[Harp-L] small amps, VC508 and others, harpgear.com



Just another opinion on the Crate VC508 ....
   
  I got a used VC508 on a great deal at guitar center. It was my very first harp amp and I bought it after reading Richard Hunter's recommendation on his website. I changed the preamp tube from a 12AX7 to a 12AU7 and it sounded great and had very little feedback problems. I used it for quite a while and liked it. Thanks Richard.
   
  Oh, one more thing, the effects loop is great. An analog delay placed in the effects loops sounds MUCH better than placed in front of the amp.
   
  Now the negatives...
   
  The tone control is not particularly useful. From what I've read its just a midrange cut. I am not able to adjust the tone as I would like. Also the amp has a solid state preamp stage (Op amp) in front of the tube preamp. Its designed to boost a guitar signal up to a higher level before going into the first tube stage. It is not intended to produce distortion and will not normally do so with a guitar input. The problem is that a hot harp mic puts out a higher level than a guitar and you will likely get clipping, i.e. solid state distortion. I play through it with my Bottle 'O Blues mic and always get clipping and distortion out of this solid state stage. I've looked at it with an oscilloscope and its clearly visible. I modified the circuit to reduce the gain enough to prevent clipping, but then the overall amp did not have enough gain. I'm sure with some effort this amp could be modified to eliminate the solid state distortion (which is somewhat rough sounding) and get a nice, fat,
 tube distortion sound. But so far I've been unwilling to put the time into it.
   
  However, overall this is a pretty good sounding amp and a great deal. I recommend it for a very inexpensive and quite decent sounding tube amp setup. What other tube amp can you get for $125 used?
   
  Other small amps? Well I like my Pignose Hog-20 for portable playing. 20W and portable is a nice combination. Its solid state but sounds good anyway. Note however that the input resistance is not all that high on this amp. Every mic I've plugged into it sounded good and had a stong output except for the two Green Bullets I've tried and they both had weak outputs which I attribute to high mic impedance, and lower than expected amp input impedance.
   
  For fun I have a Danelectro Honeytone mini-amp. Runs on a 9V battery, looks cool, and sounds good too. Lots of fun to play with.
   
  I sell tons of the Smokey portable battery-powered amps as package deals with my Bottle 'O Blues mics. Everyone loves these things. They are small enough to carry around in your harp case and pull out to play electric harp anywhere. They are super distorted and have no knobs or adjustments at all. 
   
  I'm hearing great things about Brian Purdy's amps at www.harpgear.com . He is getting great reviews from some big names and I agree after I heard some sound file he sent me the other day. I belive his amps are based on the Fender Champ with mods to make it more harp friendly. Sounds like a winner to me. Eventually I'll buy one of these .
   
  Jim McBride
   
   
   
   
   

			
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