Expensive Tube Amp or Cheap Solid-State Amp?

Question

The Peavey Valveking 50W tube amp is what i would want to buy but its $400 and i would have to spend all my money i have to get it.

Or should i just buy a $230 Marshall 30W or a Peavey Envoy 40W? If i choose this one i would still have around $200 to maybe buy pedals with.......?

Answer 1

If you don't want to blow your whole wad I'd go for one of the Modeling amps, Line 6's are popular and Vox has a nice line of modeling amps. Both are right where you want to be price wise and have a wide array of sounds available from classic tube to all out hi-gain Rectified sounds.

The Valveking is a pretty nice amp and it does have a master volume so you can crank it and still have the volume low, but the thing with valve (they call tubes, "valves" in England for some reason) or tube amps is that they can be high maintenance and expensive to replace parts and tubes if they go bad.

I have a tube amp with 3 EL84 tubes and 4 12AX7's and needed to replace the tubes. For a decent matched set it cost me about $100.

You will have to replace to tubes every so often (about 1-2 years) if you play fairly often, if you play loud & live it'll shorten the life of the tubes and you'll have to replace them more often. Also when you swap the tubes out, since the Valveking is a class AB amp you'll have to adjust the bias, this is something that you'll definitely want an amp tech to do, it is not a beginners adjustment. So the cost of maintenace of a tube amp is something you might want to consider. A solid state basically has no maintenace costs. Just turn it on and rock out!

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

The solid-state amp will probably sound better at everyday volume; big valve amps need turning up to sound great, and are too loud at home. I have a Marshall 50W valve amp that almost never gets used and a 15W Peavey solid state that does for practice, recording and bar gigs.

Answer 3

Actually what you're quoting is still in the cheaper price end for both, though i realize you are talking about smaller "practice / recording" amps. Have you considered checking out the pawnshop / used market? A lot of times you can get a great deal on something you would never expect, like something you may want to try out and fall in love with, at a ridiculously cheap price and little wear. Other than that, i've heard on the radio that GC (guitar center) is having the end this weekend of their green tag blowout sale, and you may find what you want there...

Answer 4

If you're not playing a large gig, just buy the low priced amp! What I ran into is the Line 6, that has the sounds of a lot of different amps, and I could just sit there and use different sounds! And it's not that expensive!