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im looking at buying a new amp (valve of course) and i want something that has great clean tone and that can also sound great while being pushed with an overdrive pedal (or have a good drive channel itself).

i was thinking about a Vox ac30 british made with alnico blue speakers however that would be pricey!, or maybe a fender (blues deluxe/Deville). Ive also got a friend who loves his peavey classic 50 which does sound really good.
im looking to spend about a grand give or take and dont mind buying second hand (trademe etc).

the hubble has a faint image of tone from a distance i hear


oh la la can you feel it

don't get a deluxe/deville. The chinese Vox AC30/AC15 reissues are the same price (~ish...) and completely slaughter them. Classic 50 is definitely worth a look too and they piss all over the fenders which have cleans that sound like complete mud. My Mesa has a real fender clean channel

Alternatively get Fuzziebro to build you a 5 watter.

no get the 80`s ac thirty with the tubes mounted to the CB

Hot rod devilles/deluxes are good clean amps. They can sound great with a revalve/bias and a speaker swap. The deluxe 1x12 in particular benefits from a speaker swap as the stock unit is very muddy in the bass. In terms of reliability they can do with higher quality input jacks, but apart from that they seem to be pretty solid.

Personally, I like the Vox custom classic range, and the prices are great. I don't know if I can recommend them in terms of reliability, though I've yet to meet any type of AC30 that was truly reliable. To be fair any amp in the 1000 dollars secondhand price bracket is going to be built to a certain level of quality and robustness somewhere above 'fall apart in five minutes' and below 'bulletproof for life'.

At least the hot rods and AC30CC are reasonably simple amps that can be serviced at lowish cost. I can't say the same for Peavey. Peavey amps sound fine (my fave is the delta blues 2x10), but if something goes south, be prepared for a larger than average service bill, as those amps are not designed with ease of service in mind.

One option you could look into is a secondhand Mesa Blue Angel. Can deliver fendery and voxy tones, with great reverb, and they take pedals beautifully. Built to last (my head version took a four foot fall onto a wooden floor and carried on working), and they take pedals very well. There's always one floating around trademe, and in today's economy you might be able to get a great deal on one. Other Mesas like the Express and F30/F50 are also great amps for your needs, though they come up secondhand less frequently.

Hot_Grits wrote:Other Mesas like the Express and F30/F50 are also great amps for your needs

theres this on trademe at the mo
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Music-instrume ... 236719.htm

robnobcorncob wrote:don't get a deluxe/deville. The chinese Vox AC30/AC15 reissues are the same price (~ish...) and completely slaughter them. Classic 50 is definitely worth a look too and they piss all over the fenders which have cleans that sound like complete mud. My Mesa has a real fender clean channel

Alternatively get Fuzziebro to build you a 5 watter.

haha thats a big call saying fender cleans sound like mud!! arent they ment to be unbeatable??, the only thing about the AC30s are that they are made in china and ive heard alot about how unreliable and hard to fix they are?.

thanks for everyones replies by the way

the only thing about the AC30s are that they are made in china and ive heard alot about how unreliable and hard to fix they are?

MIC is almost the norm these days for everything. Mind you, some of the MIE (English Marshall) and MIA amps I've had were less reliable than a deLorean. I know the yanks go on about MIA being the acme of perfection, but I can't say I agree with them...

NZ__Ninja wrote:haha thats a big call saying fender cleans sound like mud!! arent they ment to be unbeatable?

Don't believe the hype. Fender has a sound. Deluxe/Deville's can do with some upgrades to sort out the low range muddy tones. It's all really a matter of personal taste.

I am selling my Hughes & Kettner Warp 7 122 Combo ( 100W ) Made in Germany. Very good clean sound and also built in distortion. $500 for you mate

I highly recommend the Peavey Cla....... oh wait, you already mentioned me!

I disagree about Fenders having muddy cleans, I like Fender cleans, but the overdrives on those Hot Rods are big fat loads of poos. I agree about the Peavey Classic being difficult to service though, I've had to replace a few pots on mine and they're not easy to get at that's for sure. But on the other hand, Peavey uses a lot of standard 'off the shelf' parts, not specially made parts like mane other brands, so getting parts is bery easy. I've replaced the fan in the PV as well, and a PC fan from JayCar electronics fit perfectly. So what you lose in time you make for in ease of getting parts.

I don't really like the Mesa's I've tried, but that's me. I say get the AC30, because you like the sound and because no-one else in our 'band' (church) has one. A chinese one would be OK as long as you got a good price, but try and find one with Celestions.

Mesa Lonestar special.

Pro Junior or Blues Junior? Blues Jnrs pop up for around $800 on a regular basis on TM. I just got a Pro Jnr sec/hand yesterday and so far it's amazing - exactly what I hoped it would be, warm Fender clean tone and nothing else, perfect for what you're after really (though may not be big enough for you). A lot of people are using these as their main gigging amps these days, they are that good, and cheap enough to buy two and run them in stereo. There's a Blues Junior, which is similar but has more features (reverb, eq), on TM right now I think. I bought the Pro Junior so I don't have to lug my AC30 to and from band practices - this thing weighs all of 10kg and can be very easily carried in one hand. The AC30 - not so much.

I've also been using the red Hot Rod Deluxe recently (with a different speaker to the original) and that's a great little amp, sweet Fender clean, reasonable reverb and takes pedals really well. I almost got one over the PJ but the price and size were too good to resist. The dirty channel on the hot rod/deville is a waste of time but that's usually par for the couse in this price bracket. It's a shame they don't pull it altogether and offer a superior one channel amp, I don't know anyone who has ever seriously used the dirty channel on a Fender amp. I've been using an MXR Distortion III with it and man it sounds GREAT, as does a TS9.

Lone star special for $1000? I don't think so....that's an incredible amp and would do everything you want and much more in a single amp package but you won't get one for under $2.5k secondhand.

yeah. the blues juniors, the special edition hot rods, are pretty sweet. the princeton reverb is pretty cool as well! the ac15 does really well for the price as well.

i dare say that the red and white hot rods are real nice, and heaps of value of the money, especially as one of the white ones on trade me went for real cheap.... was about the price of a new ac15cc