15 watt tube amps

[Hot_Grits]

That would be a Pro Jr you tried. 2xEL84s making 15w.

The Ceriatone Pro kit is a copy of the 5E5A Tweed Pro. 2x6l6s making 18-25w.

The Ceriatone would be a louder amp, though tweeds generally don't have a lot of clean headroom.

Neither strike me as a good choice for a clean platform for live use with pedals, unless your onstage volume levels are very low.

The Dobber does indeed use Pro Jrs onstage, though I don't think he's looking for pure cleans at the gigs I've seen: he had a bloke with an AC30 covering that work. Bear in mind too that Dobs tends to work with better sound systems and soundguys than most giggers encounter. There's nothing worse than turning up to a gig with a small amp and finding you have no monitor feed, or having to fight with the soundguy about cutting the sterile nasty highs coming out of your monitor. Or playing a festival and having the monitor tech disappear until the last song, etc etc...

I'd look at a 30-40w amp for an amp with clean headroom for most live applications. A Hot Rod Deluxe is a good choice, and even better when fitted with a Celestion G12H30. You may be able to grab one for under a grand. Another cheaper choice would be Peavey's classic 30. A similar fender-meets-EL84 tone to the Pro jr, but with more volume and headroom. Again, a speaker upgrade works wonders.

Looking at your choices, money is an issue. If it isn't, the Carr Vincent (7 or 33w, outstanding blackface-style cleans) would have to be the nicest pedal platform I've yet heard. For smaller amps in the pro Jr mould, the Swart stuff Custom Audio Boutique brings in is fantastic. Gorgeous tweed meets blackface tone.

[thehenderson]

I was in the same position as you are, I was looking for something small but clean. It's really hard, I ended up going with a Carr Mercury which was going cheap(ish)

I've tried a pro jr, owned an ac15 and tried a vale jr, and all three of these amps seem to sound best when cranked into overdrive rather than in clean territory, where I felt all three amps sounded a bit wooden and 'solid state'ish

[telefiend]

What about a Fender Blues Jnr?

Probably gonna get one of these soon

[stuu]

What about a Fender Blues Jnr?

Probably gonna get one of these soon

i had one.

i liked it.

i always had a fair amount of dirt dialed in though. uber-cleans are no friend of mine though from memory it could stay clean and loud to a point: though never tried keeping it clean in competition with a drummer.

[sydknee]

I once owned a Laney LC15 and would never hesitate to recommend it. It was the Bees Knees

[Tulip]

Another vote for the Fender Blues jnr. Gets pretty loud.

[Tulip]

So, add on the cost of the modding, and where are you?

[AmpShop]

I think I am swaying between the..

15 watt Pro 5e5 @ Ceriatone (still a lot of headroom with 6l6 goodness)

or

15/30 watt DC30 @ Ceriatone (a lot of options with this amp)

The Pro is about $50 NZD less than the DC30, which to get it build and shipped w/o tubes is like $1000-1150 mark. That is for the head.

I can get the Fender pro (which is essentially a different amp to the Ceriatone one, No standby, bass, treble or presence pots) The Ceriatone has 4 inputs and 2 volumes tho..

So new from the store $800, with tubes and 10" speaker.. But I head a bit of modding is needed to get them sounding their best.

The 5E5-A Pro and and DC30 are pretty different-sounding amps, other sides of Atlantic, so to speak.

To give yourself a rough idea of the DC30, go to stores and play some AC30's and AC15's, I reckon that'll give you a ballpark idea, tone-wise.

The 5E5-A may not actually give you all that much headroom, as most of the Tweed amp break up fairly early on. Victoria make a 5E5-A replica, they rate theirs at 28w - check out: http://www.victoriaamp.com/visitor/show_model/6 - the soundclips there should give you an idea of what to expect. The Tweed Super 5F4 (Victoria 35212) and Bandmaster 5E7 (Victoria 35310) are essentially the same amp too, just different speaker configs and different OT's.

If you're after a Fender-type amp with headroom, you'd need to look at Brown/Blonde or Blackface based amp, or even the Tweed Bassman (5F6-A) as it has the long-tailed pair PI which increases the tightness/headroom. The 5E5-A would be a great blues amp though, with great crunch-cleans and would take pedals very nicely too.

The other thing with headroom is that in real terms it's largely affected by what you're putting into the amp guitar-wise.

The Fender Pro Jr is definitely a very different amp to the 5E5-A, inside and out. Personally I'd take the Blues Jr over the Pro Jr.

Another recommendation would be to hold out for the release of an amp my friend Guy from Electric Audio in Chch is building, based on the blackface Princeton, with some cool features like negative-feedback-defeat, it'll be a 20w 1x12 combo, I think it'll be a fantastic amp when he gets it all finished (he's having chassis made at the moment).

[Hot_Grits]

In those price ranges, I'd say look out for a s/h Fender Blues Jr, Laney LC15, vox AC15 or Peavey Classic 30. Of those, the Classic 30 would have the most clean headroom and 'growth potential' for later gigging opportunities, but the others should get you through jazz rehearsals and church gigs. The Fender and the Vox will hold resale value better than the others if you decide to upgrade later.

Also, Peavey Classic 20s are cool amps that occasionally come up on trademe.

As all these amps are aimed mostly at first-time tube amp buyers and tend to be made of lower spec parts and materials, a speaker upgrade down the track can really bring them to life.

I can't really recommend tweed-style fenders as pedal platforms. Great amps, but they tend to break up early and the tone is often soft and very full in the midrange, which makes finding overdrives that work with them a bit difficult.

[thehenderson]

Another recommendation would be to hold out for the release of an amp my friend Guy from Electric Audio in Chch is building, based on the blackface Princeton, with some cool features like negative-feedback-defeat, it'll be a 20w 1x12 combo, I think it'll be a fantastic amp when he gets it all finished (he's having chassis made at the moment).

I'll believe it when I see it!!

[guitartech]

Dobbyn runs 2 pro juniors to get a stereo pan from his red witch pedal. I've teched for him for a number of years and set up his gear a bunch. hie runs the amps on about 7 and then to get his clean tone he dials back the volume knob on the guitar. . he consistantly works his volume thruput the set to get the drive he needs, then for solos he puts in the hotcake just as a little more suatain.. the amps at that volume do break up quite nicely. the ac 15 is also daves amp and mark vannelau plays all the backing rythym thru that, thats set about the same, and mark works back on the vulume knob on guitar to get a cleaner tone.

[TMG 03]

There are some great amps under $1000 these days.

I liked the Tiny Terror. there are more and more low wattage amps appearing on the market every year.

[nzsimon1]

We have the Carvin vintage 16 in stock could do a special NZGuitars member price