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By Charles Saufley
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From time-tested favorites to new-tech modelers, the amplifier choices available today can make a player's head spin. Here's how to find the amp that's right for your sound and style
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Amps, unlike guitars, might not be the subjects of full-color calendars or celebrity-attended auctions, but in the quest for creating the right guitar tone, amplifiers are often more than half the equation. Even a $20,000 vintage Telecaster can’t realize its full potential without the right amp.
A great amp can reveal the true character of your guitar or make an inexpensive instrument sound better—even spectacular. Achieving a happy marriage of guitar and amplifier need not be expensive. But what amp is right for you? The key lies in a basic understanding of amp technology and the advantages of specific amplifier types and how an amplifier’s characteristics might complement your playing style.
TUBE AMPS: Get warmth and sparkle from old-school technology
Coveted by collectors and top-flight players, tube amps use vacuum tubes to transmit an amplified signal. The indisputable classic amps—the Fender Twin, Deluxe, Showman, and Bassman that powered surf, blues, country, and rock players through the ’50s and ’60s; the Vox AC-30 and AC-15 that were the voice of the British Invasion; and the Marshall JTM-45 and “Plexi” models that powered classic records by Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and the Who—all rely on tubes to deliver warmth, power, sparkling clarity, and rich, harmonic overdrive and distortion.
It could take an electronics expert an afternoon to explain the science of vacuum tubes, but one essential, easy-to-hear difference between tubes and solid-state amps is that tube circuits tend to “soft clip” a decaying note, which effectively rounds off the sound wave to create a softer, warmer, and richer tone.
Although the technology has become much more affordable in recent years, a tube amp will generally be more expensive than a similarly powerful solid-state rig. Replacing tubes, which have a shorter life span than solid-state transistors, and performing other necessary maintenance can add up over the life of an amplifier, but those warm tube tones may be well worth the effort.
PROS:Warm, colorful, harmonic tones. Buttery overdrive and distortion.
CONS: Delicate tubes don’t last as long as solid-state transistors.
Epiphone Valve Junior
A cool, compact five-watt amp with an eight-inch speaker, the Valve Junior’s combination of sweet, clean tones at lower volume and gruff natural overdrive when the volume is maxed make it a great amp for practice and home recording. $229 list/$139 street. www.epiphone.com.
Fender Blues Junior
With a 12-inch speaker and 15 watts of power, the Blues Junior delivers warm overdriven tones, sparkling clean sounds, and excellent bass response for recording or playing with a not-too-loud rock trio. The spring reverb effect, which uses a mechanical system of springs and metal plates instead of a digital simulation, adds far-out surf tones or a little extra body to your tone.
$569 list/$399 street. www.fender.com.
Orange Rocker 30
Orange’s legions of admirers run from Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page to Oasis’ Noel Gallagher. The Rocker 30 combines a classic Orange tube circuit and 12-inch speaker that delivers chiming clean tones and bold, rich overdriven sounds. $1,349. www.orangeamps.com.
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