Certain amps for certain guitars...

[schwa]

Do you find that certain guitar/amp combos don't "work"?

I have a Carr Mercury which has turned out to be a dream come true for me in most respects. Since I live in an apartment and don't play out much, this amp has been really great, with awesome tone that doesn't bring the cops to my door. It takes pedals great, and sounds great with my Strat and my LP's.

I have been building a superstrat (it plays, but I am still dialing it in). I've always wanted something for '80's metal, and finally got around to building up this guitar with a Floyd and EMG's. When I plug it into the Mercury, it just doesn't sound that good. When I plug into my Mesa, I get results that are much more to my liking.

I guess it's a case of where most amps do certain things, but not all things well.

Do you find that more than one amp is necessary to cover all bases? I need another amp like I need another hole in my head, but I think I'm going to be looking into a Blackstar mini-stack to cover the "apartment friendly JCM-800/Mesa territory".

[Zim]

I remember reading that Kieth Richards said something like that years ago. Certain guitars matched w/ certain amps. I think he said something like Fenders go great with Fender amps, Gibsons go great w/ Marshells....

But one amp to do it all... If there was "1" amp to do it all, there wouldn't be so many flavors out there.

But I sure as hell have run into it too many times, and I am in the same boat, need great sounding low watt too. Makes it REAL HARD!

[Maruuk]

Absolutely! This is a much under-reported reality. A great amp is only great with the right guitar, and vice-versa. A lot of amps sound good with only one type of guitar or pickup design. Gotta match amp to guitar for best results.

[Dale]

Often it is the speaker and not the guitar I think. Certain amps get paired with speakers that do not work well with their eq curve and the pickups in the guitar.

[jbp]

great combo: Fender Esquire or Tele & el-84 Vox style amp

not great: Fender Strat & Mesa Dual Rectifier
(much better with buckers)

[ROKY]

In a word : YES .

[tdarian]

My Z MAZ 18 keeps telling me that it really prefers P90s. But it will take whatever it can get.

[epluribus]

No question that the combination has a big impact on gain structure and behavior of the circuit that you can easily hear. For instance, sometimes hot HBs can push the average Fender circuit a bit too hard for tweaking to an expressive dynamic threshold.

[GuitarsFromMars]

yep.