Savage Rohr 15 or Carr Mercury -- Advice/Opinions Please

[frippy]

In less than two months I am moving and will be going from a house to a townhouse, with all the attendant concerns about excessive noise. At the same time, I will upgrading my amp considerably and have narrowed it down to two: the Savage Rohr 15 and the Carr Mercury. At present, I have yet to try either but that may change with my move. Nonetheless, I would like any input on the amps. I quite like the sound clip of the Rohr 15 on the Savage website of a tele running through it. Indeed, it is as close to ideal as a sound clip may be. The sound clips of the Mercury on the Carr website are all a bit too bluesy sounding for me but I suspect the amp is capable of far more given its use by several artists whose sound I quite like.

FWIW I'll be using a Fender AVRI '62 Custom Telecaster and an AVRI '62 Jazzmaster with the amp. The only pedal -- other than a Korg DT-10 tuner -- will be a Z.Vex SHO or a Super-Duper 2-in-1, if I upgrade.

Thank you!

Edited to reflect a change in guitars 

[mezcalhead]

I've looked at buying both of these, but not owned either yet .. I think there are some significant differences between them.

The Carr is modelled after the Fender blackface sound, whereas I think the Savage will sound more like a Vox (Peter Buck uses Savage amps with REM these days).

The Carr is power-switchable down to 1/2 watt, so it gets very quiet. I'd expect that a 15W Savage would be pretty loud when the valves are cooking.

[frippy]

I've looked at buying both of these, but not owned either yet .. I think there are some significant differences between them.

Yes, there are significant differences. I didn't mean to imply that they were the same style/type amp. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one considering these two 

The Carr is modelled after the Fender blackface sound, whereas I think the Savage will sound more like a Vox (Peter Buck uses Savage amps with REM these days).

Thank you! I was trying to place the Carr's sound and kept thinking blackface Fender with a bit extra. The Savage does have that Vox sound and Savage, as a company, seem great with which to deal. I've had nothing but good experiences with them when e-mailing them and know from a friend that their customer service is top-notch. I would hope that Carr is similar but I don't know.

The Carr is power-switchable down to 1/2 watt, so it gets very quiet. I'd expect that a 15W Savage would be pretty loud when the valves are cooking.

That is a big plus in the Carr's favor. The Savage does have a master volume, however.

[JazzBlaster]

there are to many amps these days... I can't keep up!

David

[frippy]

The Carr is modelled after the Fender blackface sound

Do you (or anyone else) know if the change to an EL34 from the original KT66 affected the tone of the Mercury? The sound clips at the Carr site are far from informative with regards to which version of the amp was being used.

[mezcalhead]

It must change the sound somehow, but I couldn't tell you how exactly .. IIRC that's one of their selling points, you can switch the tubes around and find which you prefer.

I'd love a Mercury .. it seems so versatile .. you could play it at home late at night without bothering anyone, and opened up to 8W I imagine it would probably keep up pretty well with a drummer at least for small club gigs. The damn things are just so expensive though, and on the rare occasion that I have that kind of cash to spend it always seems to make more sense to buy something vintage.

[frippy]

It must change the sound somehow, but I couldn't tell you how exactly .. IIRC that's one of their selling points, you can switch the tubes around and find which you prefer.

I'd best learn a great deal more about tubes then if I end up buying a Carr 

I'd love a Mercury .. it seems so versatile .. you could play it at home late at night without bothering anyone, and opened up to 8W I imagine it would probably keep up pretty well with a drummer at least for small club gigs. The damn things are just so expensive though, and on the rare occasion that I have that kind of cash to spend it always seems to make more sense to buy something vintage.

The Mercury does seem ideal, especially as it's seemingly so versatile, and is made just a few short hours from where I'll be living. I'm a bit skeptical of the speaker, however. It seems like the Savage has a better speaker (AlNiCo instead of the Carr's ceramic) but it may be that it's every bit as good sound wise. I don't know, thus, another reason I'm hoping someone has firsthand knowledge of one or both of the amps.

The Savage tonally is amazing and a friend who has a Macht 12 has played the Rohr 15 but I wonder how good it'll sound at lower volumes. That it has a master volume is very appealing but running a Mercury at 1/10 of a watt with the power tube cooking may be even better. Again, I don't know 

Both are expensive but I am looking at either being my only amp for the foreseeable future. Ideally, I'd love both but there's too much other stuff I could, and need to, use that kind of money for at present.