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Yesterday I hit the closest Guitar Center as well as two Mom amp; pop stores to check out some new amps. My Criteria was simply, decent marshall type tone at low volume w/ a 12quot; speaker.Playing the Firebird through these.

MG50 : I keep giving these second and third chances, but :VOMIT: . These things are an embarassment to the Marshall name. The old 80's MOSFET heads KILL the MG's. Super thin and super raspy. Tried a 100 for comparison, it was worse. NO low end at all and they have closed back cabs. Anorexic and/or anemic is a good description.

AVT50: Def better. Warmer. Decent sounds. Still a little thin. Too expensive though for what it is. The AVT50 should be the same price as the MG, and the Marshall MGs should be beaten with a very large sledgehammer at every possible opportunity.

Roland Blues Cube 60. : I was trying the classic stack setting. Fairly undigital-like but a little raspy/fuzzy on the top end. No likey.

Peavey XXL head and XXL cab: NO, not a practice amp, but it was there, and I plugged in I've played the combo XXL and liked it. This thing sounded horrid. Really horrid. I tweaked for about 5 minutes, and it was all I could take. Thin nasal, raspy, buzz. VERY solid state sounding, no matter which channel. I certainly hope there was something wrong with it.

contd

Part 2:

Peavey Envoy 110: This was sitting next to the XXL. I generally hate 10quot; speakers, but wanted to see how much poorer this sounded next to the XXL. HA! THis little sucker was the best of the bunch I'd tried so far! Great low end for a 1x10 (open back no less), and was def more tube like and warmer than the previous amps save the AVT. Not too much rasp. Both the Vintage and modern modes sounded good. Cleans were...ehh..solid state but useable. Little SOB surprised me. With some reverb I was getting a great quot;Stadium rockquot; tone.

Behringer VTONE 2x12: tough to beat for the $. Alot of tones. Basically a Sansamp copy (analog). Not quite as nice, but close. All 3 modes (fender/marshall/mesa) yield good tones. You can choose between 3 modes of gain for each amp, and 3 diff cab styles as well.Effects are digital and are meh. It's built a little flimsy. Even though it's 100 watts, it's basically for fairly low volume. It sounds crappy when ya crank it.

Finally out of desperation I plugged into:

Line 6 Spider II 30 watt (12quot; speaker): I've got no problem admitting that I absolutely abhor the 15 watt version of this amp. I had one...for about 3 days...The Marshall tone was awful. The MESA tone was a buzzy mess. The cleans were sterile..the effects were the best part. Sure its a practice amp, but...blech. Well, the 12quot; speaker does wonders for this amp. I turned to the crunch channel, set the bass at 1 oclock, mids and treble at 2 oclock, cranked the channel volume, set the preamp volume at about 3 oclock, and KERRRANG.....Very nice Marshall tone. Nicest yet. Smoothest, warmest. No rasp. Perfect? of course not...but for $199??? I was very surprised to hear how well it compared to my XTL , cos I honestly had little hope for it based on the 15 watter. By far I grooved on this amp the best. The MESA channel still sounds horrid as the does the useless quot;insanequot; channel. Clean channel is decent. Again for $199, it's hard to beat. I didn't buy it, but I'm def considering it. It gives me the one tone I absolutely have to have at a decent volume level.

HOWEVER: The best tone I heard all day was in the Guitar Center. Fellow in there plugged into..now get this: A B-52 solid state head which was running into a Marshall 4x12, and he was playing a used Epi Zakk Wylde Les Paul laying there. The dude had great chops! That helped of course, but that B52 sounded FANTASTIC. It had a litle bit of rasp on top, but it was fat, chunky, modded marshall sound. Sure a Bogner would sound better...but I was amazed at the great tone that $299 head put out. Maybe I would have hated it sitting in front of it playing it myself, but being an observer I thought it had a fantastic sound for the price. That ZW Epi had some serious sustain too.

Another guy was playing through a cranked VOX custom classic head (that new chinese one), through some kind of 4x12 and he was getting some killer tones too. Sweet amp!

So, the quest for a good practice amp continues

I have a Roland Cube 30 and it has some good tones. The Metal Stack (Peavey 5150?) model with the gain low gives a fuller less buzzy distorted tone than the Classic Stack (Marshall) model. The clean and cleanish models are excellent. The digital FX are a little sterile but usable - the phaser, reverb and delay are all good. Don't like the chorus or flanger.

Side by side my Trademark 60 sounds a lot better than the Roland. It's warmer, more tube-like and just has a bigger fuller tone. The Cube 30 has a 10quot; speaker, which may partly account for that.

The Cube 30 has an auxiliary input for a CD player, drum machine etc, which in my case means it tends to get more use than the TM60 for late night headphone practice/songwriting. Actually, I think the Cube 30 sounds better through headphones than the TM60. The TM60's XLR output is noticably different (better!) than its headphone output.

However, if the TM60 had an aux input I would probably sell the Cube.

I A/Bd the Spider with the TM60 when I was looking for an amp.

The TM60 slayed it in every way, shape amp; form

Hey Jeff, I did a search of dealers on the TECH21 site...no get listed if you click on CT., but there are a bunch in NY

Here's one that looked like it might be CT:

Crazy Horse Music
Norwich
607-336-4329How far from NYC are you?

from : localhost/those

I've been on the search for a great 1x12 practice amp myself, but just recently, I think I found what I have been looking for.

After making many uses of Guitar Center's thirty day return policy, I finally took a PODxt home to try out. I didn't like it as much at first, but I've had it for a few weeks and I'm really starting to figure it out. I know you're set on the 1x12, but consider a PODxt. You can't beat its versatility or most importantly, its tone, for the price. Don't try one out in the store, bring one home for a week and give it dedicate some serious time.

I've been running it both through headphones and through the clean channel on my Marshall AVT150, and it sound awesome either way. It's as close to a 'real' amplifier sound that you'll get for something you can carry with three fingers and for under $300.

1 on the podxt, I heard my friend's pod 2.0 last night and it sound pretty good compared to all ss combos I have heard. The pod 2.0 is $200 or you could get the podxt for $300.

I actually have a POD XT live. However I run that into a expensive boutique amp that is up for sale.

Also there is something wrong with it and it's going back for service/exchange what have you.Puckboy, CT is a weeny-size state ...Norwich is only about 2 hours (but *is* all the way on the other side of the state, I'm on the NY border). I'm from VA which is a pretty good size state and I just hafta laugh at the CT locals when they complain how far away things are here.

Thanks for the info!

No problem Brutha !!

Actually, a POD XTL thru a TECH21 Power Engine would be bada$$,
But the TM60 still has a quot;Tube-likequot; quality to it amp; would really enhance your POD.


Originally Posted by PUCKBOY99But the TM60 still has a quot;Tube-likequot; quality to it amp; would really enhance your POD.

Keep at it bro. We're reeling him in.

Get a Reverend Goblin while you still can!


Originally Posted by Simon_FKeep at it bro. We're reeling him in. And the TM60 will make you run faster amp; jump higher......................

Mine's improved my sex life and helped me lose weight

you guys are killing me...i could by a trademark 10 and say it's for my daughter!

Well if the damn thing will grow hair (*where I want it*)...SOLD


Originally Posted by PUCKBOY99No problem Brutha !!

Actually, a POD XTL thru a TECH21 Power Engine would be bada$$,
But the TM60 still has a quot;Tube-likequot; quality to it amp; would really enhance your POD.

When I heard one, It out performed many of the lowerend tubeamps, BIG time.That idea there kicks ass and stuff but how about a pod XT Atomic reactor?
Its the last amp you'll ever need!

Never played the quot;A-Bombquot;, but they seem cool too...18w vs. 60w though?

I've got a 20watter that's loud as hell, so if that's all you need, go for it

Even a TM10 with a POD XTL or a TECH21 TriAC would be cool.

I'm pretty happy with a Vox AD60 head on top of the Bogner large 2-12 w/vin 30's.
The Bogner gives it that Marshall 'thonk' and I don't care what any of the controls on the rotary dial say, I just turn the knobs till the amp gives me what I'm looking for.
For example, you can get some of the best tones on the tweed, Vox, Blackface, and Mesa settings, then finish off the sound by finding the right OD model.

The variable wattage selector, tuner, and recording out has me spoiled. It's the best home practice setup I've owned.

Crate V58, 5 watt tube combo with an 8inch speaker. Its not versitile but just crank it and it sounds pretty good. It had a gain control but it has very little clean headroom but its a lot of fun. But thats just a suggestion because I am a tube fanatic, I don't know if it gets good marshall crunch or not because I only tried it on moderate settings. Also the one I tried had had the tubes replaced with better ones so I can't really draw conclutions.

Fender Champ
Electar Tube 10
AX84 P1, P1X or HiOctane with an octal power tube socket

The Champ, Electar, and P1 all have about the same circuit. They will get you a bit of crunch but you'll need a pedal to really get some gain. I was surprised at how much gain the Tube 10 had. The HiOctane uses a front end similar to the Marshall 2203/2204 with more gain.

One cool thing about Roland, at least the Cube 30 and 60 is that they have on board effects which may be desirable if you don't yet have an effects setup. CoachC