Re: [Harp-L] best small tube amp?

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There are a lot of 5 watt tube amps on the market by Fender (Champ), Crate (VC508/V8), Epiphone (Galaxy), VHT Special 6, etc.  I love my Crate VC508, which was modified by Ron Holmes of Homes Engineering; for that matter, I loved it before Ron modded it.  Paul Messinger uses a Crate VC508 in his band Climbing Jacob's Ladder, and it sounds great to me.

But if I was buying today, and I was going for a small tube amp, I'd probably go for the VHT Special 6, which is the only one of the bunch with a 10" speaker.  Speaker size makes a difference--you're going to get more low end frequencies out of a 10" speaker than an 8" speaker, and it'll be louder too.   

I wouldn't actually go for a small tube amp, though.  The original post mentioned a Fender Blues Junior.  For a lot less than a Blues Junior, you can buy a Digitech RP255 plus a Peavey KB2 keyboard amp plus my patch set for Digitech RP, and it'll sound better for blues (and louder) out of the box than a blues junior, and give you a lot of other sounds too. (Not exactly a fair comparison, given that the Blues Junior isn't really a topnotch blues harp amp; but still.)

Regards, Richard Hunter   

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