Tube amps for the bedroom?

EJD

EJD

Registered Muser
Yeah, I made this sort of thread on HC before the switch, but finding it is gonna be hell :embarrassed:

Anyway. Looking for a nice amp, something suitable for the bedroom (which is the smallest room in the house :embarrassed:), preferably tube.

It's got to be pretty versatile. I'd like everything from sweet cleans/overdriven (Dire Straits, SRV, etc) to high gain stuff. I'd prefer tube, because I've never owned a tuber before. I'd love to experience tube dynamics, plus the natural distortion and crunch that comes with cranking the volume when the parents aren't home :grin:

So any recommendations would be great. Something small, tube, not too pricey. Cheers :helper:
 
the problem here is that you want two things that don't go well together. high gain and low volume. my bedroom rig is a silverface vibro champ with dirt pedals. but i spend most of my time playing clean or acoustic. because if you're truly at bedroom levels, distortion is going to carry and disturb whoever else is in the house.
 
I'm almost certainly going to buy one of these, 4watts switchable to a quarter watt, all tube, and very controllable from my guitars volume pot when I tried one..about £180 over here.

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I won this on eBay recently:

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It's a Blackheart Killer Ant. It has no master volume, but it's basically a 1/2 watt amp as it is. It's headroom is pretty low (in other words, it gets dirty sounding pretty easily), but it'll still run pretty clean if you set the volume right on the amp, or your guitar. It doesn't do mega grind, but I think that with a clean boost, or a dirt pedal, it'll have plenty of grind. As was mentioned, there really isn't much out there in the way of high gain, super low wattage amps. Another suggestion, is the Gilmore Jr. amp kit. it does about 1/4 or 1/2 watt out, and with the higher gain option, can do OK Marshall sounds.
 
It really sounds like a THD Hot Plate is what you need, EJD. Get a good amp, plug the hot plate into the mix, and you should be good to go. In my experience, pretty much all tube amps I've tried, no matter how low the wattage, all are way too loud for home practice. Get a hot plate.

With that said, I do have a recommendation of something that comes close; Orange Tiny Terror. It's inexpensive, able to play surprisingly low for 15 watts, is rigged with four tubes total, and is all around a delight to play, IMO. I'm thinking of saving up for one myself. However, is it quiet enough for the bedroom? I'd say no.
 
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Do you need it to be low, low volume to not disturb anyone or just because it is a small room? I use my Peavey Classic 30 at home and love it. It sounds decent at reasonable volumes and great turned up. I turn it up when no one is home or I am in the mood to annoy.

It does clean good enough for me and crunches up as much as I would want to.
 
Depending on your budget...Fender VCXD or SCXD.

I have the SCXD, and it is the PERFECT home amp for me (incoming Blackheart 5W notwithstanding :rolleyes:) - even though it goes through a DSP stage on both channels, it sounds natural and organic on the clean channel, and even on the voicing channel does not sound horribly processed. You can get great OD tones at low volumes, too :thu:
 
The Fender Super/Vibro champs look ace. Will definitely consider :grin:

And, I don't think a computer interface would be the best thing. The family computer is in the living room, and I have no computer in my room. I'm only on here for a limited time each day, so it would be pretty bad.

I'll consider the Fenders though. They look ace. Cheers :grin:
 
I'm gassing for one of these, seems like it would fit the bill for you.

 
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I ONLY have bedroom amps. A 15W and a 20W and my 15W is my main amp at the moment. A Marshall MG15DFX, sounds great at 1/4 max volume and at 9/10s full volume. I find that my marshall is definitely suited to being a low-volume bedroom amp. My 20W is the cab extension from the CD out on my MG. Also, sounds really good through headphones.
 
TurmericNewton said:
I ONLY have bedroom amps. A 15W and a 20W and my 15W is my main amp at the moment. A Marshall MG15DFX, sounds great at 1/4 max volume and at 9/10s full volume. I find that my marshall is definitely suited to being a low-volume bedroom amp. My 20W is the cab extension from the CD out on my MG. Also, sounds really good through headphones.
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just to throw this thread completely on it's side, last saturday one of my students brought her amp in to learn how to use it. she's got an Epi Special II and a Marshall MG4. and i gotta say, for a $250 rig, it played and sounded really good. it's no tube amp, but it was miles above the Quantum 20 amp i had in 1992.
 
PRScott said:
Depending on your budget...Fender VCXD or SCXD.

I have the SCXD, and it is the PERFECT home amp for me (incoming Blackheart 5W notwithstanding :rolleyes:) - even though it goes through a DSP stage on both channels, it sounds natural and organic on the clean channel, and even on the voicing channel does not sound horribly processed. You can get great OD tones at low volumes, too :thu:
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+1 on the Fender SCXD... Especially if you drive an external 12 inch speaker...
 
Help!I'maRock! said:
i get a lot of hell for this, especially since i play tube amps, but i don't think they're necessary. don't buy into the hype and just do what you can to get your sound. a tube is just a diode.
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Not necessarily. A little primer: Tube means hollowstate (as in a vacuum contained in a metal, glass, or ceramic envelope). Some tubes are diodes, but for amplification purposes, they are either triodes (not used that often anymore), tetrodes, pentodes, or (kind of rare) heptodes. With 3, 4, 5, or 6 metal electrode-type elements in the tube's vacuum envelope (diodes only have 2 elements).

By comparison, bipolar transistors have 3 elements (base, emitter, collector), and FETs also have (slightly differnt than bipolar) elements (source, drain, gate). IMO, there are good sounding tube amps, and crappy sounding tube amps, just as there are good sounding solid state amps, and crappy sounding solid state amps. I buy amps because they sound good. Whether they're tube or solid state, is irrelevant to me.
 
I was looking for a small practice amp recently and the Super Champ XD was definitely a direction I was leaning. Decided in the 11th hour to go w/ a computer interface & modeling combo though.
 
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