Giggable amp for £200?

[zenzeypher]

Be great if you're mic'd, nice tone to them, I think anyways, 2 channel reverb etc, sounds great with pedals (my TT hated pedals) decent 4x12 and you'll be laughing but for gigging if always recommend having it mic'd should be fine with smaller venues. I used it with a cab when playing the cellar in Oxford and it was great also used it at band jam in Buckingham and again great but places like O2 and the Mill it needed to be mic'd as it didn't cut through. Now we're getting a bigger variation of places I need summin with the ability to stand out on its own, especially if we're in with more than 3 bands and need to setup and break quickly.

Which im gutted about because as a small amp I adore the sounds I can get out of it, even made my own foot switch for it.

[ICBM]

Thanks guys! A lot more options than I thought there might be which is great. What do people think of the Laney VC15 - loud enough or not quite enough oomph?

http://forum.musicradar.com/showthre...ey-VC15-volume

Not enough. It's not just a lot quieter than a VC30, it's a smaller and less full tone as well.

On the solid-state front, a Peavey Bandit - particularly the USA-made Transtube version - is very hard to beat, and sells for only around a ton too. It does both clean and hard rock/metal better than the Marshall Valvestate, but classic rock less well, if that matters.

You might get a Peavey Valve King combo for around £200 as well, although they've gone up quite a lot recently - some sellers might not be aware of that.

[jonnyburgo]

Sorry to be cheeky my dear boy, but you could do a lot worse than this
http://forum.musicradar.com/showthre...il-7-15w-Combo

As you were gentlemen.

[zenzeypher]

http://forum.musicradar.com/showthre...ey-VC15-volume

Not enough. It's not just a lot quieter than a VC30, it's a smaller and less full tone as well.

On the solid-state front, a Peavey Bandit - particularly the USA-made Transtube version - is very hard to beat, and sells for only around a ton too. It does both clean and hard rock/metal better than the Marshall Valvestate, but classic rock less well, if that matters.

You might get a Peavey Valve King combo for around £200 as well, although they've gone up quite a lot recently - some sellers might not be aware of that.

Exactly the volume is what lets it down, like above especially at larger venues... I don't like or get to mic much hence why I'm after summin with more punch.

It's more of a concern since we're doing a little tour early next year.

I 2nd the Bandit 112 the older the better too, Blue stripe models are brilliant and you can get some nice tones out of them, with a little tweaking you can really get a valve sounding crunch with little compression.

[guitarfishbay]

Not 'amazing' by current standards but I gigged for over a year with a Line 6 Flextone 2 100 watt 2x12 combo when they came out. It was more than loud enough to play with a rock band. Never let me down once. Plenty of tones which will work across a variety of genres. It was basically a POD 2.0 with a power amp and speakers.

I sold mine on Ebay at some point in the past year and I only managed £125 for it. So one should be in budget. They're also the kind of item which often shows up in cash generator/pawn shops.

I'd go for one of the 100 watt 2x12 combos, they're lightweight for what they are (about 25kg from memory) and they're loud enough. Not amazing by 'current tone standards' but £200 is a low budget if you need something loud.

I think volume and reliability should be your key concerns in this price range. A nicer sounding amp can always be bought later if the current issue is just being heard. I'd be looking for a high power solid state/digital combo with this budget if it was my money being spent.

[paultheoneyoulove]

Used laney lc30 every day. Might even pick up an lh50 (still miss mine terribly) or lc50, though 50 valve watts is a bugger load of volume.

They have wicked tones, a versatile eq and look good, too.

Asides from that, a 30 watt hayden mofo head sold on ebay for just over 200 the other week. Peavey classic 30s are another fave, if you stick a drive box in front of the drive channel.

I'd opt for valves. When you've heard them, you'll never go back, and the current market means there are some top bargains. However, all of the hybrid and solid state amps recommended on this thread are all top amps, too.

[ICBM]

I think volume and reliability should be your key concerns in this price range.

I agree. Reliability before everything (other than safety, which can be assumed with modern amps that haven't been messed about with), then volume, then tone. You can fix tone with a pedal or two, you can't fix volume or reliability.

I'd far rather play through a loud, bombproof old solid-state amp (Roland, Yamaha, Carlsbro, Peavey and many others) that requires pedals to do a decent overdriven tone, than any great-sounding but unreliable cheap valve amp.

I'd always take analogue solid-state over digital too, all the digital amps I know of aren't as well-built in the power section as most older plain analogue designs. If you're lucky and get a good one, no problem - but if you're unlucky you have all your eggs in the same basket if it dies and you're not using pedals for your 'tone'.

[jalapeno]

Seconded on the Valvestate 8080 suggestion. I've played venues larger than that un-mic'd with mine. Tis indeed a loud beast when required.
Not the most versatile of amps TBH but does "rock" very convincingly.
Best of all you can get one off t'bay for less than £100 normally.

And No you can't buy mine

Thirded, or the not quite as robust MG100FX. Stick it on clean and dirty up with pedals. They're stupidly loud.

[StageStruck]

On the solid-state front, a Peavey Bandit - particularly the USA-made Transtube version - is very hard to beat, and sells for only around a ton too. It does both clean and hard rock/metal better than the Marshall Valvestate, but classic rock less well, if that matters.

This ^^. Fairly versatile and powerful amps for the money. Reasonably reliable too, hence they are found in rehearsal rooms up and down the country.

For a vintage workhorse, how about an old H|H amp? Still pretty cheap to pick up 2nd hand and pretty rugged, plenty powerful for gigging and will sound decent with pedals too.

[ICBM]

Thirded, or the not quite as robust MG100FX.

The first series of MG100s is OK, but I would avoid the MG100DFX like the plague - it's *extremely* unreliable, probably the worst amp I know of. They have a terrible tendency to blow power modules. I no longer accept them for repair because I can't guarantee them.

It's easy to tell them apart - if it has a cooling fan, it's one of the bad ones. In fact, that's a simple rule of thumb with all modern Marshalls - if it has a fan, it's junk. Sooner or later the fan will either become noisy (annoying) and/or fail, at which point the power module has minutes to live.

To their credit, Marshall have re-designed the MG series entirely now, and the new ones seem fine - I haven't seen a single dead one yet. They also don't have fans! Obviously they have been paying attention to their repairs department. They've also dropped the fan-equipped AVTs, probably for the same reason.

(Peavey Bandit.) Reasonably reliable too, hence they are found in rehearsal rooms up and down the country.

Better than that. They're one of the most reliable amps I know of.