[Fulltone]

Now that I have my pedal ordered and on the way, I am shifting gears so to speak. I am now starting to hunt for a new amp. As of right now I am unsure of what to get as far as size, power and amp type (solid state or tube). I know that the tube amps are said to have better tonal qualities. I have hear some different brands of tube amps and I admit they do sound really awesome. I have also heard solid state amps that have a tube amp type sound that is also really good.

The one thing I didn't know about tube amps that I recently discovered is that they have to be ("revalved") although I am not sure if this right or if this is what its called. I also heard but don't know how true it is that the revalving gets really expensive depending on the tubes and other things (not sure what the other things are) I only got to read part of the article.

I don't really want to mess with taking it some where to have something done to it. Thats why I am seriously leaning towards a solid state amp that has a good sound.

I wish to have an amp bigger than what I have now. Currently I have a Behringer 15 W practice amp that is surprisingly loud given its size. I would like to have an amp that has a great clean tone but yet works good with pedals and overall larger than what I have now. I am looking for a 30 - 50 watt amp. I think it would be more than loud enough for what I am using it for. I also think either a 1x10 combo would be perfect.

I would also like to stay in the $200.00 - $375.00. I am not rich and it takes me forever to save money due to bills and other things.
Please tell what you have, how it does for you and the reliability you have had?

Thanks Guys and Gals, Zac

[eXperiment63]

Buy Palomino V16 15W Class A Tube Combo Amp online at Musician's Friend

That is a 15 watt all-tube amp. That will be louder than 30 watt solid state amps.

You only need to re-tube an amp based on how much you use it. If you really crank it a lot, you will need to replace them more often. But for your average user, most people get 1-2 years out of a good set of tubes.

[P-90]

Whether or not revalving (or retubing) an amp is expensive is mostly discretionary. Almost all of the more common sorts of tubes are still in production, and a lot of the recently made ones are quite decent quality. However, if you haven't run into them yet, you WILL find people who swear that the only really GREAT sounding tube is some Mullard or Telefunken made to milspec standards in the 1960s. Tubes like this can cost, literally, twenty times as much as regular ones. They're referred to as NOS (New Old Stock), meaning that they're old but unused.

If you become a worshipper at the altar of NOS tubes, you have to retube your amp the moment you get it, and it will cost you hundreds of dollars. And then there's replacement every few years. If you don't get caught up in that stuff, and avoid only the absolute cheapest of tubes, you can expect to pay $8-$15 per tube ($50 or so for the whole amp). You can also wait for a tube to get noisy before you replace it, rather than automatically replacing them all when they still have useful life remaining. So expect $20-$30 a year in upkeep, on average.

Hybrid amps, like the Vox Valvetronix, and similar models from other makers, usually just have one 12AX7 tube in them, which is used to give a tubier sound to the whole amp. A decent 12AX7 costs about $8, so that drops your upkeep costs to an average of about $4 a year. As with all-tube amps, replacing them by yourself isn't hard, so it shouldn't be necessary to pay a technician to do it.