NAD- Jet City JCA20H

[M@tt C]

I've been looking for a lower power/ low cost backup to my JCM 800, and had been eyeing up the Jet City 20 watt head for a few weeks. Did my reseach, read a lot of good things about it, and figured I'd give one a shot. Went to GC today intending to use my 15% off $299 coupon to snag one, and lo and behold it was on sale for $219. Even better, the only one left was the floor model, so they knocked another $20 off. Nice! Played it very briefly in the store to make sure it worked ok, and did the deal.

Got it home, and plugged it in to a greenback loaded Marshall 4x12.

Initial impression:

Wow, this is a sub $300 amp?? Sounded a little fizzy, but I was very impressed overall. Nice aggressive OD that cleaned up really well. Definintely voiced on the brighter side, with a lot of cut in the upper mids. Very Marshally. The tone controls were very effective, and overall the amp looked and felt pretty solid. Based on the gut shots I've seen, it uses a thick PCB board with nice big traces. Definitely sounded better with my LP vs. my hot single coil tele. I was able to A/B it with my Marshall, and while the 100 watt Marshall sounded bigger and clearer at the same volume, the little Jet City certainly held it's own, and had it's own cool thing going on. At lower volumes, it sounded a bit better than the Marshall, which is exactly what I was shooting for.

I ended up swapping in some EH 12ax7's I had laying around just for fun, and that helped knock down a lot of the fizziness. I'll probably end up trying some JJ's in there, as folks seem to favor those in the JC amps.

Verdict:

Only got about an hour of playing time, but so far the bang/ buck ratio seems to be ridiculously good. I'll take it to practice on Tuesday and see how well it does in a band context. Based on what I've heard so far, it should work out really well. Kudos the the Jet City folks for making a kick a$$ little rock monster on the cheap!

[cisspcism]

I have one, its decent. I ended up giving it to my son for him to use.

[Johnny Alien]

That is a killer price for a 20watt tube head!!

[Marshall Man]

I have one and it is pretty fizzy. Does swapping in tubes for those that have done it take the fizz away?

[grizdeluxe]

Swapping tubes makes a huge difference. So does the speaker. I'm using a 2x12 loaded with a WGS Greeen Beret and a Reaper 55hz. I retubed it with new JJ EL 84s and a mix of EHX and Tung Sol 12ax7's. Its also biased a bit warmer than the factory settings. Its a different amp now. Warmer, with more character to the crunch. It also has a great bedroom level crunch to it if you tweak the settings.

[panhead5]

Hey for 200.00 how can you go wrong if it sounds good .Come to think of it I remember buying used Marshalls for that !!! Pre internet of course !!

[dsmc80]

I have a Friedman modded (JCA20-BES) amp coming tomorrow. I want a cheap cheap cheap low volume backup for my SLO. We will see what happens. They claim I'll be pleasantly surprised. I am a skeptic, but what the hell.

[smoss469]

Wait until the new 2 Channel JC 20 Watt comes out. The 2nd channel is the SLO channel according to the NAMM info I've seen.

[SAMIAM]

I've had the jca20h for about 5 months, I've gigged with it once a week almost every week since I got it. I've had the chance to hear it in a variety of venues including a theater, a ballroom and a fairly large, high ceiling church. I've played it through a 1x12 closed back with a celestion g12m, an open back 1x10 with a Weber alnico blue pup, a 4x12 with celestion rocket 50s, and a 4x12 loaded with cheap seismic audio speakers. The greenback 1x12 was the best fit by far.

some favorite settings:

I tried goosing and smoothing with a mxr dynacomp set to the classic 3 and 9 o'clock positions and gain and all tone knobs @ 12 o'clock - master volume @ 6 (2 o'clock). This actually worked rather well but I personally felt that the loss of dynamics and additional noise wasn't worth it.

Using the same settings WITHOUT the dynacomp and through an analog delay set low enough so as not to distort on the repeats (we're talking VERY low) was incredibly touch responsive, immediate and I could see this being a perfect default tone; hard enough to rock and pseudo-shred convincingly yet still well within the ability to sit in a blues or ballad tune. This became one of two tones I would switch between depending on the song.

The other gigging tone I used was gain @6 (2 o'clock) , Bass @6, mids @3, high @4 master 6 (or thereabout) and presence @6 . This seems to be the sweet spot for my own particular style and mids and highs can be tuned to the room from this starting point with minute adjustments.

I'm curious what settings others have had success with and with what cabs and pedals?

[grizdeluxe]

I've had the jca20h for about 5 months, I've gigged with it once a week almost every week since I got it. I've had the chance to hear it in a variety of venues including a theater, a ballroom and a fairly large, high ceiling church. I've played it through a 1x12 closed back with a celestion g12m, an open back 1x10 with a Weber alnico blue pup, a 4x12 with celestion rocket 50s, and a 4x12 loaded with cheap seismic audio speakers. The greenback 1x12 was the best fit by far.

some favorite settings:

I tried goosing and smoothing with a mxr dynacomp set to the classic 3 and 9 o'clock positions and gain and all tone knobs @ 12 o'clock - master volume @ 6 (2 o'clock). This actually worked rather well but I personally felt that the loss of dynamics and additional noise wasn't worth it.

Using the same settings WITHOUT the dynacomp and through an analog delay set low enough so as not to distort on the repeats (we're talking VERY low) was incredibly touch responsive, immediate and I could see this being a perfect default tone; hard enough to rock and pseudo-shred convincingly yet still well within the ability to sit in a blues or ballad tune. This became one of two tones I would switch between depending on the song.

The other gigging tone I used was gain @6 (2 o'clock) , Bass @6, mids @3, high @4 master 6 (or thereabout) and presence @6 . This seems to be the sweet spot for my own particular style and mids and highs can be tuned to the room from this starting point with minute adjustments.

I'm curious what settings others have had success with and with what cabs and pedals?


Mine sounds best with master around 5 and gain anywhere from 4 on up. Bass on 4, Mids around 7 for a fat tone or rolled back to 5 to thin it out. Treble on 4 Presence 6

[SAMIAM]

Mine sounds best with master around 5 and gain anywhere from 4 on up. Bass on 4, Mids around 7 for a fat tone or rolled back to 5 to thin it out. Treble on 4 Presence 6

What
I look forward to giving those settings a spin .I see you are using a 2x12 - what guitar and pickup type are you using with that?

[grizdeluxe]

I'm using a Hamer doublecut with 57 Classics and a MIM Tele bone stock. The Hamer kills through it.