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I could use some amp advice:

I'm looking for two amps for one of my bands. We're currently taking a break from practicing for you-know-what reason, but when we feel it's reasonably safe and responsible again, we'll be splitting our practices between two practice rooms. We have our own gear in one, but the guitarists in the other one are precious about their amps and don't want anyone else using them, so we need to bring in our own. That means we're looking at used solid state amps. We need two workhorse amps that are loud (minimum 40 watts for solid state, I suspect), stay clean (we'll use our pedals, so don't care if the dirt channel is awful), cost as little as possible (under 100) and are reliable (we may have to play them cranked for 2-3 hours at a time). We'll only use them for practice and probably sell them whenever gentrification forced us to move practice rooms again or we can move all our practices to one room, so weight is irrelevant.

I'm thinking of second-hand solid states, minimum 40 watts, 10" (preferably 12").

Any favourites? Under-appreciated gems? Ones to avoid?

Sounds like you are looking for some JC-50, 55's or even 120.

Fender Frontman 212. The clean channel actually sounds pretty good and they're loud as hell. Can be found for under 100 bucks easily.

Zork wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 11, 2021 3:30 am

Fender Frontman 212. The clean channel actually sounds pretty good and they're loud as hell. Can be found for under 100 bucks easily.

Yeah, we saw one of those for 100. Played one in a practice room and it's just what we need: loud as hell and cheap (also absolutely awful tone, but works for practice). Only thing I'm not sure about is how reliable these are; the pots were already scratchy, which is a bit worrying for a 2-year-old amp.
Anyway, thanks for the tip!

We've already got one out of two, by the way, a Laney 50GC for €70. Okay deal, I think.

Don't know how common they are in Deutschland, but my choice, as ever, would be the H/H VS Musician or IC 100L. There are lots of head-only versions out there, so shipping might not be too painful.

Otherwise, I'd agree that Roland JCs or their Yamaha peers are a good alternative. I've also found the tiny Fender Frontman to be a great small amp, so I assume its big brothers would be equally sound.

Ended up going slightly over budget (€15 shipping) and buying this Guyatone.

I just couldn't resist the looks and the simplicity (volume, bass, treble & reverb.. perfection!). I'm shallow like that.

Fingers crossed it's in decent condition. At least they have a return policy.

12", 80 watts. Bit of a wild card. Most info I found on these was from reading google translations of Japanese websites. They're described as loud and clean, so should fit the bill. Cost the equivalent of €350 new.

The Guyatone 580 already arrived today. Right away I noticed that one of the speaker cables was disconnected, so I feared the worst, but after quickly soldering it back together it turns out I hit the jackpot.

It's in museum piece condition, it can get incredibly loud while staying super clean, adds very little noise, the bass and treble have a nice range, the original speaker sounds nice and clear (could it be... alnico?) but pleasantly warm when you dial in more bass, and the built-in spring reverb sounds great to boot. Since it's from the mid-seventies, if anything breaks it looks like it should be fairly easy to fix. I'm going to have to keep it, even though I wasn't looking for a keeper.

If you ever come across one of these, go for it!

front
back
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panel

Still in the honeymoon phase of course. I can report back after some band practices if anyone's interested. Might be while though.

Peavey amps.

Crate. GLX series can be had for about $150 on CL etc. USA made. Clean channel is clean and loud.

Sauerkraut wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 13, 2021 7:21 am

The Guyatone 580 already arrived today. Right away I noticed that one of the speaker cables was disconnected, so I feared the worst, but after quickly soldering it back together it turns out I hit the jackpot.

It's in museum piece condition, it can get incredibly loud while staying super clean, adds very little noise, the bass and treble have a nice range, the original speaker sounds nice and clear (could it be... alnico?) but pleasantly warm when you dial in more bass, and the built-in spring reverb sounds great to boot. Since it's from the mid-seventies, if anything breaks it looks like it should be fairly easy to fix. I'm going to have to keep it, even though I wasn't looking for a keeper.

If you ever come across one of these, go for it!

front
back
insides
panel

Looks great, nice score!

Dang, that Guyatone looks awesome. Through mount components in conveniently laid out boards? That thing looks super easy to keep running. Nice score.

mackerelmint wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 14, 2021 2:49 am

Dang, that Guyatone looks awesome. Through mount components in conveniently laid out boards? That thing looks super easy to keep running. Nice score.

Definitely! I found pictures of those boards on some Japanese website and came to the same conclusion, then hit the buy-it-now button.

I feel like (again) Loud, clean, and cheap is Peavey's slogan.

HNB wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 14, 2021 9:16 am

I feel like (again) Loud, clean, and cheap is Peavey's slogan.

Yeah, the other guitarist was going to look at a Peavey Bandit, but ended up buying a Laney. Not sure what happened there.