Clean Head

[Alex Sheeny]

well, idk if it's a tough question, but i'm looking for a clean, simple tube amp head to match with fuzzes and my orange 212 cabinet. is that even exist without being "65 amps expensive"? thanks!

[Thinline_slim]

I don't know what all is available to you down there but there are a lot of options out there in head form and you can always convert a combo to a head (That's what I did!).

I personally like Vox-ish amps as pedal platforms. The Genz Benz Black Pearl 30 is a great amp, that sits in the Vox camp, and they are just stupid cheap used. I've seen 1x12 combos go for $600-800 and I think I saw a head on ebay that went between $500-600. Whole lot of amp at that price.

Fender Supersonics do have some nice cleans. If you need a lot of headroom you could shoot for a Fender Twin Reverb and build a head cab for it. The only flip side is the impedance on your Orange cab but you can get a mono/stereo jack plate to fix that. It will allow a mono 16ohm and a mono 4ohm.

Actually with the mono/stereo it will open up a lot of options.

[baytamusic]

The Fender Bandmaster heads go super cheap usually, even a blackface. Or a Dual Showman (Twin reverb head) sans reverb, although there was one model with reverb, TFL 5000 I think.

[Alex Sheeny]

yeah, i've been looking for some supersonic heads, they actually can handle a 16omhs impedance cabinet. but i don't know if they're too loud / powered for what i'm looking for. the supersonic heads are 60w, loud as hell. i was looking more for a 20w max. however the combo i sweet. the problem is that i always buy it through ebay. if i was to buy it here i was gonna pay more than 3 times the actual dollar price. my main rig is gonna be a rockerverb. i just want the clean amp to play a little. i'm not into vox'ish sounds however. but thanks for the tips!

[a.hun]

Try looking out for old PA amps. They can work a treat for guitar. (I have a 10 watter which sounds amazing, clean or driven, and only cost me 25 Pounds!)

Do you have a good amp tech there to check out old amps? They might even be able to point you to something local.

Historically there were plenty very clean amps made, and not just Fenders. But how many you'll find around your part of the world I don't know.

Does it HAVE to be a valve amp? After all cleans are one thing which good solid state amps can do very well indeed. Just a thought...


Andy.

[Jondog]

Does it have to be a tube amp?

[iblastoff]

find a vintage traynor for cheap. i have a traynor yba-1 which is essentially a fender bassman clone. i bought it precisely because i wanted something that would sound good with fuzz which none of my several orange heads will do. the yba-1a has even more headroom.

you can also find traynor equivalents of the twin reverb and etc for way cheaper. all handwired and built like a tank.

i also have a vox ac30 but its limited to only the normal channel which has no eq. dirt pedals through the top boost channel = not good.

[Randy Bass]

Oh, sorry. I thought this thread was going to be about something else entirely.

I'll bet you can get your hands on a Silverface Bassman without much effort. They stay reasonably clean at gig volumes, with perhaps a little power tube breakup going on.

There are plenty of solid-state options that sound better than you might expect as well. It doesn't get much cheaper than a Crate PowerBlock for a pedal platform.

[jason41224]

yeah, i've been looking for some supersonic heads, they actually can handle a 16omhs impedance cabinet. but i don't know if they're too loud / powered for what i'm looking for. the supersonic heads are 60w, loud as hell. i was looking more for a 20w max. however the combo i sweet. the problem is that i always buy it through ebay. if i was to buy it here i was gonna pay more than 3 times the actual dollar price. my main rig is gonna be a rockerverb. i just want the clean amp to play a little. i'm not into vox'ish sounds however. but thanks for the tips!

i'd stay clear of the supersonics. there's just something about them that sounds sorta fake. you could do better with a silverface head.

if you're looking for 20w max, why don't you grab something like an AC15 or a DRRi?

[digiTED]

Don't forget the EF86 Dr. Z stuff like the Route 66 and KT-45. They are monsters with pedals and have rich, high headroom cleans (the KT with its EL34s has more headroom than the KT66s of the Route 66, but its damn loud clean too).

[Alex Sheeny]

I get the solid state amp thing. I'm just not shure if i'm willing to invest money on some pedals to play with a SS. I mean, I cited some amps to be loud, but they're actually deafening (like some fenders) and that's a thing I would not want to, but i also don't want to play only at tv volumes (not saying that solidstates can't go any louder than this), i'm looking for a low wattage at reasonable price. the thing is that I just stumbled upon extremely expensive amps like dr. z's, 65 amps and the fender heads (which mostly has a high wattage). but anyway, thanks for the responses. i'll check every suggestion made here!

[nerd]

Maybe buy a ceriatone clone of a matchless, could also be a jtm45.

[digiTED]

Have you checked out Egnater? Great tone for the cash. The Tweaker 40 and Renegade (65W) both make huge Fender-y cleans and take pedals very well. Awesome bang for buck.

[Neiloler]

Build/buy a Princeton Reverb or Deluxe Reverb head.

[d1dsj]

If you want it for low volume why not just dime the master on your TT and bring the gain up to suit? I do that with mine if I want to use pedals and it's loud enough to gig with a reasonable clean.