Guitar amps

I'll just throw in a mention for the orange tiny range. I downscaled when young master ebilpirate arrived, (which explains where I have been for the last six years, if anyone remembers me...), Selling a Mesa MkV, a Burman 502 and replacing them with a den friendly EPi Valve Jr. The Epi was awful... I picked up a Orange Micro Dark a few months ago and it sounds as good as the big boys I sold.
The Epi is another great choice. Safe to say the Micro Dark Terror is a corker if a dirty tube amp.
 
Blackstar make some very nice amps, I am the proud owner of a Series 1 45, which unsurprisingly is a 45watt 2x12 combo running EL34's in the power stage. It has some very cool features that enable you to dial in any tone you could possibly need by way of the ISF. It also has a knob with which you can dial down the power from 45w down to 4.5w and anywhere in between.

I honestly couldn't think of a better suited combo for my purposes, and the only thing I would personally change about it is to have a spring reverb built in, but I use a TC Hall of Fame for my 'verb on my pedal board.

Or as a dark horse, consider the Boss Katana. Granted it is entirely solid state BUT, and it is a big but, it's an incredible amp for very little money that can hold its own tonally with any valve amp you put it against. It does the thick and creamy cleans of a Fender Twin, and does the utter filth of a Mesa Triple Rectifier. Start messing with the Tone Studio software when you have it hooked up to a computer, and there is not a tone you cannot get from it. Available in 50w, 100w 1x12, 100w 2x12. All have power scaling too. I own the 1x12 100w and it goes from 100w to 50w to 0.5w and is very usable.
 
I do miss the visceral sensation of playing at gig volume through a big valve amp, where you can feel as well as hear what you're playing. Over the years I've owned or played through various 2x12 combos and the obligatory Marshall 4x12 half stack. That low end thump is glorious.

I've not owned a big valve amp for years, having ceased gigging or jamming with bands some time ago. Over the past 15 years of home-only playing I've owned countless small combos - valve, solid state and modelling amps. Some were disappointing while others were surprisingly good (Vox Pathfinder 15 - rich chiming cleans I would never have imagined from a solid state combo with 8" speaker).

Or as a dark horse, consider the Boss Katana.

As much as the purist in me loves traditional valve amps, if I were considering another amp for home use now, I'd be looking at a solid state option. The Boss Katana sounds well worth a listen.
 
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I do miss the visceral sensation of playing at gig volume through a big valve amp, where you can feel as well as hear what you're playing. Over the years I've owned or played through various 2x12 combos and the obligatory Marshall 4x12 half stack. That low end thump is glorious.

I've not owned a big valve amp for years, having ceased gigging or jamming with bands some time ago. Over the past 15 years of home-only playing I've owned countless small combos - valve, solid state and modelling amps. Some were disappointing while others were surprisingly good.

As much as the purist in me loves traditional valve amps, if I were considering another amp for home use now, I'd be looking at a solid state option. The Boss Katana sounds well worth a listen.

I've been thinking of going down the solid state route as as much as I love using valve amps but I've found a few user gripes along the way. The volume issue is one, all valve amps I've found seem to need to be turned up a bit when they start sounding 'alive' which isn't to say they aren't functional at lower volumes but for bedroom playing only using my current valve amp of choice (Fender Blues Deluxe) seems a bit overpowering for my needs. My second gripe are the price of valves and the variability of them be it consistency/tonal variation. For the latter point I found for another amp (Ibanez TSA5), I found the brand of valve really makes a difference as does the lifespan of the valve itself.

Both of these are gripes I can live with for the time being but for my next amp purchase I am considering a solid state amp, which at this moment in time I'm looking towards Quilter as their options seem small, light and have pretty much what I am looking for.
 
A Telecaster and a Katana is a good combination ;) My Katana and Graham Coxon signature Telecaster.

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