What is the worst amp you’ve ever played?

Nerine · September 2023

Actually, I’ll add the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I’be never heard one sound good. All variants. Really dislike them.

Stevepage · September 2023

Pretty sure it was this

Most uninspired POS amp I ever heard. I can usually get at least 1 usable tone out of an amp but not this one.

nero1701 · September 2023

Kustom amps....all of them

uncledick · September 2023

Latterly - the much hyped Katana, and in my youth , a Selmer TnB 50 that came with a Goodmans 1x12 cab and sounded flat and mushy on every setting.

ICBM · September 2023

Nerine said:

Actually, I’ll add the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I’be never heard one sound good. All variants. Really dislike them.

Out of interest, which amps do you like? I’ve always found Hotrods quite decent, including the much-maligned Drive channel.

I do dislike the earlier versions - up to Mk3 - of the Blues Junior though. Not just because they don’t sound great, but also because they’re quite poorly made.

Stevepage said:

Most uninspired POS amp I ever heard. I can usually get at least 1 usable tone out of an amp but not this one.

I found the clean and rhythm channels on those not too bad... the solo not so much. (But then I rarely like the 'solo' mode on any amp other than a Mark series Boogie with the graphic EQ set to the deep V shape.)

nero1701 said:

Kustom amps....all of them

I've always found them really good at whatever price point they are - even the very cheap ones outperform most of their competition.

26.2 · September 2023

I had an HRD mk ii that sounded good when it was working. It had the burned out resistor problem that they all did, but even after that was fixed it would switch channels of its own accord, so it was completely unusable. Good sounding amps on the clean channel though - maybe a bit ‘hard’ , but good with pedals.

JCA2550 · September 2023

Fender HRD I had and gigged for a year or so. Sounded okay at home but just vanished in a live setting.
Micro terror awful base tone even with a valve change.
Biggest disappointment was the Blackstar HT60 Stage. Bought one after a glowing review in Guitarist. Loud, honky and lifeless. I spent a fortune on casters, slip cover valve and speaker changes. Sold it at a massive loss just to get rid of it.

Yorkie · September 2023

JCA2550 said:

Blackstar HT60 Stage. Bought one after a glowing review in Guitarist.

That’s one thing I have learned the hard way. I think reviews provide, at best, only half of the picture. They’re good for learning about features, but leave so many other factors unexplored, particularly those that would need much more time and use evaluate. And then there’s the differences between manufacturers, with some appearing to provide kit for free (e.g. Blackstar) in exchange for a review.

Jon

Danny1969 · September 2023

i would have loved some of the ampos mentioned in this thread because at least they were intended for guitar. First amp I owned was a tape recorder amp. It had a 5 pin Din input so I had to hack a lead together to plumb the guitar into it ... sounded terrible
Next amp was a Piano Mate amp. This device was kind of a mechanical midi attachment for a piano. In the back of the amp was a long piece which sat on top of 2 octaves of piano keys. When you pressed the piano key under it it allowed a switch to drop and the device played a note with you. You could select strings or organ I think. Very clever but again not a great amp sound for guitar.

Image: https://www.preservationsound.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/PianoMate_Main-e1285676164760.jpg

Then there was a string of hi fi amps ... ever played a guitar straight into a hi fi .. it's about the most bland uninspiring sound there is.

The only truly awful amp I've ever heard is the little Orange thing, the terror or tiny terror thing. I was at a gig when my HT5 seemed to have died and I had this little Orange head in the van because my mate had lent it to me to try. I plugged it in, played a few chords ... christ, I'm not that fussy about tone but that thing sounded horrendous so turned it off and hooked the HT5 up again. After a while it spluttered into sound, half a valve heater had died but after a while the whole valve is hot enough to make that an issue I'm guessing because it went on to do another hundred gigs or so and is still like that know, I've never changed it.

slacker · September 2023

ICBM said:

Nerine said:

Actually, I’ll add the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I’be never heard one sound good. All variants. Really dislike them.

Out of interest, which amps do you like? I’ve always found Hotrods quite decent, including the much-maligned Drive channel.

I do dislike the earlier versions - up to Mk3 - of the Blues Junior though. Not just because they don’t sound great, but also because they’re quite poorly made.

Stevepage said:

Most uninspired POS amp I ever heard. I can usually get at least 1 usable tone out of an amp but not this one.

I found the clean and rhythm channels on those not too bad... the solo not so much. (But then I rarely like the 'solo' mode on any amp other than a Mark series Boogie with the graphic EQ set to the deep V shape.)

nero1701 said:

Kustom amps....all of them

I've always found them really good at whatever price point they are - even the very cheap ones outperform most of their competition.

I know the question wasn't aimed at me but as starter of the anti hrd league...

I own an early bad cat black cat, matchless lightning and Morgan dag which is sort of an ac15. I've owned an ac15 and an ac4 so it's pretty obvious where I'm happy.

I played a jump combo at a fretboard jam and loved it. I've also played a twin amp rig with a blackface super for cleans and a plexi for dirt. Loved that. I played a 90s twin with an archtop for a funeral great amp not so great circumstances.

I did a rehearsals with a DSL and jtm 60 loved them. I always liked the jc120. Years ago I borrowed a Yamaha combo that was good.

There's two types of amps. Those I like and those I don't.

Sassafras · September 2023

Image: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/NGIAAOSwBMhfiZz3/s-l640.jpg

ICBM · September 2023

Sassafras said:

[Crate Powerblock]

Damn... I'd almost managed to blank that out of my memory.

This also belongs in the 'most unreliable amp' thread - I've seen three of them so far, two dead. After hearing the third one I would have preferred it dead.

Like the Micro Terror, it has a really nasty grating, fatiguing 'tone' that's like sticking something sharp in your ears.

TimmyO · September 2023

Fender Champ 12 (red knob series)

Keefy · September 2023

TimmyO said:

Fender Champ 12 (red knob series)

The red knob amps get (1) a lot of stick, (2) some revisionist love. So tell us more Tim…

ICBM · September 2023

Keefy said:

The red knob amps get (1) a lot of stick, (2) some revisionist love. So tell us more Tim…

The clean channel isn't too bad - although like all the red-knob series there isn't a lot of 'valveness' to the sound, it's almost more like a high-quality solid-state sound - but the overdrive channel is an awful hornets nest of a sound... to start with there's far too much gain, if 4 was where 10 is it wouldn't be quite as bad. The reverb is odd too - in order to save the cost of driving it with a valve and a transformer, the tank is fed from the speaker output so it can get very weird when the power stage is overdriven.

That said there's a first-year snakeskin vinyl one in the shop I used to work for... it's actually very cool in a revisionist hair-metal type of way

.

https://strungoutguitars.com/shop/fender-champ-12-snakeskin-made-in-usa-1990s/

(Don't know why the link says 1990s, it's definitely an 80s amp,)

Nerine · September 2023

ICBM said:

Nerine said:

Actually, I’ll add the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. I’be never heard one sound good. All variants. Really dislike them.

Out of interest, which amps do you like? I’ve always found Hotrods quite decent, including the much-maligned Drive channel.

I do dislike the earlier versions - up to Mk3 - of the Blues Junior though. Not just because they don’t sound great, but also because they’re quite poorly made.

I like:

JCM 800’s (2203) OG and reissue.
JTM 45’s
Deluxe Reverbs
Dual Rectifiers

Loads of other stuff too, but generally in the above wheelhouse.

Love Soldano, Two Rock, Diezel, Friedman etc.

jca74 · September 2023

Image: https://images.reverb.com/image/upload/s--cruklS5t--/f_auto,t_large/v1677319746/tfzwfyu7j6bxto1grpm2.jpg

I envied those with Gorilla amps...

Sassafras · September 2023

I had a Champ 12 with an upgraded speaker (can't remember which) and it was pretty decent for cleans.
Certainly better than a Micro Terror and the others that have been mentioned.

gubble · September 2023

6 pages in and nobody has mentioned the Marshall MA50?

Ok the clean sound was ok and could possibly be a useable pedal platform - but that's not why we buy a Marshall.......

Drive sounds are utterly awful and it's reliability issues didn't help either. the marshall fridge probably sounds better.

ICBM · September 2023

gubble said:

6 pages in and nobody has mentioned the Marshall MA50?

I think I thought the Haze was worse… but I’ve lost track, they just released an endless succession of shit around that time.

Thankfully they then canned the lot and went to just the JVMs and the new DSLs.

Stevepage · September 2023

NicoAdie said:

Marshall AVT100 without a shadow of a doubt. Wee practice amps get a pass from me because they’re basically always going to sound shit, but at least they have the decency to do so in occasionally interesting ways. The AVT100 however, horrible shrill cleans, horrible fizzy distortion channel, couldn’t take a pedal to save its life.

The AVT50h was my first “proper” amp, or so I thought. Got a couple of years out of it before I part exchanged it for a JCM900 2100 and realised just how bad the AVT was. Both my AVT50 and a friends AVT150 caught fire, so that should tell you everything about those.

NelsonP · September 2023

An observation about this thread. The amps that are shit also look shit. That's all.

JamesSGBrown · September 2023

Marshal MG100FX- ubiquitous in rehearsal rooms for some time. Just a super harsh, unpleasing sound that forced you to turn the treble down to muddying levels to stop your ears from bleeding.
My bandmate has a Marshall Mosfet Lead 100 that can sound alright when blended, for some cutting top-end, but on its own my Lord it sounds atrocious. Like a chainsaw to the cranium.
Honourable mention to the distortion channel of any Roland JC amp also. Horrid.

Secret_Sam · September 2023

Any views on the rack mountable Marshalls? 9000 series or something like that. You bought the preamp and the power amp separately.

ICBM · September 2023

JamesSGBrown said:

Marshal MG100FX- ubiquitous in rehearsal rooms for some time. Just a super harsh, unpleasing sound that forced you to turn the treble down to muddying levels to stop your ears from bleeding.
My bandmate has a Marshall Mosfet Lead 100 that can sound alright when blended, for some cutting top-end, but on its own my Lord it sounds atrocious.

I suspect the speakers with those aren’t ideal - they’re actually capable of sounding very good, the Mosfet Lead 100 especially, but the MG100 surprisingly so too… if the MG100DFX has a more serious fault it’s their unreliability.

Secret_Sam said:

Any views on the rack mountable Marshalls? 9000 series or something like that. You bought the preamp and the power amp separately.

Excellent. Iron Maiden based their live rigs around them for a start…

Howdy, Stranger!

Categories

In this Discussion

Become a Subscriber!

What is the worst amp you’ve ever played?

Comments