I'm in the market for a small tube amp soon!

[Telewanger]

Right now, I have a Laney AOR 50 watt combo, 1965 Twin Reverb, Line 6 Flextone XL, and Roland Jazz Chorus. These are great for playing gigs, but bad in the house.

These amps have to be cranked loud to "Get That Tube Sound". I want something small that I can crank in my bedroom, but has really good tone.

I don't want to buy Power Attenuators for all of my amps. Everyone that has one tells me they are give and take. Guitar amp speakers have to be pushed hard, so they start moving air, as well as the power section to get a great tube sound.

What is a good low wattage, tube amp, with reverb for home or studio use these days? I don't want onboard effects, just reverb. I have an effects pedal board. I called Fender and Laney Tech support. I pulled the two center or two end power tubes, but this didn't reduce the volume much at all, and they told me not to run the amps like that for long, because they were not designed that way. I don't want to screw my old amps

Got any ideas? ( Great sounding, tube amp, bedroom volume level )

Here are some examples of the kind of music that I write and play!

I wrote/composed these songs and recorded them in my bedroom studio. I played all of the instruments, so the rhythm section isn't the greatest!

http://www.atlanticplumbing.net/moodswing.mp3

http://www.atlanticplumbing.net/Sihlouette.mp3

http://www.atlanticplumbing.net/Stranger.mp3

[Rampant]

Hey dude, I'm sure the knowledgeable fretters will be along soon to give their opinions, but it would help if we had an idea of your budget...

You may also need to think about whether you need an effects loop on the amp in question - particularly if by "tube sound" you mean you're gonna drive it...

[red]

Not sure what kind of house you live in or how your neighbours react to your playing volume, but I own a 5-Watt tweed-Champ-style amplifier and I have to use it with a Weber MicroMASS attenuator for the cranked-power-tubes sound. I can only go about halfway up the dial before it gets too loud for the apartment.

I'd recommend a Z.Vex Nano Head (http://zvexamps.com/amp_view.html) (0.5W). The link will point you to sound samples on their website too.

I would also recommend that you just buy a reverb pedal and not get too stuck with the idea that the amp needs to have built-in reverb.

If 5 Watts are OK for you, you can't go wrong with a small 5F1 tweed-Champ-like amplifier. If you like building one yourself, you can get a Ceriatone. If money is no object, you can get a vintage-correct Victoria 518 or 5112. Or, you can get a cheap Fender Champion 600 and have a tech modify it to convert it to a real 5F1 (fairly easy to do).

If you're not afraid of 15 Watts for playing in the house, you should probably check out a Fender Blues Junior. That one has a built-in reverb as well.

Happy shopping!

[tunghaichuan]

red brings up some good points. A 5W tube amp is deafening in a small room when driven to distortion.

Just about any tube amp under 10 watts is going to be a single ended Class A amp. These are amps like Fender Champs, Tweed Princetons for vintage and Blackheart Little Giant and Epi Valve Junior for modern production. They all use one power tube in Class A.

The lowest wattage Class AB amps all use two tubes in push pull operation. The lowest I can think of are the Fender Princeton (both w/ and w/out reverb) which is 12W and a Vox AC-15 which is about 15W. Then there are a whole bunch of 18W Marshalls. These are all going to be ungodly loud for home use, when pushed to distortion.

One exception is the new Blackstar HT-5, which is a 5W amp, but uses a dual triode in push pull operation. It is also aimed at the metal player, so it may not be for you.

The reason that I bring all this tech stuff up is that a 5W Class A amp is going to sound different than a 12W Class AB amp. Depending on how you want the amp to sound.

The Nano head is a good choice. There is also the Blackheart Killer Ant at 1.5W, although these these tend to be one-trick ponies.

If you are DIY minded, there is the Firefly, check out these links for more info:

http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php?t=4114

http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php?t=5702

http://www.thefret.net/showthread.php?t=13350

tung

[Tig]

On attenuators, I've had great tone and control out of my BitMo 10-uator kit used on the EVJr.
http://www.bitmomusic.com/sites/default/files/images/attenuator.jpeg