I know there are a number of musicians on the board, so I thought I'd review my new guitar amp for you, just in case any of you might find the information interesting or useful.
If you'd like to review any amps you've used in here, go for it! I'm thinking of starting a guitar reviews thread as well.
I started playing guitar in 1977. I think I got my first amp three years later. It was a Peavey Pacer... solid state... claimed to be 45 watts. I got it used with a blown speaker and put in a Fane. The amp had no tone of its own, but until recently I didn't really know the differenec. I've always been a user of a lot of effects, and got my tone that way. And I've always recorded by going directly into the board and have often performed by plugging directly into the PA, skipping the amp entirely. That was until my brother bought a couple of small vintage Fender tube amps; a Champ (8-watts, I think) and a Princeton (12 watts)... both made in the early 70's.
My goodness... he plugs his Strat into either of those amps and there is so much TONE! Warm, bright, vintage tone.
And since we play vintage-type music, it's just perfect.I have a Digitech RP-7 preamp that I'd been using. It has a 12AX7 tube in it, so it has a genuine tube sound, and I'd been plugging that into my Peavey amp and thinking it sounded fine, but these old Fenders put it to shame. So, I started looking for an affordable all-tube amp.
I finally settled on the Epiphone Galaxie 10. It's an all-tube, Class A, 10 watt amp (12AX7, 6L6 tubes). It houses a 10" Celestion speaker, has a gain and a volume control, 3-band EQ, and a standby switch next to the power switch. The user reviews on Harmony-Central.com were quite favorable. And it's price made it all the more appealing at $199. It also has a very cool, very retro look to it.
I bought it from music123.com, since they were offering free shipping.
When I tried it out, I thought it sounded bery bright and very dry (it has no reverb). My brother suggested I use my digital delay as a slap-back echo to give the sound a little depth and to enhance the vintage-ness. That did the trick. The amp came alive. I was struck with the dynamics of the thing (not unusual for guitarists who first try a tube amp). There was so much difference in the sound depending on how I picked the strings. It was great! Clean sounds had a new shimmer to them. Note: this is not the amp for heavy metal sounds. If you want distortion, it can do it just fine, but it's the OLD distortion... nothing like the 80's hair bands had.
But as a bit of time went by, I noticed that my brother's Fenders still kicked its butt. The amp was sounding really trebly to me, to the point of being shrill sometimes. Out of all my electrics, the guitar that sounded best through the amp was my big jazzbox hollowbody. I found that I could get the best sound out of the amp by keeping the treble knob down to 2, the mid knob at 9, and the bass knob at 10... just to try to warm up the overly bright tone.
Then I read that several people who owned this amp had noticed this about it as well, and attributed it to the brand of tubes it uses; Sovtek. I did a lot of reading and found that the JJ/Tesla ECC83S and the JJ/Tesla 6L6GC tubes claim to warm up overly bright amps. So, I ordered them (cost less than $30) and put them in.
My goodness, the difference in the tone was very real. The voice of the amp really did change. My Stratocaster suddenly became friendly sounding, the big ol' hollowbody actually became boomy, and the Carvin you see in my signature really took on a new life. But I think the best sounding guitar through it now is my '56 Les Paul copy with P-90 style pickups. That guitar has all kinds of warmth and spank. I can't wait to play a gig with this re-voiced amp mic'd through my PA and see what I get.
So, if any of you out there are looking for a great little tone machine for under $250, this might be the ticket. I think it has a better tone than a Fender Blues Junior, which costs a heck of a lot more. It won't sound as nice as a Traynor or a Gibson amp of equivalent power, but they cost SO much more. This is a really fun, and more affordable alternative.
