Strange find.

[Sea Chief]

Ive dicked about with tube amps for 30 years, building them/ selling wem's, DR's, TwinR's, 5E3's, Champs, vox 15 reissue.. & briefly played thru other folks amps: a Pro reverb, a tv front 5E3 clone, a good brown deluxe clone, even an orig 5e3. The last two floated my boat (tho at the expense of my hearing) but the rest- MEH. The best was a MusicMan 210 in a shop (got away from me/ sold). When I say best I just mean it played sweetly & complimented my playing, that's all, without ear-spliting volume needed.

So for 35 yrs Ive never had an amp that's interested me too much. Until someone offered me a modern boring thing (by a 70yr old done with gtrs). I'm so bored with amps I thought MEH bigtime with this dull box. It had Laney on. The most boring word in my guitar world but reluctantly plugged in for another boring amp 1/2 hr me cursing xyz..

[Laney VC15. UK made & retubed with JJ's, so might be 'super-tuned' I dont know.. but afaik just a vc15 with stock jensen speaker].

..WRONG. This thing is a sweet touchy feely great tone want to keep playing it.. amp! WTF! Laney? are you fkn kidding me? Ive got a '78 Twin Reverb rebuilt in great shape next to it.. but I dont want to play that, I want to play this! A bewildering 30 yr journey that's fried my brain.. but this takes the p*ss because much as its good/ a major result- I give up on the journey as its infuriated & confounded me now. £175 (used). Fk this I stick there & sell the rest. I do read its a good amp, & Id say its incredibly well designed - you just know it- but why its nearest amp, a vox 15C1 reissue I had, was an unplayable china disaster harsh sound box in comparison.. is unfathomable as reviews have them 50-50, same tubes, & circuits (no doubt). This is in a different galaxy, a proper amp vs that vox embarrassment: it has that proper-amp spongey springy feel, notes linger & distinguished properly, the guitar's character blooms & that sweet vox chime going on almost as an afterthought/ bonus. I am amazed.

A bewildered- Sea Chief.

[glebert]

Amongst some of my friends at the Music Hall I volunteer and play at I have become knows as the "king of the amazing $100 guitar/amp." Some of them are more like $200, but none more then $300, and the brands that others look down at they are then asking me "What is that? That sounds amazing!" My favorites are my Arbor hollowbody, Jay Turser LP copy, Delta D-18 copy, an old Taiwanese Squier Strat, and recently a Kustom Defender V100 tube amp (I think it is the same as the 72 Coupe model). I just fell in love with the Kustom recently and am ready to sell off all the other amps. I could afford to buy "nicer" gear (and I do have some), but if you love the way it plays and sounds why spend more?

[J M Fahey]

Laney makes killer amps, very good sounding, very well built, their own HH speaker brand is exact same as equivalent Celestions (and really made in UK) but they never got respect.

Those VC Vintage Club amps are very good, just distortion channel is harsher than others, pure tube distortion but "unsweetened", but once you play them LOUD and let power tubes grind, they are as good as the best.

Sadly "no old time guitar God" played them, except Toni Iommi who was not exactly one, and that seems to be all the difference.

Not too different to what American players think about Peavey or Crate who also do have some killer ones.

[tedmich]

+1 on Laney!

One of my favorite "modern quirky" guitar players, MIA Eklundh plays only them.

[g1]

Before I clicked on that video, I was going to say the fretboard looked like a freakshow to me, but I didn't want to be rude. Now I see they are embracing the term.

[Justin Thomas]

Weird, but a lot easier to adapt to than the "fanned" fretboards of earlier times... I just hope those Squiggle-Frets are stainless steel so they never have to be replaced!

Jusrin

[Sea Chief]

Its not neccessarily that I have in my middleage become happy with a cheap compromise glebert (these are satisfying too- I have a £100 tele I have as much fun on as a fender £550 CIJ butterscotch I had before it). This is truly a high class amp is my main point, that I just chanced upon. And for £200 used (the going rate) a no-brainer compared to vox15 at £375 used minimum. Christ even the Laney badge is quality. Its made with very good components (xrmrs look quailty UK made) in a decent cabinet, the size is utterly sensible, the speaker suits beautifully, tone knobs work well, a 'presence' control.. heck even a spring reverb as a bonus (possibly even tube driven-?). Its just made by a true engineer whose thought exceedingly carefully about everything. Its like a naim hifi amp, but at sanyo price.

Its nothing whatsoever like the awful shredmaster Laney drivel making up 90% of their stuff: it sits totally apart, in fact you cannot consider it a Laney surely, morelike an excellent vox copy. I wouldn't even dip into the Laney hair man above clip, my teeth would gnash.

[olddawg]

I’ve been playing a BUGERA V22 in clubs for years. I took the badge off to fool the cork sniffers. I was at a jam just this Tuesday night and 3 people played through it that I know use Mesas in their respective bands. They all said this thing is great, what is it? I said a $250 amp.

[Sea Chief]

I dipped into the man with the hair & its huage red sea parting.. & my teeth went into turbo gnash mode! its actually quite funny which takes the edge off: is he out of that funny band System is gone down?

It really is the total opposite of what this little laney/ vox thing I have is all about.

[J M Fahey]

Well, it *does* sound good:

[Chuck H]

I dipped into the man with the hair & its huage red sea parting.. & my teeth went into turbo gnash mode! its actually quite funny which takes the edge off: is he out of that funny band System is gone down?

It really is the total opposite of what this little laney/ vox thing I have is all about.

I thought the same thing. You could use ANY amp for that. Well, any amp that will reproduce the effected tone. The amp itself has very little to do with the "tone" he's using. Still, I do enjoy players that are out of the box and still have something accessible artistically. So... +1 on the player. Pretty much nonplussed on the Laney reference though.

[Chuck H]

Well, it *does* sound good:

Great player. Really knows how to get the best out of an amp. That said... I think he could have made any amp sound good. The tone of the amp itself didn't excite me much. It's good. Not great. But it does EVERYTHING good and that's rare. To be better than average in one sort of tone you usually have to sacrifice to below average in another. So I say kudos Great working mans amp with good tone for whatever comes up.

[Justin Thomas]

You make an interesting point about the amp (and there are many like it) that do many things "good." And for most, that's probably great. I personally am not using many effects (I don't even own a delay) and so I go after an amp that does ITSELF great. Then I just go out & get another amp if I want sometjing different.

There's also the possibility that after decades of Fenders & Ampegs (Prosonic notwithstanding) my ears are not dialed in to super chunk or cream. I know the sound of a dimed 67 Bassman through real speakers, and I loved the dimed Sovtek Mig100-U, though I would not call either of them refined. But maybe it's just my Crazy-Horse-Inspired style...

Anyway, I think the big lesson here is:

DON'T POO-POO ANYTHING UNTIL YOU TRY IT!

Justin