Which clean amp would you suggest?

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53Crëw

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Jan 31, 2007
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I've got mid- to high-gain tones covered, but want a combo for good clean/slight breakup-type tones.

Thought about maybe a used Mesa Lonestar... Any other suggestions?

Cheers.
 
i love my acoustic 165 it's very warm and punchy and you can get it very very cheap used because nobody seems to be interested in them... i got mine for like 50€ a few years ago. the drive channel is horrible tho...

the video doesn't do it justice but unfo theres not much info to find about these.



vox and fenders are probably a safe bet to get clean sounds covered.
 
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The JC120 (and the whole JC series) is way overrated in my humble opinion. It sounds flat and boring. And the slight breakup you'd get from it (as mentioned in the op) is downright ugly.
 
Never played the Lonestar, but the Mark IV can get some pretty decent clean/slight breakup tones. But I assume you're after something built solely for this purpose.
 
For straight-up cleans, definitely a Fender Twin Reverb / Deluxe Reverb or something along those lines. Steer clear of the Hot Rod series amps. Anything from the "Vintage Reissue" line on the Fender site is a good bet.

For more chime and slight breakup, IMO the newish Vox AC15C1 is pretty amazing, and unbeatable for the price. Don't confuse them with the previous-gen "Custom Classic" series. I've previously owned a British AC15 and a British hand-wired AC30, and I prefer my AC15C1 to either of them (as do most of my clients, who usually end up using it on their own tracks). It does great cleans as well but it's a chimier, more colored sound than a Fender. Probably my favorite amp out of the MANY that I've owned, and it was $600 new (I've seen used AC15C1s on Craiglist for $400). The bonus with the AC15C1 is that you can run it into a 4x12 and get great gain'd-up rock tones with it too, so much so that I sold my Marshall JMP and don't even really miss it.

Also, single coil pickups generally help any amp sound better clean in my opinion.
 
Best clean tone I've ever heard was out of an original 50 something Fender Bassman. Good luck finding one of those for less than 5k though. I'm not sure how well the re-issue stacks up, but it's worth a test drive for sure.
 
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Thanks for the comments, guys. Yeah, I kind of was steering away from the JC120. Something with the capability of some tube break up would be preferred.

Cory, I'll look into the Vox.

Also, I have actually been debating about building a Twin clone from one of the many amp kits available. That Bassman does sound tasty, might see what the options are there too.

Cheers, guys.
 
I'm also pretty firmly in the Fender camp - while I love the sound of a VOX amp, it's tone is very distinct and, at least to me, the AC15 and AC30 can be a bit of a love it or hate it type amp. Perhaps a little too distinct if you know what I mean.

Back to Fender - the newer Supersonic Twin Combo has a best of both worlds type variety to it. It is capable of the two of the main main Fender clean tones - Blackface and Bassman, and it has a great lead channel. I've been looking into all three amps in the Supersonic family for a while now = all are reasonably priced and I like almost all the tones available across the range, the 100 watt (switchable to 25) seems to tick the most boxes for me.

Great demo of the Twin Combo:

 
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