Recommendations for a solid practice amp

[mrjohnfarson]

Living in an apartment I can't crank up my half stack so the tone sounds not so great. I was wondering if anyone had some recommendations for solid practice amps <$500. Also, I have been looking into getting an attenuator (Marshall PB100 Power Brake Inductive Speaker Attenuator | Musician&#39;s Friend) to try and get a full tone out of my stack while getting low volumes. Has anyone tried this?

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[guitar_player4_2_0]

Line 6 spider. Been playing one for years as my practice amp. Good cleans with built in effects, and a good solid distortion sound at low volumes. Plus it's got a built in booster and noise gate. I picked up the 15 watter about four years ago for $100 new and it's still goin strong.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Can't go wrong with a Line 6 Spider or Roland Cube.

 

[ascl]

How about a blackstar HT1? You can grab just the head and put it into your existing cabinet (assuming you have an 8&#937; one) for $250 ish, depending on where you are.

 

[ShadyDavey]

Can't go wrong with a Line 6 Spider or Roland Cube.

Yep yep. Cube 40 XL with the power squeezer to drop it to two watts, decent effects, excellent COSM modelling and a very portable, inexpensive package.

Very hard to beat the latter.

 

[Ishan]

Cube 80XL!

 

[budda]

fender mustang III gets my vote - haven't extensively tried the cubes against it

 

[MesaENGR412]

Peavey Vypyr 30 watt combo. Fantastic little amp with lots of amp models and effects that actually sound good for the price ($199). and it gets loud if needed as well. The 15 watt model might be even better for an apartment.

-AJH

 

[Estilo]

How about an attenuator?

 

[Djentliman]

The attenuator would be a good idea but i don't think they are as good for low bedroom/apartment volumes. In my findings, they were meant for people who have a 120 watt amp for band practice or for a show and they still wanted that saturated tube tone, but without blowing everybody else out of the ball park!

But don't take my words with any solidity. I might be wrong here!

EDIT: Oh and +10 to the peavy vypry. those things blow any other modeling amp out of the water!

 

[VBCheeseGrater]

I vote Blackstar HT20. Perfect at low volume but you can still gig it if you need to. Plus it sounds great. Actually id prefer the HT40 due to the modern voicing, but we are talking practice amps. I'd think the HT40 would be fine anyway at practice levels, the HT stuff does NOT need to be turned up for a sweet spot IME.

I would enjoy the HT stuff more than a spider or cube, but those are good choices too for a practice amp.

 

[Spinedriver]

The new Blackstar ID series seem to be getting a lot of positive attention and are very reasonably priced. Depending on how much of a hurry you're in, they might be something worth looking at (from what I've read, they're only coming out at the end of April-ish).