What's the worst tube amp you've ever heard?

[ES350]

I'd have to nominate the mid-60's midsize and larger Gibson amps (Saturn, Apollo); the tone stack, tube compliment, interstage transformer, rats nest wiring, etc, all add up to a no-tone PITA to maintain or mod. It does the Brian Jones tweezy treble thing to a T, though...

[Prairie Dawg]

I'd have to nominate the mid-60's midsize and larger Gibson amps (Saturn, Apollo); the tone stack, tube compliment, interstage transformer, rats nest wiring, etc, all add up to a no-tone PITA to maintain or mod. It does the Brian Jones tweezy treble thing to a T, though...

The Univox head I had for a while...whatta piece of crap.

[mooreamps]

How about the valve junior? Sure, they're a decent platform for mods but in stock form they're pretty miserable amps. That said, it's funny how few steps there are from valve junior to any of a number of high priced single ended amps.

It does not take much to clean up a VJ, and maybe drop a 6V6 into it with it's EL-84. I may not be a guitarist, but for the money ; and for even a practice amp or a beginners amp, one could do worst.

-g

[SlidePicker]

I've just finished making some basic mods on one of the first Valve Junior combos, nothing earth shattering, just a DC heater circuit with lots of filter capacitance, a jumper on the circuit board to ground the input jack to board ground, a 1M8 load cap on the input instead of 68K, and a 47 pF "bright cap" in the originally empty C3 position on the board parallelling R6. I think it sounds fabulous now!

I also have a couple of previously mentioned amps, an Electar Tube 10 and Pignose G40V, that sound way better with Jensen MOD speakers than stock. I also had to splice in resistors on the Pignose's heater circuit to drop the heater voltage from the 7.5V it was putting out at first. Run that amp through a 4x12 cab and it sounds great! (So does the Valve Junior.) The Pignose hums more than it should. Haven't fixed that.

[mooreamps]

I've just finished making some basic mods on one of the first Valve Junior combos, nothing earth shattering, just a DC heater circuit with lots of filter capacitance, a jumper on the circuit board to ground the input jack to board ground, a 1M8 load cap on the input instead of 68K, and a 47 pF "bright cap" in the originally empty C3 position on the board parallelling R6. I think it sounds fabulous now!

did you do the screen grid resistor mod ?

Run that amp through a 4x12 cab and it sounds great! (So does the Valve Junior.)

So, really it may not be taking that much to make good tone....

-g

[jetcode]

Steve, I also like multiple distortion pathways in amps but I guess I'd sway more toward Neil Young's cranked Deluxe.

I worked on a device for Neil that adjusts the knobs of his vintage Fenders in real-time. His sounds come from the same amp with slightly different settings in the highest gain modes. Got to play through his rig too. It was a fun project.

I'd have to say the worst sounding tube amps are ones with aging tubes, bad mods, and designs that should have never seen daylight. I had a Sears Silvertone once. Hard to get that cranked arena sound from a 5w class A amp with no balls in the front end. It was vintage however and served me the 13 year old quite nicely.

[Brad707]

Nomad

Mesa Nomad was aweful....Fender Twin sounds like rubbish.

Solid state amps are the way to go. Its like hitting on the brunette instead of the blonde, the blondes are harder to catch, usually better in the sack, but the brunettes are more reliable. Ok its not a great analogy, just having some fun with this silly thread. I like amps more than girls.

[mikeboone]

Thats easy, orange tiny terror ie, cheap plastic valve seats and crappy built pc board etc, looks and weighs like it would last but it just dont! simple as that, expensive korean crap imo.
forgot to say they have the cheek to put a union jack print on the circuit board lol made in britain? now that realy is bloody insulting.

Agree that its not made that well... But the question is whats the worst tube amp you have ever heard? Not the TT. It sounds pretty good over a fairly wide range of tones, until it breaks- GAME OVER. It does sound pretyy good though!!!

[Joe L]

The Marshall JCM 800 2205 circuit gets my vote.

I bought a 4212 combo in '86 and could not believe how un-Marshall it sounded. The lead channel has horribly designed diode clipping, the reverb feeds back even when off and the clean channel is "dull" to say the least. Speakers don't help.

The only redeeming factor is that you can whip up a P2P Silver Jubilee 2550 board which does have a good clean and nice LED/diode clipping and drop it right in and have proper labeled controls, correct transformers etc. And you are left with the clean channel's 3 controls and 2 free tube sockets to play with maybe adding a 2204 or 1987 preamp switchable with the 2550 circuit since both use the same power amp.

I've recently done it and its a real sleeper.

[Hella1hella]

not sure if its the WORST I have ever heard but it has to be up there. I was very very disappointed in the "Marshall Haze." I tried the combo and I just could not get one sound out of it I liked, It seemed very dull and the distortion sounded terrible, If I did not know this amp had tubes in it I would have though it was a solid state.

[David Schwab]

Not a guitar amp, but I'd have to nominate the Ampeg SVT. Even the new SS models sound like crap. Worst tone stack ever made.

I see a lot of people don't like Mesas, but I have a 400+ bass amp which sounds very nice. One of the guitarist I play with has a new mesa 4 channel combo, and that thing sounds great with his Les Paul. he can get a bunch of good tones. They are way too heavy to lug around though.

[Hella1hella]

Yeah I dont really see why people really dis on mesa so much eatheir, I think they make great stuff. Their amps whether you like the sound or not are very high qualitly, they are build very well and are so solid.The guitar player in my old band had a dual rectifier and triple rectifier as well as a 4x12 cab(all mesa) fall out of a faulty uhaul trailer while driving about 30mph. those amps work PERFECT still and only have a couple scratches from hitting the pavement.

[DumbGuitarPlayer]

i have a Mesa Mk IV, whic is a good amp for what it is. Once when I was guitar shopping for an LP, I plugged into a Mk IV that was sitting in the shop, thinking that it would make sense to play the guitar through the same amp that I have at home.

What a mistake! Although I like my own Mk IV, the one in the store had to be the worst sounding POS I have ever heard. I don't know what was wrong with it, but the amp sounded totally dull and lifeless. Needless to say, it had been taking up space in the shop for quite a while...

I had a similar experience recently with a store Mark IV. I plugged in, expecting to hear what all the fuss was about with this legendary amp and was woefully disappointed. It was flat and lifeless. "THIS is the fabled MK IV?!" was my basic reply. I decided to hold onto my H&K TriAmp, needless to say.

To be fair, that amp could have been in dire need of new power tubes and/or power supply.

[spiffpeters]

1972 50W Marshall. It sounded horrible. To bright and not enough grind. Many, many moons later I plugged into and it sounded fantastic. What changed you ask?

Cut the bright cap, new tubes, jumpered the channels and instead of a cheap-o Sunn 4x10 cabinet with no name speakers, I plugged it into a 2x12 cabinet loaded with greenbacks.

So that's what all the fuss is about, I thought.

If a tube amp doesn't sound good there are usually circumstances preventing it from revealing its true character.

[Rob55]

Gentlemen

I just got a radio chassis with three tubes, two 50c5s and a 12au6. I was thinking of turning it into a Harmony 303. As most of what I need is there. I'm a novice. It would be my first build. Do I hear you saying ditch the concept, or can I get a decent low watt amp out of it?

Harmony H 303 A build from scratch


Thanks

Rob