Best low wattage head

[Jabberwocky]

Guys,
Thanks again for the feedback. Some interesting ideas. And for all those who asked, I am in sunny Edinburgh, Scotland, so sadly not able to take you up on your very kind offer Les Paul Lover.
As always advised on here, I will see if I can find some of the suggested amps reasonably locally and try them out.
Also, the attenuator sound like a decent idea, though I have had mixed reports about how they affect tone.

Sadly since I posted this, my R30 head has carked out. Dead in the water and nothing I can see obviously wrong with it ( plugged in, cable plug fuse ok, HT fuse ok, internal fuses all tested fine with my mutlimeter, tubes ok) so she goes into the shop on Tuesday which makes my hunt for a recording amp more urgent! Could use the Deuce but if the Rocker rattles the windows the Deuce blows them clean out.

Will let yez know what I end up with.

Cheers

[Ddjembe Mutombo]

Attenuators do affect tone. Sadly, there is no perfect solution to your problem. You are going to have to roll with the punches and pick the lesser of the evils. Amp modelers for home recording still have my best bet. Pair that up with a convolution reverb and you can make some serious album tones.

[mr_william]

i've got an old hifi power amp that features a 'loudness' switch...

i believe it adds bass and and extreme highs - designed for makeing the amp feel louder at low listening levels...

when playing at night, i've usually bumped up the bass when the volume goes down.

i suggest a clean boost in the front end set really quite low just to goose the front a bit, to get a bit more sustain and compression too.

perhaps an eq pedal set to give a bit more bottom end?

i assume ur using a vintage 30... using something much less efficient would make a difference allowing u to turn the amp up more, whilst having a lower volume.

the celestian G12m is only 96db's and has a 20 watt handling... i think i'm right in thinking, if your not cranking the amp, all of the watts aren't being used, which would make using this speaker with the rocker 30 ok (wait for clarification from a real expert though)

a few more thoughts i thought i'd throw in...

[Le Chat Noir]

FWIW some very small amps may not seem to have much low end when played in the room next to a more powerful amp, but recorded they can sound massive if EQed and mixed properly! Plenty of big, fat sounds over the years have been recorded using cranked Champs, for example.

[a.hun]

Heavy quilt draped over your rig and the mic stand. Have all that in a closet. Then the cops will have a harder time locating your gear. I cranked it. For real, I just asked girlfriend how loud it was and she said, "not very loud at all."

Fine, but just be sure enough air can get in and out the amps vents or you'll have overheating and possibly a real fire. That has happened often enough in home studios. Even small valve amps create a lot of heat which has to go somewhere.

FWIW some very small amps may not seem to have much low end when played in the room next to a more powerful amp, but recorded they can sound massive if EQed and mixed properly! Plenty of big, fat sounds over the years have been recorded using cranked Champs, for example.

Sure - totally!

You can even get pretty useful recorded sounds out of a Micro Crush with its tiny 4" speaker. Check out the four short sound samples here...
http://www.thomann.de/nl/orange_microcrush.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


Andy.