What is the best amp you have ever heard or played?

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pignose battery powered amp, as a preamp, into a ampeg V4 head and matching 4x12.
loud as hell.

god was amused.
 
Im a little biased and I love my LSS but for me the 59 bandmaster I inherited from my Pap is the best amp I've ever heard at volume. Turned down it's nice the cleans are awesome, but if you can crank it and push it hard that alone is just the sh!t. Crank it up, and with a light touch it's beautiful, start digging and bending and it just turns into a monster.

Then the wife and kids come home and I gotta put the monster back in its cage.
 
I think there is no "amp to end all amps", even the Mark V is still deep in the Mesa territory. So I'm just gonna write down some tones that left an impression:
-Hearing a nearly-cranked Marshall 1959SLP through a full stack of Greenback-loaded cabs has left my perception of tone (and my ears) scarred for life. For simple, "just" rock n' roll, nothing compares. Unparalleled clarity, punch, roaring straight at ya at volumes that turn your brain into mush. Also, that's it's biggest (should I say loudest?) problem.

-The ENGL Powerball, a formidable metal amp - ENGL amps just have so much punch and smacking low end it's almost annoying at times, when you want a more saggy tone. Awesome clean in the same package. Couldn't coax a good crunch tone out of it though. Brutal thing, lots of gain (almost too much), maybe a tad on the compressed side, but that can be a good thing.

-Marshall JVM. Does take its time to dial it in, but it's fairly simple to tweak. With some creative EQing it can step way out of the Marshall territory for some very unique modern chugaloony tones. Aggressive as hell, like a seriously pissed off Rottweiler. Most awesome threshold of distortion/mild crunch and up to more filthy tones I've ever heard to date (at reasonable volumes too!). Also, it's got a nice clean that's hard to put a finger on. This would be my "take to a deserted island" amp.

-Marshall Vintage Modern. This is hard to beat for anything up to metal (maybe some lower-gain early stuff). EXTREME interaction between the guitar's knobs and the amp. Can get awesome and diverse tones out of it without even touching the amps front panel. It's like the JVMs Crunch tones taken out and redone to a whole new level. I spend ONE AND A HALF HOUR blasting every possible Zeppelin, Hendrix, Who, GNR, AC/DC riff I could think of and I could go on forever.

-TriAxis' Lead 1 RED (no Phat mod) through a 2:90 with Deep&Modern engaged, bass set high. King Kong ain't got nothin' on this bad boy. I'm not overdoing it here, our f*king bathtub was rattling at the other end of the house, and I was using a 2x12"!!!. Crazy low end, sizzling top, it finally showed me what all the fuss over the Rectos is about. But, like someone already said, needs volume to shine, otherwise it's kinda "meh, I've heard that in every GC tryout".

-Mark IIC+ voicing. Sounds so... simple, pure, straighforward. Beautiful midrange, which I think is a shame that everyone tends to scoop (at least using the Mid knob, the EQ is a different story). Gotta love it. Sounds great through a Marshall power amp too!
-Mark IV voicing too. Well-defined no matter what you do to it, a voicing where men and boys are separated, it "wants" you to screw up.

I'm just a 17 year old kid, so I don't have years of experience and tons of amps behind me, but I do like trying out gear (pain in the *** if you live in mfking Slovenia) and finding it's strong spots and weak spots, so I rarely label an amp/guitar/pedal etc. as "crap" or "useless". It must have at least ONE usable setting for SOMETHING, and if it happens to be what turns you on, it's all it has to be, the more of those settings it has, the better!
Plus, if you can get your tone out of (pretty much) any piece of gear (okay, you can't get Machine Head out of a Princeton, now, can you?), you're pretty much the winner! 8)
 
To be honest, I've never played the amps that I dream about. They're so prohibitively expensive that none of the guitar stores around me will even carry them. From sound clips I've heard I would say the Bogner XTC would be the perfect amp for the lead tones I love (No amp does EVERYTHING I want though). As for what I've played, the amps that are my favorites are: Carvin Legacy, Egnator Tourmaster, Mesa Roadking 2, the Mesa-Boogie Mark 5, and my favorite that I've played is the one that I chose to bring home: my Mesa Express 5:50.
 
Yep, I would like to add and XTC but I didn't spend a lot of time with it ( Hour or so)
So besides a Komet, either my Shiva or Mark III.
 
Big Mesa fan as I have previously posted, but this is a clip of my all time favorite amp:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMKusULvuCQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgeOQ9l_8KQ&feature=related
 
The one in my sig:

Bogner 20th Anniversary EL34 Ecstasy

As close to perfect as I care to get.
 
The more I hear the Mark V the more I fall in love. I love my recto but I love the Soldano SLO and the Diezel VH4, the Bogner is also very good and I've tryed a few Marshall's whiched I liked too. This is subjective, it depends on the day, weather, mood, if its raining, if you're drunk, happy,etc. If its a good amp you will enjoy it some day!
 
peavey bandit 15 :lol:

seriously tho, back in my "jamming horrible punk rock in my garage" days, this amp had the sound, just not the volume... it was great for recording on our 4-track...

not so far back in my "i just got a job and i wanted the loudest amp on the planet" days, i used to have a EL34 100/100, Digitech Artist 2120 with a JMP-1 in the loop, into a 4x12 1960A (is A the slant? whatever, it was the slant cab)... i think i got it to 2 one day, and the cops showed up... i have no idea what they said to me...

i used to work at a rehearsal studio... our best amps were a jcm900 (we had about 6 of them but we had one with a piece of green tape on the handle that was better than the others... i used to hide it for when my friends came in to jam), a hiwatt custom 100 (people trying to buy it/steal it was a daily occurance... good thing it's so friggin' heavy), and strangely enough, an "evil" twin... jcm 2000's suck, as do fender hotrods... we never had any boogies but everybody and thier mother brought in rectifiers... i hated them... maybe it was because every band that had a rec played the same kind of music (which wasn't my kind of music) and the person bringing the amp in usually had to go around to every room and show people that he had a rec (without trying to look like he was showing everybody)... i haven't heard one in years, maybe they're cool, i haven't had a chance to listen to them without prejudice... i just know that for all the smack i talked about "rec poseurs" back in the day, my friends would be pretty amused to see me within 100 feet of one...

right now i have a .50 cal + and i would have to say overall it's the best amp i've owned... i am a fan and frequent user of digital modelling but this amp has me running guitar>chord>amp more and more... but the more i read about mark IVs around here the more i think that it has more of what i like about the .50 cal...

oh, and the guitar player in the band i'm in now has a rivera-designed '83 fender concert... totally bitchin' amp...
 
The 3 I've actually played (in no specific order):

Marshall 1962 Bluesbreaker...A friend let me use this for about a month, so I had plenty of time to get it set. It's responsible for a significant portion of my hearing loss! :shock:

An old Hiwatt 1/2 stack w/ Fane speakers....just in your f'ing face power rock; I know why Pete Townshend used these :twisted:

Stiletto Ace combo w/ 4x12 Recto cab....most awesome sounding rig I've ever heard. Saw a guy in Dallas a couple of years ago w/ this setup right after I got my Ace. I crawled up to the stage so I could feel it better...and I DID!!! 8) This is what I'm working toward with my rig now...just need to get that 4x12 to replace the 2x12!!! :mrgreen:
 
Soldano/Caswell X99 with CAE3+ mod in combination with a VHT Black Beauty 2562 Poweramp

simply AWESOME
 
I'm going to have to go with the Mark V. I've always loved the Mark Series amplifiers, especially the Mark IIC+ and the Mark IV, however, I was always a bit put off by them because of the shared tone controls and the (in my opinion) oddball control layout of the Mark IV (I have a problem, and I need mental help! The looks of equipment matter too much to me, I know they shouldn't), however, I fell in love with the Mark V just from the first few prototype photos. I was floored when I saw that they had basically taken the extreme versatility of the Roadster with it's completely channel specific controls and were offering it in a Mark series amp (Mark Series lead tones are way more preferable to me than the Recto series tones). The deal was sealed when I heard Dream Theater's Black Clouds & Silver Linings album, specifically when I first heard John Petrucci's majestic outro solo on The Count of Tuscany, which stood out to me right from first listen. Later, when I found that the Mark V was used pretty much just for that part, as compared to a vintage Mark IIC+ for the rest of the album, I just couldn't begin to imagine how perfect this amplifier must be. I then heard all about folks being completely blown away with how much better the cleans on the V were in comparison to all other Mark Series amplifiers.
I've tried out a couple at some of the local music stores, and oh man, if only I had the extra money laying around. This was the only piece of equipment I've ever not been initially "disappointed" with when auditioning it at the local music store!!!
 
j.d.hall said:
I then heard all about folks being completely blown away with how much better the cleans on the V were in comparison to all other Mark Series amplifiers.
Click to expand...

Who said this???? The Mark I and II have awesome cleans, but do not do them in conjunction with thier best lead tones. That is the difference. :shock:
 
Well, I'll admit that - the part about them not doing it in conjunction with their best lead tones as a result of the shared EQ controls. Now, don't get me wrong, I would not dare slander any Mesa clean tone (yes, I do find that even the 2 channel Dual Rectifier Solo Head was capable of pristine cleans), it's just that from what I was hearing in the Mark IV I played, from the clean channel, was a tone that was decent for percussive rhythms, but it wasn't much better than the clean channel of the old 2-channel Dual Rectifiers.
Here's the thing, I'll admit I've been "tone-spoiled" by having owned a Roadster for a while, which apparently had the clean circuitry of the Lone Star, but I've found that the clean capability of the Mark V I tried was better than those I could conjure out of the Mark IV.
Another thing to take into account: The Mark V I played through in a nice, dead-soundproof room was brand new. The Mark IV that I rented for a while was a 1993 model (I rented it sometime in 2009), so, I will admit that the age of the Mark IV coupled with the unfortunate abuse it has probably sustained over the years may have caused a slight degradation in the clean tone.
Also, it's all really just a matter of opinion. It's just the way I heard it, and that's not to say that my opinion is "right" or anything like that, but, for me, it's just what I preferred. I'm sure there are some people that find a Marshall JCM 800 with the gain set at 9:00 produces a good clean, and that might be true, but I'm sure there would be a long line up of folks who would disagree with that.
I haven't been one of the fortunate ones to actually use a real Mark IIC+ myself. I hope to one day though!
 

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