Amp hunting, what else?

[PanicProne]

Well, first of all I'm a bit embarrased that I'm actually poisoning the boards with another thread like this but then again this is a nice place to get a lot of different opinions.. So, what's it all about? Well, I'm in search of an amp, obviously. And yeah, offcourse I should og out and try them but it's nice to have a hint where to start.. Anyways..here goes.

I play in two bands. One hardcore punk (we sound kinda champion-ish) and a more experimental metal band. Main influences for this band are cult of luna, oceansize, thrice, misery signals, dredg etc. For the hardcore band I've been using my pedalboard (boss tu2-empress eq-mi audio crunch box-boss bf3), as my amp just running it through clean channels on whatever amp I find. And actually I'm kinda satisfied with that.. after all it's punk. as long as there's distortion...

Well for the other band... I'm looking for something with (here it comes again) nice cleans and a good distortion. Distortion wise I like the crunch box sound (inspired buy the jcm 800 on thrice firebreather song). But I really feel I could use some nice amp distortion rather than the cb. when it comes to cleans it's harder for me to say what I want.. but looking at guitarists I like the ac30 sounds somewhere at where I wanna go..keep in mind I use some pedals (8-14) so the amp needs to handle them well too..

Soo,, any suggestions? Is there an amp like this or should I start of with a head that does one thing and then go look for the other later? What are the orange rocker/thunderverbs like? (humanfly use the last mentioned on some songs and they sound aaaaawesome) from what I've read they might suit me..

[eliot1025]

I'm selling an amp that might be right for you. It's a DR. Z KT-45. Tonewise it's described as an AC 30 with the articulation of a Hiwatt. It virtually inhales pedals. It's rich and warm with a lot of chime. You can hear what it sounds like cranked at the Z amp site. That sample is through a Marshall 4x12 cab with greenbacks. This amp has a lot of headroom so if you rely mostly on pedals it's great for that. You'll need to spend a little time learning how to use the 3 controls - you can control treble gain and bass gain seperately. It's fantastic and I'm sad to sell it. I have a post here in the amp emporium.

[PanicProne]

Originally Posted by eliot1025

I'm selling an amp that might be right for you. It's a DR. Z KT-45. Tonewise it's described as an AC 30 with the articulation of a Hiwatt. It virtually inhales pedals. It's rich and warm with a lot of chime. You can hear what it sounds like cranked at the Z amp site. That sample is through a Marshall 4x12 cab with greenbacks. This amp has a lot of headroom so if you rely mostly on pedals it's great for that. You'll need to spend a little time learning how to use the 3 controls - you can control treble gain and bass gain seperately. It's fantastic and I'm sad to sell it. I have a post here in the amp emporium.

thanks for the suggestion, but no thanks to buying I'm afraid...whatever it is I get I like trying before buying..and since I live in sweden...

[PanicProne]

Anyone else? Or are people finally getting sick of these threads?

[Tarl]

A CAA OD 100 would do it all for you........pull the two outer power tubes if you want 50 watts.

[Mattbedrock]

My most versatile and gig friendly amp I have is an Orange Rocker 30. The clean channel works great with pedals and the lead channel breathes fire. The 30 watts is surprisingly loud and plenty for any club gigs I play - I usually run it about half.

For a non-channel switching amp, I love my BF Fender Bassman. Mine is a 66/67 and was relatively inexpensive for a vintage amp. It has a ton of swat but no mv, so you either have to crank it or use pedals to get distortion.

Of course, there are a million choices out there and I am an old fashioned guy, but ...

[Leonc]

Sorry but the CAA sounds NOTHING like an AC30, either clean or dirty. Why not just get the sounds you're after--buy an AC30CC2x, used for like 1100 or 1200 USD and a Crunch Box for distortion. Nothing--including Dr Z and Orange sounds more like a great AC30 than an AC30 (and the CC2s sound fantastic IMO). Otherwise you'll wind up spending a ton of dough to get your distorted sound. And then, after 4 or 5 months, you won't like it anyways .

[PanicProne]

Well. I'll be going out trying some amps tomorrow and also mondya next week. Any last minute suggestions?