Best sounding SS amp you all have encountered?

[Enzo]

Hi, Royt, welcome. Um... once is enough for a post.

I hate to tell you, but Albert Kreuzer passed away some time ago.


Your caps are a non-standard value. 4700uf at 63v would be a close standard value.

[g1]

There is a service manual available here:
http://bmamps.com/Schematics/Road/ro...ice_manual.zip

[roytbass]

road 220

Hi, Royt, welcome. Um... once is enough for a post.

I hate to tell you, but Albert Kreuzer passed away some time ago.


Your caps are a non-standard value. 4700uf at 63v would be a close standard value.

Sorry about the duplicate posts....tried to delete but without effect...thanks for your reply

[Pdavis68]

I had a Fender Princeton Chorus for years that I loved. It had about the sweetest chorus I'd ever heard. Weighed a ton too. Unfortunately living in a humid basement for several years did it in...

[Steve A.]

I forget what I might have nominated before but I just got a Roland Blues Cube Artist and it even blows away many tube amps that I have known and loved. One big plus: without the huge transformers in tube amps it is fairly quiet even with single coil pickups.

It retails for $899 and you can order 9 pin "tube capsules" which will revoice the amp, which stock resembles the 5F6A tweed bassman. Two generic ones to make the amp more like a BF/SF or Vox AC retail for $199; the two custom designed for Robben Ford and Eric Johnson are $299. You can also order the GA-FC foot controller for $99 which will take one or two expression pedals to control input or master volume. And there are 4 power levels - 0.5W, 15W, 45W & 80W.

I had first looked at the digital modelling Boss Katana 50 for $199, was going to upgrade that to the Katana 100 for $359 but saw that a local GC store had a used BC Artist for $625 and after checking out the reviews and YouTube videos I jumped on it. I figured that if I didn't like I had 45 days to return it for a full refund. I paid for it with GC Gift Cards that I got by returning items I had bought with 36 & 48 month financing which is better than car loan.

Reviews and videos to follow (I will add them to this post.)

Steve A.

[Tqi]

To give a list:

Yamaha GA-10
Marshall MG100HDFX
Carlsbro Renegade Lead 150
Vox AD30VT
Vox AD15VT
Marshall MS-2
Blackstar Fly
Behringer Thunderbird BX108.

The Vox's are that weird design with two poweramps: a 12ax7 running as a tube power amp, into a solid state one. They were OK, but not amazing, and had poor longevity. The MS-2 is fun through a 4x12 but a joke on it's own. The MG100 was OK for what it was.

There are really three standout amps in my solid state history. The first (and least well known) was the Renegade. It looks like this: https://www.adverts.ie/guitar-amps/c...0-lead/4483767. It's a great sounding traditional-SS amp. I ended up selling it to a friend because it was too big, too heavy and too clean for what I needed; but it is the only 'loud' solid state amp I've ever liked. We have a deal: she's only ever allowed to sell it back to me. Decent all spring reverb, too.

I've got to give a shoutout to the Fly as well, just because how good it is for a micro-amp. It's probably the first of these little 'toy' amps that could actually replace a practice amp for a new learner.

But for me the standout, best solid state amp I've ever used: is my little Behringer combo bass amp. A friend had one in about 2003 which I adored; I used to covet it quite hard - I remember being obsessed with the guitar version, the Firebird, which was reviewed in the guitar magazine I read, and the music teacher was known to occasionally borrow it for jazz guitar playing. A couple years ago when I started seriously playing bass, I thought hard about what kind of amp I wanted, and for a warm, tubey-sounding bass, at living-room levels it was perfect. And it was about $50 used in 2016. So yeah - the Behringer Thunderbird BX108. A $200, now somewhat less than that, decent sounding solid state amp.

[loudthud]

Thought I would bump this thread. It fell off the first page a couple of years ago. Probably should be a sticky.

[gui_tarzan]

My Fender 112SE has a gorgeous clean tone. The overdrive, not so much.