Best Guitar Amps from Budget to Boutique (with  

Here from the psionic channel!

Always enjoy these roundtable discussions. I rarely walk away w/o having learned something new or hearing a take on something that I may not have considered previously. Hearing you guys speak truthfully about equipment is infinitely helpful and is something that I can in turn, potentially pass on to bandmates.

Lyle’s honesty is refreshing and lead me to shop for an AC15C1

One glaring mistake - I said to jumper the 330K in series before the volume pot of the “Gain” channel in the AC15C1 and AC30C2 series. I meant to say the Normal channel. See folks, live without a net…

I sometimes watch Lyle’s vids as a relaxation strategy because of that wonderful deep, soothing voice 😂

I use a Modeler, but I regularly watch Lyle's Channel to learn about amp design, what the manufacturers did right and wrong, and how they amps are meant to work. Thanks

I just couldn't stop listening to Lyle and you guys! I appreciate the honesty!

Always, and I say again, I ALWAYS appreciate Mr.Caldwell's candor! Very refreshing!

Mason, thank you for having Lyle on. I've been following his channel since his early days on RU-vid. Lyle is a class act and a remarkable tech.

What a great discussion. I love this type of content. Thanks so much for creating/posting this.

Guitar sanctuary is amazing, anyone living in Texas or surrounding states I recommend visiting them for their high end guitars, boutique amps, and plethora of pedals!

I became addicted to Lyle's channel, when I saw his Master-Class on: Upgrades & Mods to the 65 Fender Princeton Reverb Amp = meticulous work. An absolute "Clinic" - he is phenomenal. oNe LoVe from NYC

Lyle's honesty and straight-forward talk is WHY is follow him and trust his opinions. Thanks boys.

The reason I love to watch videos like this are when I get to hear real professionals who actually know what they are talking about say something contradictory to something a similarly qualified person I know has said. The shop I drop all of my disposable income off at HATES those less expensive Vox amps because their amp tech is always working on them. Makes me want to know more...like maybe that is because people are using the Hell out of them so they break 'more often' ...? I like answers which lead to more questions.

Lyle’s voice is the bob ross of the amp world. It is so relaxing.

To Lyle’s point about guys showing up on a Tuesday night with a 4x12 and a 50 watt Marshall - some years ago I decided to ditch all that and now I roll into most gigs with a Friedman 1x12 cab and a Dirty Shirley or a 1987x (with attenuator when necessary) and my tone has never been better and it’s been years since I’ve gotten on the wrong side of the soundman. These really are exciting times haha

OMG Mason what a beautiful family you have... seeing you light up when they came in the room really tells what kind of man you are..mad respect to you my man❤️🤘😁

I can say that I own a Marshall DSL40CR and it's honestly a decent tube amp! Is it the amp of my dreams....absolutely not but it gets me the sound I want regardless.

Absolutely loved this episode! Lyle is easily the Michelangelo of amp AND guitar circuits and repairs. Although most of what he says flies right over my head as far as circuitry and design goes and modding and fixing/restoring them goes, I have learned so much from him as to what to look for when considering purchasing an amp and looking ahead to how well it will hold up and how much you can expect to spend doing any repairs and maintenance. I have a Ceriatone amp and he had some really good things to say about it as far as build quality and tone potential. Other than a bit of a strange grounding bus issue that is easily improved, he seemed to like it and helped me feel better about my purchase and how easily it can be serviced. Yep. Lyle is the man!

I love going to sleep with amp repair videos!

I love buying cheap hot rod fenders and ripping out the pcb and hand wiring bassmans or JMPs in them. So fun.

Glad to see Lyle! Love his channel

I hope Lyle becomes a regular guest. My electronics knowledge ends at cable soldering, but I love Lyle's channel and learn at least one interesting thing every episode he puts up. This was a great discussion.

I went through a decade of buying all brands of tube amps and opening them up to examine them. I settled on 2 Silverface Fenders, a Deluxe Reverb and a Bassman 100.

Great to see Lyle here too. @psionicaudio knows amps if anyone. BTW, my Suhr Badger 18 is most likely gonna outlive me. My only amp since 2011.

Thanks for posting, great discussion!

I been using a Blackstar studio 10 6L6 and its a light weight tube amp with an excellent sound, its loud and gigable. If you like the 6L6 fender or mesa sound its great. You can find them for $500 or even less brand new or open box.

I found a one year old Vox ac15 in a pawn shop and paid $400 out the door! Great sounding amp! Very heavy! Two channels, normal and top boost with reverb and tremolo! I was also able to pick up a brand new Marshall origin 50c for $611 + tax. The dsl is probably a better amp, but I love my pedals, and with 50 watts, three power modes, efx loop, FS, and tons of clean headroom, and the price I paid, I can't complain. It even gets old 70s AC/DC, Free, classic rock dirty IF you can handle the volume!? Cause it be LOUD AF!! Even in tge 5 watt mode it's no one else home loud. So for just over $1k I got a couple of really usable, good sounding, tube amps from the classic British vibe. I'm happy. 😊

SUCH a great episode! Love Lyle, been watching him for a while now, LOVE that you had him on!

This was great. Enjoyed it a lot.

About Peavey: A few months ago I played with an old bandmate of mine for the first time since 1993. In 1993 he played his father’s old Peavey Deuce 100 watt 2x12 tube combo. At band rehearsals I’d play my bass into it too, together with him playing his guitar into it. I used to rent a bass amp for gigs. It sounded great. Only thing was the reverb unit needed repair. But hey, when you’re young you want new guitars and not spent money on stupid repairs... 😎 So, after 31 years we played together for the first time again. We both had been playing for all those years but never met up again because we both moved to different cities. Guess what! He was still playing that same old Peavey Deuce!! Only had to change the power tubes a few times and yes, the reverb unit still acted funny... 😂

I went all in and now have my perfect setup. DRZ Cure, AN Ampliphonics, and a stack of pedals. If I ever buy anything else it will be extra heads.

Only thing keeping me for buying a VOX AC15C1 is the lack of an effects loop. Have to move up to the AC30 which is out of my price range.

I got a used Swart AST at a great price on Lyle's recommendation (about Swart as a company) and I couldn't be happier. Fantastic amp and it is built to last forever.

any thoughts on roland jc120?

I have an Origin20 and even if it doesn't do the plexi thing, I still think it's a great sounding amplifier. Got mine for dirt cheap as well with an effects loop, not a burden to lug around to rehearsals.

Lyle's comments on the Marshall Orgin and the Studio 20 were a revelation! I would submit that because the Studio 20 is built in England, the price point is higher but as a quality of build issue, it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the price difference. I own a HRD version 4, and, with certain drives, I can get somewhere in the Marshall ballpark. Also, thanks for the 'fire alert' on the HRD and is there a fix for this problem?

I chose the peavey classic 20w head and matching cab 1w5wand20w. XLR mic out with cab simulation, headphone input to play through headphones.

It was Manic Depression that Seal and Jeff Beck covered. Holy smokes what a track that was.

Lyle is awesome. Love Psionic

Lyle is definately has the experience that guitar players need always chasing sound but also chasing a amp that will hold upI have learned alot from him in 3 weeks amazing guy !!!1 thanks Lyle for putting it straight with no BS

While I'm not in the amp tech business myself, I do share a similar skill set with Lyle in a more industrial setting. I've learned so much from watching his videos and it has enabled me to find some incredible deals on amps that would be considered a terrible deal for most but are quite the steal if you can do your own work. It's turned into quite the lucrative side hustle. I guess that makes me a sort of amp tech in a way, but I couldn't even begin to hold a candle to Lyle's knowledge and professional experience. If you want to be an amp tech or you want to do your own work, Lyle is an invaluable resource for learning what kind of problems to look for in a used (and sometimes new **ahem** MESA **ahem**)amp. If you want more theoretical knowledge on circuit design, Uncle Doug's channel is a must subscribe as well.

Dear Lyle, i fully respect your knowledge about tube amps so if you say that a tube amp has design problems, its probably true. But while you can have factual and objective criticism about a design of a tube amp, any comment about sound is always subjective. There are no good or bad sounding amps, there are just amp that you think sound nice and amps that you think do not sounds nice. And dont forget that some of the most beautiful solo guitar sounds are made with very inexpensive, weird, incorrectly used or sometimes even broken amps ;)

I love the DSL40CR. I had 2 of them. They do have this weird flaw in the circuit board (can't remember what the tech called it) that overheats a $3 capacitor. I had to have one fixed and sold the other before it could happen again. They were the first amps I had bought in 20 years. They sound great, but you will likely have to fix them at some point. Good news is the fix is cheap. I moved on to a JCM800 2203x and a Friedman BE 100 Deluxe and a Quad Cortex.

Lyle is an awesome guest. Love his videos

Watched the whole thing believing the title that you guys would eventually get to higher-end recommendations . . .

Lyle is great... And more!

Yeah… I’m looking for anything 30-50watts, ideally something that can model an AC30 or at LEAST a Fender Deluxe Twin Reverb, with an FX loop and an output attenuator. I have a Vox Cambridge 50 that I love; however, it has no FX loop. I need an FX Loop for a couple of my modulators and time-based effects. It has a few built-in, but they’re not up to my standards for recording. I’m a former mix engineer (retired due to disability), and my biggest problem is my budget.

Lyle, 1st off. I enjoy watching your amp service videos. I’m always impressed on your knowledge. Mason, I have a vertex steel string V2 I believe, It’s a bit microphonic. You can hear me tapping on the pedal through the amp. I bought it in 2020 I believe. I love that pedal, however I have to remove off the chain due to the noise when I click it on. Do you think it is a ground issue?

I love Orange amps, but those pots have always bothered me. I put shims in the split shaft on mine to not break them with the set screw. I would like to change them one day, but luckily no failures yet outside of cleaning. Theres a couple other small things they do I don’t like, molex connectors for the filaments right on the tube socket thats soldered to the PCB and hot glue gobbed on top. This has been a failure point, and I think the newer amps now solder direct. My Rocker 30 which I love has cathode biased EL34’s, and the large cemet bias resistors just kind of hang unsupported on the board. They move when things warm up. I have a chasis mount resistor to fix this. The Chinese amps have quite a few QC issues. On the newer Vox AC30’s I’m not impressed. I bought one new about 5 years ago, no experience with Vox before, but after 30 minutes of playing it would crackle. Being under warranty I took it back to the store and they replaced all the tubes for me. Took it home, same thing. I opened it up just to have a look and thought the PCB was kind if cheap looking, thin and a little bent where it was fixed. I didn’t want to dissemble because it was new and warrantied, so I took it back to the store. They thought I was crazy, but they kept it for testing and later phoned me and confirmed that it was crackling after 30 minutes. They said they would replace it or refund me, so I took the refund. I didn’t want another after what I saw inside the amp. Also, the cabinet was MDF. Didn’t seem worth it for the price when I could get a nicer amp for the money, namely a handwired made in Canada Traynor YGM3 (I’m in Canada) On effects loops I’m 100% solid sate if its designed well. They don’t color the tone, theres no tube to go bad and you’re likely putting solid state devices in that loop anyways, what difference is adding two more solid state stages in there that sound good (designed well) and are consistent. I’ve installed tube loops that absolutely changed the tone and characteristic of the amp vs a solid state where I can barely if even tell the difference. I always install an effects loop bypass switch, but it honestly isn’t necessary I find when you have a good effects loop, its more for the mind.

Ive played gigs with a 50w/4x12 on tuesday nights to almost nobody, gotta make sure they see mines bigger

I had 2 brand new Marshal DSL CR40 with the 6 button footswitch. Both failed me on stage, separate occasions while switching from dirty to clean channel, within one month of purchase. Both were having issues with reverb upon powering up. You'd have to shut it down, then restart - it works! I loved the sound, but it was unreliable. I got a full refund.

VERTEX, Instead of using the amplifiers effects loops because of the , Interfacing issues, S/N issues ,makeup gain compensation issues, the phase inverter distortion issues. etc. Try doing "effects loop SLAVING" which is taking the effects loop SEND from amplifier#1 and going to your guitar pedals/pedalboard then feeding that into another amplifiers#2 front end input jack then sending amplifers#2 effects loop SEND port to feed into amplifers#1 effects loop RETURN port. This is Effects loop Slaving might have a better S/N ratio and impedance matching. Have you tried doing this setup?

The Fryette PS’s are awesome… as an attenuator… I don’t use the effects loop much at all.

I've been subscribed to psionic since watching the very first video I came across..it was a multi part explanation of how tube amps work.. between the amazing presentation of highly technical information to the beautiful storytelling voice I was immediately hooked and subbed..great insight and fantastic content @ chairman of the boards!!

LYLE!!! Dropping some knowledge on us saplings. Thanks everybody; good chat.

Lyle rocks! Love watching his channel, it’s like amp asmr.

I'd like Lyle's opinion of Quilter amps. Specifically the Cub models.

Wait are we talking the 'kiss from a rose' Seal has heaps of guitar pedals?

Really great episode! I wanted to get your guys takes on the tone king imperial (amp circuitry wise) and whether its worth the long term investment based on its circuit design / ease of servicing etc

Headstrong lil king (s)? Seems a lot of money but endgame to me...

Friggin Delores!

Lyle is such a treasure to listen to!

I got the first Chinese AC30 and it was rubbish blew tubes every week it was badly wired at the factory I found out

laugh if you want but i had a berhinger analog amp and it had great sound,Fender bassman modded for guitar!!

This is awesome. I would love some smaller amp recommendations though. I live in an apartment so the DSL40 is just too loud for me. Would the smaller Marshall's like the DSL5 and DSL1 also be worth buying?

Lyle.. the man.. Caldwell

Hats off to you Lyle for highlighting how a poorly designed amp can cost a poor kid all their hard earned, only to go up in smoke soon after the warranty period is up... G'day from the land down under also! 🤘

The problem with most amps is.........forgive me........the player not knowing ANYTHING about electronics and how to use the amplifier to suit their purpose. And they never have the time or bother to learn what they need to know to make an informed decision when trying and buying and amplifier. And these days companies literally don't care about quality control, just hype control. They use the cheapest parts and designs. They don't produce good sound unless you HAVE learned how to use them. And even then, they're simply not going to handle what you want them to handle for ANY length of time. Just like every other line of manufacturing, YOU MAKING MULTIPLE purchases is what keeps them reeling in the dough. And ya know what? Many amplifiers just aren't useable in the environment the buyer has purchased them for. BEST ADVICE for all beginners and intermediate players. Make sure not getting an amp just because you love it. Make sure you get one for the environment it's going to be used in and/or can be used in conjunction with your PC if you are at home. Because you're NOT going to be in a stadium or arena. Then perhaps you will have something that you will stick with and learn how to use to your satisfaction. I can't count the number of amps I have bought that I just couldn't play because they were TOO MUCH for the environment. As is, in conjunction with a pedal board or even a drum machine that has a built-in guitar processor I have 2 of the cheapest amplifiers available and I am happier with them than any amp ever. Because I finally took the time to actually learn something and then try before buying. I would be HAPPIER if I did have a Friedman XIR tube pedal and a Tonemaster Pro Pedal. Then if anything some good monitors for my PC. But I could suffice with what I have just fine. Bottom line I use when shopping is, "Don't feed someone that isn't giving you what you need for the cash they are asking." You're screwing yourself if you do.

VOX AC15C1 just found one online under $500 He is right! Dang.

I Love the honesty.

1:06:41 There's a great episode of Song Exploder that answers that exact question, Lyle! Go listen, it's fascinating.

I’m new to guitar, I was looking at the traynor ygl 15 and ygl 30, I’m just playing at home and I was wondering where the 30 has a master volume and the 15 doesn’t, would the 30 make more sense to get better driven sounds at lower volumes or should I get the 15 and pick up a volume pedal or a attenuator(reasonable price one) , I enjoy your videos thanks

I had a 600 dollar soldano hot rod 50 and a low serial number 1982 jv the top end for 500. I couldnt afford alot but i held on to em and people are selling that first low serial jv for 4000

I like the tone master takes my pedals well and convenient for gigs

Just a comment to the fx loop part: Brian May has a wet-dry setup with his cranked AC30s (not using a delay in front of his amps).

I'm taking notes.

So what’s the best “small” amp you could gig with if money was no problem???

Suhr Bella or Friedman Twin Sister Combo or Bad Cat Hot Cat 1X12 ????

Friedman - GAME OVER

Apparently, Lyle didn’t check with any gigging musicians maybe Tylor Bryant or Mike McCready I don’t think those guys would sacrifice tone

What are your thoughts on the Roland GA-112? There's one available here for 50% less and I was wondering if that's a good pick for the times we're in. The amp is discontinued by Roland.

Off topic, but did Lyle ever work in radio? Thanks for the podcast! I can Always learn something!

Ok … this stuff is awesome … cute kid Mason!

what about Fuchs amps?

Peavy vtm was awesome head it was a take on the jose mod on marshall

Dont over look the early 80's Rivera Fender stuff. Point to point built like a tank. Needs a bit of work but really nice

laney supertop 15 - marshell origen 20 fender superchamp x3 pevey classic 20

I had an ac10 c1 that was decent. But it was annoying to change tubes.

Country guys are using much more gain nowadays ., pretty sure a few are using a dirty Shirley ., plus like you say it has a decent clean tone Maybe the twin sister which is a two channel dirty Shirley

That's a cute Kid! I am looking for Jimmy Page with a LP through whatever. Gotta have that sound on Sick Again

Lyle rules and you guys do too! Cheers eh!🇨🇦👍

Thanks for this great episode, I always learn something new. And thanks Lyle for sharing his knowledge I’ll suscribe right now to his channel. Greetings from Mexico

Thank u Lyle for protecting our earned money to achieve the best tone without giving it away for cheap parts and labor.

Great guest. I follow his channel as well and is a wealth of knowledge. Look forward to the episode.

Bless Mr. Caldwell✝️

Great video Mason and Guy's great info, very cute baby ❤ Mason congratulations to you and your wife

Most amps sound great, all they need is a good speaker. I love tech and tubes as much as anybody, but most of the tone is in your hands, literally.

Lyle is the reason why I clicked on this video. Psionic rules.

59:25: Wet/dry/wet rigs.