Finally bought a new guitar amplifier

Shaman

Shaman

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I had a Marshall 50 practice amp (I don't gig with electric guitar, I'm a bassman), and I've had it since the late 1990s. It wasn't loud enough to jam with a drum kit and while it made decent sound, it was typical Marshall; it wants to growl and bark but not much else. More recently though, it gave up the ghost and just wasn't doing much of anything at all.

So I embarked this week on a long Youtube jag of amp reviews and poured over what's available online. I asked some friends who play a lot more guitar than me. My upper limit on costs? $750.

"BOSS Katana 100" they said. Just about everyone. I got a few wildcards like "Orange 20W" but again, I wanted to break out of amps with low flexibility. There was a used Fender Champion 100 on the floor too, but I was told that it's just not as good. So I got a Katana 100 for $579 at Long & McQuade, and set it up about 1/2 hour ago. I'll be playing with it tonight, and I'm probably not coming back online. 🤪

Now for the gearhead part: Holy old @#&$ is this game a different one with amps like these. I'm in mild shock that this is even available for this kind of money, honestly. The list of things it can do is so long that I'll try to keep it to the features that I like the best:

* effects in / out with two channels, if I read it right the channels are clean and post-amp effect
* chain up to 5 simulated BOSS pedals - Booster, Mod, FX, Delay, and Reverb
* remember up to 8 presets and a bypass to use just the amp channel EQ/effects on the knobs
* three different "amp contour" settings to quickly give you a starting spot for tone
* three selectable global EQ sections
* three different "cabinet resonance" settings - vintage, modern and deep
* use it with BOSS Tone Studio to upload different amp models and effects using Bluetooth or USB

This thing will keep me entertained for far too long. I have an old multi-effects pedal that I can use but it always sounded a bit weedy and fake to me (Digitech). This thing has features like "autowah" that you can turn on with the Tone Studio, etc. Pretty bizarre. 100 watts will allow me to jam with people using it, too.

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Here's a cool feature of this amp that I didn't notice right away - you can set the output power. So if you want to, you can run the input gain etc. and redline the amp to get more distortion or harmonics, etc. and only put so much power at the speaker - it has 25, 50, 100W options.
 
mimico_polak said:
Wasn’t sure where else to put this but may be of interest to some of our GTAM musicians…

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The Vancouver equivalent to Steve's, Rufus Guitar Store, just shut down. Tom Lee is apparently hanging on by a thread. Tough times to be selling luxury items bought with discretionary income...
 
Oddly, Long & McQuade in Kingston is doing well. I'm probably keeping them in business at this point, LOL

Not really, I'm not a gear / pedal fanatic, I just buy the better quality amps & guitars sporadically.

I'm seriously contemplating a trip this weekend to the nearest Steve's.
 
Priller said:
The Vancouver equivalent to Steve's, Rufus Guitar Store, just shut down. Tom Lee is apparently hanging on by a thread. Tough times to be selling luxury items bought with discretionary income...
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Add in that there is a ton of stock in the wild and many of the older people are starting to liquidate much of their collections. How many guitars/amps end up beyond economical repair in a year? I suspect the number of people wanting musical instruments is on the decline. Existing stock in the wild may be sufficient to accommodate most musicians for years. There will always be the privileged few with the money (and hopefully the skill) to always want more in the collection but I doubt there are enough of them to keep multiple stores in business.
 
Shaman said:
Oddly, Long & McQuade in Kingston is doing well. I'm probably keeping them in business at this point, LOL

Not really, I'm not a gear / pedal fanatic, I just buy the better quality amps & guitars sporadically.

I'm seriously contemplating a trip this weekend to the nearest Steve's.
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For a big national chain, L&M could be far worse. Compare to Guitar Center in the US. I have a few friends who work there, now in management roles, and they have a policy of hiring musicians and giving time off for touring, and generally take decent care of their people (accounting for the low bar of retail, at least). They have decent pricing, and they manufacture a lot of quality and well-priced gear under the Traynor and Yorkville brands.I have some Traynor gear, and it's amazing for the money...
 
Priller said:
I have some Traynor gear, and it's amazing for the money...
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I'm waiting for the store sale on the 20th, because there's a Traynor 600W 4ohm cabinet with two 10s, one 15 and a horn that will be on sale for $800. It's got my name all over it (but they're not taking pre-buys). I'll be there when the door opens, that's my ideal gigging setup ... lots of low-end, long-throw grunt with the 10s and horn putting out the sound that the band can use.

It ain't exactly light, that's the only downside.


md_7_10afed70b987330eec974f2e4369663e_TRAYNOR - TC1510 - 8094227-3.webp
 
Shaman said:
I'm waiting for the store sale on the 20th, because there's a Traynor 600W 4ohm cabinet with two 10s, one 15 and a horn that will be on sale for $800. It's got my name all over it (but they're not taking pre-buys). I'll be there when the door opens, that's my ideal gigging setup ... lots of low-end, long-throw grunt with the 10s and horn putting out the sound that the band can use.

It ain't exactly light, that's the only downside.


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Definitely do what you can to listen to that one at volume first, preferably from at least 20' away. A buddy had that 1510 cab, and it sounded indistinct and muddy when driven by a big Ampeg tube amp (can't remember which one, not an SVT, had a graphic EQ on the front), but I didn't know if the cap or the amp or the EQ was the problem. The speaker and cab nerds over at TalkBass will tell you that combining driver sizes is a bad idea, as is stacking speakers side-by-side (apparently vertical is best), but I also know lots of guys who've happily used 210 and 115 cab combos over the years.

What I can say for sure is that modern speaker size has little to do with what frequencies it can produce. Big cone excursion allows little speakers to generate lots of bottom end, look at the Phil Jones and Trace Elliott amps for proof of that. My personal favourite cab is a Traynor 112 that handles 400W and sounds amazing. I spent a few years lugging around SWR Goliath 410 cabs, but ended up making the switch to a 215 setup because it was much more manageable and gave me a tone I preferred. One piece of kit I regret selling is a Fender 215 Pro (800W handling), that was probably the best cab I've owned for playing out. Big enough to have stage presence, sounded great, but a lot easier to manage than an 810 fridge. Still, it became less and less of a thing as plugging into the PA with in-ears has become the standard, so you just need a good preamp and a cab as a stage prop...
 
I'm definitely going to continue to use in-ears at the louder venues and those with good enough house boards. A thing I've run into with those is that unless we bring our own mixing board, many of the smaller venues (and a few larger ones) just can't properly do in-ears. If I have the whole band in my ears, what's the point?

Thanks for the advice, I'll be over there today for something so I'll have a good listen to that cab at a distance, I've played through it for hours at this point (there's a SVT head on it on the floor) but sitting directly in front of it. It's getting great reviews from owners, so it does make me wonder if it was the amp, the eq setup or the cabinet itself in your case. I'll suss it out.
 
Shaman said:
I'm waiting for the store sale on the 20th, because there's a Traynor 600W 4ohm cabinet with two 10s, one 15 and a horn that will be on sale for $800. It's got my name all over it (but they're not taking pre-buys). I'll be there when the door opens, that's my ideal gigging setup ... lots of low-end, long-throw grunt with the 10s and horn putting out the sound that the band can use.

It ain't exactly light, that's the only downside.


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It's lighter than I expected. About 85 lbs. In a previous life I probably moved ampeg 8x10's 1000 times. That got old quickly as they are ~150 lbs plus the road case.
 
GreyGhost said:
It's lighter than I expected. About 85 lbs. In a previous life I probably moved ampeg 8x10's 1000 times. That got old quickly as they are ~150 lbs plus the road case.
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My buddy plays bars with two of those. He's about 5 years older than me. I get to play through the setup from time to time.

It sounds amazing, of course. Not worth it for me, I'm home, plenty tired at 3:30am from my main gig venue as it is. We play with a real Hammond B with a Leslie. The keyboards & organ are our main workload, my bass takes less than 5 minutes minus sound check.

PS to Priller: L&M has a 30 day money back, no questions asked, guarantee. So I'll probably jump and sound it out at rehearsal.
 
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Shaman said:
Oddly, Long & McQuade in Kingston is doing well. I'm probably keeping them in business at this point, LOL

Not really, I'm not a gear / pedal fanatic, I just buy the better quality amps & guitars sporadically.

I'm seriously contemplating a trip this weekend to the nearest Steve's.
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I bought a baby grand from L&M Oakville, a few yrs ago, they still come and tune it for free. my daughters play it constantly.
 
If anyone is interested in looking at musical gear.
I have guitars, amps and a bass all sitting in the basement collecting dust.
Don't plan on listing them for sale but I'm happy to discuss that option.
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