In our new ‘Shop Talk’ blog series, we’re going to focus on questions our customers regularly ask us in our stores, starting with a subject that comes up an awful lot: what's the best guitar amp under £500?
We’ll be putting the questions to selected team members who’ll tell you what they like and why they like it, bringing together a range of disparate and unique perspectives.
Bear in mind, this is not a comprehensive roundup, nor is it an objective look at comparisons or respective features: this is us asking our team about their favourite gear, subject to simple parameters. In this case, the only parameters are the price and the focus on electric guitar amps, so there will be no acoustic or bass combos in this blog. Another time!
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So, read on to hear a little more from Steve McBride, Dean Jones, Ross Brodie, Iain Montgomery and myself, Ray McClelland, about what makes us tick in terms of amps!
First up, team member Steve McBride has singled out the Blackstar HT-5R Mk II combo as his sub £500 choice. This popular 1x12 valve combo is packed with features and has bags of gain, something that will appeal to those looking for classic and contemporary dirt tones. Says Steve himself: “I recently bought one for myself! There’s a sweet attenuator to bring the power to half a watt, a voice switch for more gain and a USB direct output for when I’m recording.”
Steve is a big Punk and Hard Rock fan, so his kind of amp has to offer quality high-gain valve sounds with a sizeable thump. Not an easy task for a small combo with only a single 12-inch speaker, but this Blackstar HT-5R MkII Combo excels at it!
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The USB connectivity that Steve mentioned has an inbuilt amp simulator to accurately capture the colour and tone of the HT-5 without having to resort to micing up the speaker when recording. The ultimate house ampfor Hard Rockers? It’s definitely a contender.
This downsized brother to the famous JC-120 is the top pick of staff member Dean Jones. The full-size Jazz Chorus is an enduring classic, appealing to players as disparate as Andy Summers, James Hetfield and Adrian Belew. The focus is on pristine clean tones, achieved in stereo and with liberal coatings of on-board Chorus added for seasoning.
This smaller JC-22 model keeps the unique styling of the original, plus the two speakers (6.5” versions this time out) and, naturally, the famous Chorus circuit. Fans of jangle-some Pop style playing from the likes of Johnny Marr will adore the sounds on offer here: it is not an amp for Rockers by any means but then it was hardly designed that way.
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So why does Dean like it? “It’s got a perfect clean sound, loads of Chorus, it’s great at taking pedals, brilliant for micing up at gigs and is the perfect practice amp”. Thanks Dean, that pretty much sums it up!
Marshall are of course the most widely recognised amplifier brand in the world, with a legacy that spans well over half a century. They’ve shown up on stage with almost every Rock legend there ever was but how do things fare at the more affordable end of the spectrum? Can Marshall’s smaller and more humble models still deliver?
Of course they can, says Glasgow team member Iain Montgomery. His choice in the sub-£500 category is the all-valve DSL20CR. This is a dual-channel, 20 watt combo with an attenuator for reducing the power by half. So why did Iain pick this one?
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“My influences range from Pop-Punk bands like Jawbreaker and Blink 182 to stuff like the Stone Roses and the Cribs. I play a Tele and a Mustang and want a classic valve crunch that can serve me well over no matter what I play. What’s more classic than Marshall? I like distortion and drive but I’m not keen on high-gain, Metal sounds. This DSL20CR nails the middle ground for me and sounds classic.”
‘I love any amp bold enough to call one of their channels ‘Brown’, after Eddie Van Halen’s famous tone! That aside, I really enjoy how flexible and capable this amp is for using with a number of different guitars and styles. The FX are BOSS quality, the attenuator is super handy and it records direct really well too. What else do you need?’
The BOSS Katana 50 MKII features upgraded sounds and additional FX. There’s even a channel designed specifically for plugging electro-acoustic guitars into. Whilst certainly comprehensive, none of these features would matter much if the amp itself didn’t sound good. Thankfully, the sounds available are very impressive, not to mention reactive and detailed. For a one stop shop for your home tone needs, this is a very good choice indeed.
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I love how this amp looks, I love how light it is and, as I hinted earlier, it sounds wonderful with a smattering of your favourite stomp boxes! I love artists like Tom Waits and Nick Cave and, to me, this amp gets me into those kind of headspaces in ways that other amps maybe don’t.
So, there you have it. Our passions, our opinions. Were we to lift the price parameter somewhat, you’d no doubt be reading about five entirely different amps but then that’s the whole fun of it! These limitations are often more illuminating than having an entirely open forum. It’s good to discuss and celebrate equipment at all price levels, not just the beginner’s gear and then the very top of the range! We love it all here and we want to spread that love.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our team members’ insights into affordable amps. There will be much more of this in the future so keep an eye out for future blogs!. Enthusiasts can easily spend thousands on a new amplifier, but that doesn’t mean you have to drain your bank account to get hold of a solid amplifier.
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This is especially important when you’re on a budget. Is sheer volume what you need? Quality 100-watt tube amps tend to be far more expensive than their solid-state counterparts. However, if you’re looking for a low-volume amplifier for home, studio or even live use, a budget of $500 will get you some great low-power tube options, perfect for cranking in order to get that luscious valve distortion.
This choice also comes down to your specific situation. If you already own a cabinet you love, or are gigging at venues that provide cabinets, then a new head could be what you’re after. If you’re looking for your first amp, or are wanting to change the style of speaker you’re working with, getting a combo is a great way to save some cash. We’ve budgeted the heads and combos the same, to take into account their differing applications.
The BOSS Katana’s well-regarded status as an affordable, giggable all-rounder has made it almost a meme in some circles – forever recommended to any newcomer looking for their first amplifier. However, that’s not unwarranted – this iteration is especially easy to recommend, with its updated amplifier models, reliability and power. If you’re yet to collect a wardrobe full of effects pedals, there’s also a handful of onboard options available, and you can have five engaged at a time. There’s also double the number of amp sounds compared to MkI, thanks to the new ‘Variation’ function.
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And, with a 100-watt power stage and two 12-inch speakers, it’s more than powerful enough for large gigs. Thanks to the effects loop, you can also leverage this power with the preamp of your choice.
The HT5R MkII condenses all of Blackstar’s most renowned features into a compact five-watt combo with a 12-inch speaker. Two channels – clean and overdrive – inbuilt reverb, the brand’s patented ISF feature, three-band tone stack, a USB audio out, XLR DI out, and a power reduction switch to take you down to 0.5 watts are its standout features. Tube-wise, the HT5R MkII has a 12AX7 in the preamp and a 12BH7 in the power amp. It does go slightly above the $500 mark, but its sheer versatility earns its place on this list.
The recently-announced Super Crush 100 head from orange is a great option for those looking for the volume and presence of a Rockerverb – for a third of the price. Iterating on the well-received Crush Pro, the Super Crush uses JFET transistors rather than op-amps to more accurately capture the vibe of a tube amplifier, and comes complete with a dirty and a clean channel. There’s no digital amp modelling here, in fact, the only digital part of the signal chain is the reverb. Even the rear cab-sim is analogue.
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There’s more than enough gain on tap for the crushing, thick metal tones the Rockerverb is famous for, but the amp will stay sparkly clean at high volumes if you need it to.
The power-amp stage is actually just the Orange Pedal Baby 100, integrated into the output stage of the amp. Its standalone version provided a powerful and clean way of amplifying a preamp or a
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