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I don't have an electric guitar, but you never know. But I saw this video this morning, and it reminded me of string tests; but you could actually hear some difference. I thought 2 were fine, and 2 were ridiculously tinny sounding; especially one.

Is there really any call for a guitar with no bass? For a lead guitar maybe?

They were more equal on clean, but the 2 were still lacking bass.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrb3eNDzemU

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Why be normal?

I would probably go with the Orange in that video, the Marshall a very close second. As for bass it really all depends. With my band I turn the bass down on my amp and let the bass player have it.

I'm actually in the process of a starting an amp project for the first time in about 13 years. I was originally wanting to make it fairly low powered but ended up deciding on 50 watts for headroom.

Of these, I prefer the Orange and Vox, but don't notice anything particularly lacking.

I was thinking the Orange and the Marshall were best; with the tinny Fender on the bottom. I guess they are supposedly practice amps, or maybe for small locations. The Fender and Vox just don't seem to have any presence in them. No fullness. I have no idea what part of the spectrum brings fullness, but it ends up sounding tinny to me. Like listening to a small AM radio as a kid; or old recordings on anything.

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Why be normal?

For a combo, I'd go with Orange. My daughter has one and it sounds great. For myself, I bought a Vox AC-30 head and built an open back speaker cab with 2 70W 12" Celestion speakers. I have a neat little add-on that can reduce the output to 3W.

Stop fooling with those losers and spend $99 on a BOSS Katana Mini. Clean or filthy - it sounds terrific. Would I lie to you guys?

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Looks like these are all non-modeling amps. I thought everything had gone to modeling these days in the small amp market.

The little boss micro cube sounds great for what it is and is pretty much all I use for practice.

Pat

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Pat

Some of us are building 50's recreations and loving them. I'm playing through two little tweeds that I built a 57 Champ which is what Clapton uses to record and a 59 tweed that Neil Young uses to record when he's plugged in.

They are amazing with tone that I have looked for all of my life. Strong, natural tube compression and a musicality from both of them that just takes my playing to the next level.

I'm filling in the blanks of their age with Strymon pedals and with a little help from my OLF buddy Daniel P. who gifted me some very high end cables that he made I have tone to die for now.

I agree on the cubes and the functionality for the $$$ and we have one for the shredders who are our clients but for old fashioned, raw tube power with historic circuits today's recreations produce tone that I never actually thought would be available to me. So happy to have them I look forward to my playing every day now.

Sadly my neighbors can't say that.... My set that I do every day these days starts with Mississippi Queen then Riding the Storm out (they have been clients), Sultans of Swing (he's been in our shop too) etc. and it's a good time.

Here's a few pics of my tweeds and the neighbor killer.

I have a Princeton Reverb under construction but I am stalled at the moment and need to get back to it.

Interesting demo. On the clean segments they seemed to have the volume pretty well matched, and I was surprised how similar some of the clean segments seemed to sound. On the overdriven clips, it seemed like the Orange was at a lower volume level making it harder to compare. But overall, I agree the Marshall and Orange sounded best.

It would be nice to have a compact amp that sounds good. But I've spent a lot of time down the tube amp building rabbit hole, and though 5 watts is more than enough for me, I have a bias in favor of tube amps and 10" or 12" speakers.

Here a few of the amps I've built

4 watt push pull 6DX8

5 watt 6V6 single ended. Currently in revision

20 watt push/pull 7591

I've built a bunch of amps over the years--my Dad and Granddad both built amps, and I started young. Most of mine have been single ended direct heated triode amps for hifi (before my hearing deteriorated, I was quite the hifi amp and speaker snob), but I've built a bunch of guitar amps too. The one I'm playing these days is modeled after the DeArmond R5. I had an original, but sold it when the prices on those went nuts. The DeArmond amps had no negative feedback loops like most tube amps have, and sound awesome, largely because of that fact. My SET hifi amps also lack negative feedback. Measureable distortion increases, but the feedback loop kills all of the fun. On my homebrew amp, I can cut the negative feedback in, and basically have a Champ, or I can cut it out and basically have an R5. I rarely cut the loop in.

I read somewhere a long time ago in an article by another hifi snob that the way to judge a hifi system wasn't to base the assessment on distortion or frequency response or any of the other accepted tests in that world, but rather to judge it by how much joy it gives to the listener. He went on to say that from the joy standpoint, the best music he'd ever heard was through his AM car radio. I had to admit that I was in the same boat.

I still like to play through one of my bigger amps (still small--I have a drip edge Vibrolux Reverb and a couple of old Standels) that sound great. But the little R5 amp seems to be the one that brings me joy.

Dave