so you always have to respect the Gain Stage in Mind when buying an AMP , you might can not use it at home and you have to consider for what kind of Gain you are going for. Like he said the AC30 he has to consider that the AC30 is much too loud and cranked at home will be painfull, the AC15 might also too loud at home, depends on "Home" you can not hush babies with it cranked, but possible with pedals at Home and goes full in a Band. His Profile said Indie Rock, there can be everything possible as Gain Stage from Non At All and using pedals, up to Crunch , up to hard modern gain stages used in modern metal bands, but looks like he is going for british crunch VoX like and nice cleans with pedals.

When someone wanna buy an AMP I always recommend go from the sound you wanna achieve and for what you wanna use the AMP for and how you use the AMP - cleans a lot and needs to sound great, you need just pedals, you need the AMP as a gain stage. This will limit him down to find the right AMP or might go for 2 different solutions at Home and Band.

Gain Stage is important when buying an AMP , 1st its important for the sound you looking for, and 2nd it is important to look out for if you want to crank the AMP , there are some you will not play at home at all, so you always have to respect the Gain Stage in Mind when buying an AMP

These words mean nothing. Gain is 'gain in voltage.' Any component that acts as a small signal voltage amplifier is a gain stage on this context. It can have an amplification factor of 1, basically a fancy buffer, still a gain stage. There are guitar amps with many gain stages but due to intervening features of the circuit they do not deliver more gain in voltage than a single 12ax7 produces. There is more to a circuit than number of preamplifier gain stages. Amplification factor and intervening sources of voltage attenuation have far more impact on the point at which a guitar amp will segue intopreamp or power amp distortion than just the number of small signal amplifiers in series, to say nothing of preamps designed to distort... if you're talking about distortion, many times "high gain amps" throw away much of their gain in voltage and much of the preamp distortion us produced by a cold biased triode designed to clip asymmetrically. This "gain stage" typically has little to no gain in voltage and high internal negative feedback as it is not customary to bypass the cathode with a capacitor to ground for tonal reasons. A vox ac30 is literally incapable of producing preamp distortion from any channel but the top boost unless you put a line driver out front to overload the input (and the top boost is not capable of producing very much distortion of it's own not unlike a plexi or bassman preamp), there'sno intervening stage to distort before the power section. All of the distortion comes from the power section if using a non top boost input and most if using a top boost, much of it from the phase inverter and some from the el84s. The long tailed pair produces a moderate amount of gain in voltage versus other phase splitters, so perhaps it can be thought of as a gain stage but that voltage boost is needed to drive the power amp (look up a cathodyne phase inverter which has no gain, it requires an extra driver stage to drive a push pull amp). Is this what you're getting at? I'm thinking it is but your comments are somewhat misleading. The entire circuit has to be looked at. Counting preamp tubes means nothing without context.

Yes Sorry , my comment is misleading technical, Headroom, Distortion and Gain Stages are not the same and an attenuator changes the sound of the Gain. I was speaking there what sound you wanna go for with a cranked AMP and if it is still possible at home to use the AMP cranked or not, also on Gigs it might be too loud or not loud enough cranked, the whole circuit is coming here into play, how much Headroom you got and how the clipping sounds, even with different speakes you can be louder or have a diffrent kind of distorded sounds and other parts of an AMP does influence it.

I would not recommend people use an attenuator on a hot cathode biased el84 amp like an ac30. People do it but it's not a great idea in my opinion as a tech.

Be careful handing out purely experiential info, tube amps contain lethal voltages. Everything seems safe until something goes wrong and you can never predict when your luck will run out.

just crank the big amp at home... fuck the neighbours ;)

Yes I agree here, to use an attenuator shrinks the life of your AMP mostly and can also end bad on some AMPs, it is always better to go for 2 different Solutions when you wanna have Tupe AMP and playing it at Home and at the Same Time on Gigs, in respect of course you do not play your AMP at full potentional at Home, then there might be some Tube AMPs hitting both senarios or you mean by Home your shielded cellar or garage then there are options.

He got already the Vox AC10 and a Danelectro Honeytone N-10 as far as I can see, he might go for the AC10 at home and get a bigger AMP for the Gigs in large Halls only, There are a lot of ways he could go for, there are too less Informations, you can fail in some Point when giving recommendations, because of the lack of informations.

He also said we can recommend something different without a hint, he does not say it can be also a Transistor, or in Sound very different, there are too less Informations of what he wants to go for and his needs, also no information of the sound he is looking for or if he does searching for a different sound due to his AC10, also no Information of what field the AMP should be good at, cleans, gain, high gain, pedals, transport, combo, Head, Transistor, Tube, Budget, .....there is a lot left to know befor giving good recommendations.

AMP

oh also looks like hes got a pathfinder 10 not an ac10, pathfinder 10s a little 1x6 practive amp thing

I can't do anymore basic vacuum tube electronics. I feel like its derailing the thread. There are amps you can attenuate worry free. There are amps that don't lose tone at moderate levels of attenuation. Safety is very dependent on the quality of the attenuator conponents and how overengineered it is.

An ac30 style amp with a half power switch can be used in some homes, just maybe not at brian may settings. It doesn't drop 50% of the volume, much of which is dictated by speaker sensitivity, but it takes the headroom down a bit. That said, I usually just talk to my neighbors when I want to record my 1962 ac30 above 11o'clock in my home studio and work it out with them. Below that level its 'clean' in a really rich, almost overdriven sense if the word and is plenty satisfying. It is nice to gun it in a band setting once in awhile. It's the perfect band volume for me. The OP mentioned LARGE bar gigs. An ac15 might cut it, any smaller and there better be good wedges and a solid PA. I did recommend an ac15, marshall 18 ir a deluxe reverb and the ac30 I recommended can disable 2 tubes for 15-18ish watts with a little more projection available from the 2 speakers in a big cab.

I love ac30s.

AMP

THE gain stage