After a lot of searching and testing out of various amps I decided to pull the trigger on the Egnater Rebel 30 combo and a 1x12 extension cab.
It's been a while since I've had an all-tube rig and I've missed having the tube tone. I tried a lot of different amps Carr, Bogner, Line6, Mesa Boogie, Fender, ... but this one came up as the best one for my needs:
http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/...112-1x12-30W-Tube-Combo-Guitar-Amp?sku=620074
It has an inspiring tone and covers a lot of different sounds. It's small and lightweight, yet packs an amazing punch for it's size.
The main thing that kept me coming back to this amp was the overall feel of the various tones and the ability to get nice blues and rock tones at a reasonable volume. You can set the wattage control for each channel independantly, which helps to get output-tube distortion without having to crank the master volume. I really like the way the amp responds to the way I like to play. Both the clean and the lead channel are very touch sensitive, responding very well to changes in pick attack, etc. This thing is a blues machine for sure, but also works great for getting that Mark Knopfler kind of Stat sound, country, or retro/rockabilly kinds of sounds. The lead channel has a very nice singing quality which I love. It sounds like an old Delux cranked to 10, and cleans up very nicely when you back off on the guitar volume. It wouldn't be a very good amp for heavy metal playing, since it's dialed in to get more of the Fender/Vox tones than anything else, and doesn't hit the insane gain levels needed for a metal sound. But, I really don't play metal styles anyway (too old now :-). It excells at the kinds of sounds I like to use.
It also has a very cool feature in that you can "mix" the amount of 6V6 or EL-34 output usage in the output stage. This is cool for adjusting the amp for more of a British sort of tone of the EL84's versus a more Fender sound of the 6V6s.
I tested the amp at Guitar Center last night for close to 1 hour non-stop. I couldn't stop playing it. I tried a Strat and ES-335 through it and both sounded amazing. This is pretty much how I narrowed my list down to this amp. It doesn't have any built-in effects other than reverb, but it excells as a versatile guitar amp for what I need. It's a great setup for the types of playing that I do more often these days, playing smaller venues, churches, etc.
--Jim
It's been a while since I've had an all-tube rig and I've missed having the tube tone. I tried a lot of different amps Carr, Bogner, Line6, Mesa Boogie, Fender, ... but this one came up as the best one for my needs:
http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/...112-1x12-30W-Tube-Combo-Guitar-Amp?sku=620074
It has an inspiring tone and covers a lot of different sounds. It's small and lightweight, yet packs an amazing punch for it's size.
The main thing that kept me coming back to this amp was the overall feel of the various tones and the ability to get nice blues and rock tones at a reasonable volume. You can set the wattage control for each channel independantly, which helps to get output-tube distortion without having to crank the master volume. I really like the way the amp responds to the way I like to play. Both the clean and the lead channel are very touch sensitive, responding very well to changes in pick attack, etc. This thing is a blues machine for sure, but also works great for getting that Mark Knopfler kind of Stat sound, country, or retro/rockabilly kinds of sounds. The lead channel has a very nice singing quality which I love. It sounds like an old Delux cranked to 10, and cleans up very nicely when you back off on the guitar volume. It wouldn't be a very good amp for heavy metal playing, since it's dialed in to get more of the Fender/Vox tones than anything else, and doesn't hit the insane gain levels needed for a metal sound. But, I really don't play metal styles anyway (too old now :-). It excells at the kinds of sounds I like to use.
It also has a very cool feature in that you can "mix" the amount of 6V6 or EL-34 output usage in the output stage. This is cool for adjusting the amp for more of a British sort of tone of the EL84's versus a more Fender sound of the 6V6s.
I tested the amp at Guitar Center last night for close to 1 hour non-stop. I couldn't stop playing it. I tried a Strat and ES-335 through it and both sounded amazing. This is pretty much how I narrowed my list down to this amp. It doesn't have any built-in effects other than reverb, but it excells as a versatile guitar amp for what I need. It's a great setup for the types of playing that I do more often these days, playing smaller venues, churches, etc.
--Jim
