AmpTalk.com

[Lido]

I haven't played guitar in a few years and wanted to get back into it. I gave my neighbor my old Peavey Decade and I'm happy to get a new amp instead of trying to get that back from him. I went to the store and looked at the Crate VTX30B 30 watt amp. It looked good and had a lot of decent features. The distortion wasn't blazing, but it sounded good enough. There was also the Vox Valvetronix AD30VT which is also 30 watts with a 10" speaker and similar features to the Crate, but costs about $50 more. I'm sure Marshall and everyone else makes something similar as well. Does anyone have some objective or subjective info they could pass along about what's the better sounding, lasting, working amp in this class? Thanks.

[where?wolf]

Hi!

Well, a couple of months ago, I whas also looking at a practice amp. So I did spend quite some time in the various guitar shops and reading combo reviews at the net.


I looked at Crate, Fender, Orange Crush, Roland cubes and Vox AD..VT combo's and some others.

And ended up with the Vox AD 15 VT. And I never have had any reason to regret that I bought it. On the contrary, I love this little bugger! It sounds like the 8" speaker actually whas a 10" speaker at least. Have a very nice and warm sound to it + very versatile. And those 15 W can blow you out of your soxx.

If you are just going to use the combo at home? Then the AD 15 VT, should be more than enough for you.

The only small gripes I have, is that it lacks the ability to set the wattage as on the AD 30 VT for ex. And I would loved to have the Vox classic front or the front of the XL model instead. But you can't have it all for such a nice price.

But if you play Metal a lot? Look at the Vox AD 15 or 30 VT-XL instead.

But for me, the AD 15VT is perfect. I play mostly stuff like Dire Straits, Deep Purple, Led Zepp, Queen, Van Halen and such. And then the distortion is more than enough.

I doubt you will find a better practice amp than the AD..VT actually.

Go to a guitar shop that have Vox stocked and try it out. Preferably with your own axe.

Btw, I recently bought the Vox micro, headphone amp "Amplug". That you plug right into your guitar. Runs on 2 X AA batteys. And have gain, tone and volume. + that you can plug in an MP3 player or a Walkman cd player for jamming with your favourite bands. Very cheap and sound surpricingly good. I bought the AC 30 version. Going to get the "Classic" too. There is a third version called "Metal" too.

This way, I can go practically anywhere in my apartment, without having to drag a long guitar cord around or moving the combo. And play late at night, witout having the land lord knocking at my door the next day lol.

A good complement to a combo I must say.

[Creamsnwhey]

For what it's worth: if the sound quality doesn't matter...I mean, if you're just wanting to hear your git amplified and don't want to spend much, then your Crate should be fine.

The Roland microCube is fine, too. The cheapest of the cheap, the Behringer practice amp rattles with bad-constrruction distortion, so I'd steer clear of that.

I own an Orange Crush 10 practice amp, which is very cool looking (allows for bragging rights) and soumds, well, awesome. I think it has a cool tone, amplifies acoustics beautifully, and put a mike in front of it, and you can record what I find to be amazing tone.

The Vox Brian May practice amp is sick, too, sounding driven and creamy and cool, plus it can be used as an extra channel into a larger amp, or, better than the Orange Crush, can be fed to a recording with great results. It's blonde colored and allows for bragging rights, and will serve as a Vox Top Boost pedal when you upgrade.

This assumes you don't want a bunch of effects, which could be served by the valvetronix 15watter, or the line 6 practice amps (see my gripe about the behringer for my view on the line 6).

My two cents.