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Low Watt Tube Amps


Mickguard

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You could always just buy one of these I've heard they sound prety much transparent and you can turn your amp up as loud as you want and adjust the volume on there. It goes in between your amp and your speaker.

If you sell your ampeg with the defecit and buying a better you you will spend that much anyways. So you might as well just turn down the volume on the amp you already like...

Edited by Godin SD
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here is the link to weber's site.. L-Pad design and calculator

Plug in your amps specs and this will show you exactly what kind of resistors to buy. The wattage is more of a maximum thing.. you can go overkill on wattage. The resistance factor is crucial to get that as close as possible to the calculated spec.

The THD hotplates are awesome but for a 15 watter I would say it's overkill. nice to have a variable attenuation but honestly you can do that to with this, just replace one of the resistors with a rheostat that meets the requirements. The rheostats aren't cheap, you'll drop 50 bucks or so on one but it's still cheaper than a hotplate..

If you just want to experiment, just get the two resisters and rig up a direct wire to your speaker terminals with them exposed. Ijust did the box so I could keep it confined and remove it when I wanted to.

by the way.. the link on the bottom of the page to email ted weber.. he is a super nice guy and totally walked me through making my l-pad. even if it costs him a sale.. And in fact you might just want to buy one of his variable l-pads.. they aren't that expensive and it would save you a headache but connecting them can be a pain if your amp doesn't have a 1/4" output jack for the speaker.

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Plenty of manufactures are making 5, 4, and i've even seen some 2 and 1 watt amps.  But they cost a fortune and usually only have a volume control and thats it.

That's what i like about the Valve Junior --simple and cheap.

Don't think I'd want to gig with it though....we'll see, I'm going to order it tomorrow

I played one last week. I wasn't all that impressed no matter what I ran through it: US Deluxe Strat, Gibson SG, and Strat 12 string. The clean sound was less than stellar, while the louder sounds were a little more overdriven and ballsy, but thin. It's possible that a different preamp and power tube in it could make it sound better.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

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Tex: Well, the Valve Junior should be here by Thursday, so we'll see how I like it...I'm not expecting more than I paid for it, not to worry about that...if it really doesn't do what I want it to do, I can always sell it on...

Godin: I *never* sell at a deficit! Actually, I got a great deal on the Ampeg, so I could probably sell it and recoup...but I'll be keeping this one for a while, it's a great little amp. Apparently in the states they don't cost that much at all anymore....

Leadbelly: thanks for the link --I'm going to email him about this.

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That so? You know their web site really blows...'course, if I can't find the info I want inside of 5 minutes, I'm out of there...I have to look at too many web sites in the course of the day, just don't have the patience, I guess.

Anyway, those Randalls will go on my list of possible future purchases when I get the next round of jonesing for new gear...

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Got my Valve Junior today....and I'm liking it so far!

I'll say this: there's no 'clean' sound on this amp...as soon as you boost it past 9 o'clock, the tubes start to break up really nicely. By the time you hit noon, you've got some really thick overdrive...and past three you're into some great distortion...great sustain...some nice feedback --very managable.

And all that at very reasonable volume levels--not apartment level stuff, of course, but I don't have to deal with that, I'm not in the house, I'm in my own separate studio/office/pigsty. I can get the tone I'm looking for (closer to Johnny Thunders than to John McLaughlin :D )

We'll see how it handles going up against the full band tomorrow night, but I don't see any problems getting through at all. And they're not going to complain about me being too loud.

One nice thing about this amp is that it's very simple--just a volume knob. So your guitar really becomes a big part of the tone...

I'm going to try sending it through my Music Man's speakers (got to hurry though, that amp's up for sale this week) to hear the difference--the Valve Jr.'s speaker is kind of puny...but this isn't an amp to take on stage anyway.

We'll see how the amp holds up...one annoying thing already is that it's really noisy --there's a bad hum that only gets worse as you turn up ...(but I knew about that problem before I bought it...maybe there's a way to get it fixed?)

Anyway, for 150 euros, it seems like the best deal out there so far.

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