Home Practice Amp

[Norlin SG]

About any day now. Better buy another right away and send me this one to dispose of it. Don't worry about shipping, it's on me.

What a humanitarian.
After I heard that it would blow up tubes I put it out by the curb last night with a free sign on it and the garbage truck ran over it early this morning. Lucky you. Shipping will be a lot cheaper.

These days I play my 10W 1965 Gibson Skylark at home, but I keep the volume pretty low (unless I'm at home alone, then I krank it at times).

Wow That's one clean Skylark. I'll bet it sound awesome. And really Guitar>Chord> Amp is the best way to practice. All fizzy distortion does is kills the tone and hides sloppy playing. If that were a Fender, it would easily sell for twice as much. So don't tell anyone..................

 

[Gahr]

What a humanitarian.
After I heard that it would blow up tubes I put it out by the curb last night with a free sign on it and the garbage truck ran over it early this morning. Lucky you. Shipping will be a lot cheaper.


Wow That's one clean Skylark. I'll bet it sound awesome. And really Guitar>Chord> Amp is the best way to practice. All fizzy distortion does is kills the tone and hides sloppy playing. If that were a Fender, it would easily sell for twice as much. So don't tell anyone..................

The Skylark sounds really great. I bought it last year, and it was in great shape. I have had it modded a bit though. I swapped the original speaker (which was makingg some annoying noises when the amp was cranked) and had a tech change some caps and remove the Sprague resistor/capacitor network that kills bass ond adds top end (the so-called "tone sucking network") in the Skylarks. Before I had it done the top end was really piercing unless the tone controls on the guitar were turned way down. After the mods it sounds absolutely killer. The only problem about it is that it has given me real bad GAS for a GA-40...

 

[Norlin SG]

Yes, I can recommend that. I have once blown my tubes by turning the power on, at the same the stanby switch to play position and straight away hitting a chord.

Most likely, you had a tube on it's way out already. The reason Fender put a standby switch on their bigger amps was so that players could turn off the amps output between sets.

Come back from a break, take the amp out of standby and Twang/Rock on. The standby switch wasn't to protect the tubes although not having to power the amp on from cold after each break probably made the tubes last longer.

Small amps, Hi-Fi equipment and Televisions all had tubes back in the day (50's 60's) and I can't recall any of those having standby switches.

 

[cerebral gasket]

Small amps, Hi-Fi equipment and Televisions all had tubes back in the day (50's 60's) and I can't recall any of those having standby switches.

Remember when computers had tubes?

 

[Norlin SG]

Remember when computers had tubes?

No, but I was alive shortly after that time period and have read about them. Transistor and especially IC's definitely killed off tube computers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC

Circa: 1949:
"Hey Frank. What's in the moving van in front of your house and why do the lights in the neighborhood flicker and dim when you are out there? That my friend is my new bleeding edge technology personal electronic calculator. I did this months finances with it and it only took 2 weeks to program 3 days of changing tubes, 6 people and about 30 seconds of actual calculation"

And no, I wasn't around when dirt was invented either................

 

[Bob Womack]

I use two different rigs for practice:

For one I use a Line6 POD HD500X through a little Marshall JTM60 and a Leslie G37 cabinet in stereo. Yummy!

The other is a recent Fender '68 Custom Princeton Reverb with an upgrade Warehouse G10C speaker.

I love the amp's reduced negative feedback response and slightly darker sound from the regular Prince's. You can read more over HERE on my webpage.


Bob

 

[ratsalad]

Dr Z Mini Z. 5watt, with an attenuator built in that takes it down to 1watt I believe. 1 EL84 and 1 12ax7, into a Celestion Gold Alnico 10" speaker. Its a little screamer. Quiet enough for practice on 1watt, loud enough to jam with a drummer and bass player at full power. Doesn't really do clean. Kinda like a Champ on steroids.

Cheers, Scott.

I GAS'd soooo damn hard for one of those at one point... That one, and the M12! Sadly, it seems that both have now been discontinued

 

[One-Wan]

I GAS'd soooo damn hard for one of those at one point... That one, and the M12! Sadly, it seems that both have now been discontinued

Yep, apparently the profit margin wasn't good in those models. Another great little 5 watt bites the dust! I was actually trying to hunt down a BadCat Mini (also discontinued) when I stumbled across the Z.

Cheers, Scott.

 

[dexspeed]

How about an office practice amp? I picked this up for $40 to replace the Boss Katana 50 I moved back to the homestead. The Peavey Blazer 158. It even has decent reverb - pretty hard to beat at that price point

Spaceman sold separately.....

 

[Clifdawg]

How about an office practice amp? I picked this up for $40 to replace the Boss Katana 50 I moved back to the homestead. The Peavey Blazer 158. It even has decent reverb - pretty hard to beat at that price point

Had one of these for a short while... Great little practice amp. If you get the chance, crank it on it's distortion channel - it sounds really great at nearly full volume!

 

[dexspeed]

Had one of these for a short while... Great little practice amp. If you get the chance, crank it on it's distortion channel - it sounds really great at nearly full volume!

Thanks for the tip! The office is an open concept mind you, so I don't think that opportunity will present itself anytime soon. Might have to save that for a last day activity to be sure of a fond farewell. Haha.

 

[El Marin]

Yamaha THR10 is my choice

 

[LDS]

Katana 100 Head. Hands down the best sounding and most responsive practice amp I've ever used.

 

[DrBGood]

Just scored a Katana 100 combo for $181 shipped !

 

[Norlin SG]

I use two different rigs for practice:

For one I use a Line6 POD HD500X through a little Marshall JTM60 and a Leslie G37 cabinet in stereo. Yummy!

The other is a recent Fender '68 Custom Princeton Reverb with an upgrade Warehouse G10C speaker.

I love the amp's reduced negative feedback response and slightly darker sound from the regular Prince's. You can read more over HERE on my webpage.


Bob

Some delicious sound there me thinks. Crank both of those and you could practice demolishing buildings. Played clean at low volumes the PR does make for some glorious practice tones at bedroom levels.
It's amazing how much that old skin flint Leo Fender got right with the Black face amps isn't it?

I didn't know about the 68 Custom PR re-issue but I have already found the a schematic for it that I will compare to my original 65 PR schematic. It's hard to imagine the 1965 sounding any better than it does now, but you never know.

 

[Worblehat]

I had the little Blackstar, too. Bought it with my first guitar. After a couple of month I switched to a Vox VT20X, as I was looking for more sounds to experiment with, without buying a lot of pedals. I am perfectly happy with the Vox now. It sounds great at bedroom level and has everything I need (and more).

 

[Zane]

I just brought this home today. The master volumes make it versatile enough to gig with or perfectly fine as a low volume late night amp. I love it.

 

[GrumpyOldDBA]

I also am using one of the blackstar fly 3 watt mini practice amps they are inexpensive and really nice.

 

[Dave Johnson]

Marshall just released a new DSL series.
Be on the lookout for stores and online retailers discounting the old DSL series.
The DSL 5 or DSL 15 should fit the bill.
I have a DSL 15 and it's a great little amp, also has the pentode / triode switch to get the output down to
7.5 watts.

If headphone use is a requirement, used Katana 50's can be had in the $150 range.

 

[Dale]

Mesa v25