The most disappointing amp you've ever played?

[hulakatt]

I kinda want one of those old EHX Freedom amps only to gut it and stick something else in there. They did look pretty dang cool.

[s_mcsleazy]

so i've got 2 amps for this...... kinda.

1. blackstar ht club 40. these don't work for me because i think they're designed for people who use higher output pickups. there's no life to them when i use them but i've got friends who often use higher output pickups who swear by them and actually sound good with them. i also seen all the issues my bandmate had with blackstar quality control/customer service and that put me off them for life.

2. mesa boogie rectifiers. again, i have friends who swear by them and so many of my favorite records were recorded with these. i just find them kinda shit.

[Scout]

5e3, I picked up a really well made clone figuring it would be a good one to play out with but it really lacks
headroom and took some time to get a sound that I liked. I plan on doing some small mods to it to
give it some more versatility, we’ll see.

The best thing about the 5e3 is the complete lack of headroom, there's plenty of other amps that do headroom and do it well. The 5e3 is quite famous and well regarded for not having headroom and being an OD monster.

Worst amp I've played was easily a Blues Jr. I can not wrap my head around the love for that pile of crap, esp when the Pro Jr was 10x the amp the BJ was.

Runner up was a SF Princeton Reverb. Just so much lavish praise heaped upon them so I was pretty excited to get one and it was just a worse 5e3 with small reverb and weak tremolo. It didn't do a single thing better than another amp and was amazingly anti-climactic. In my head now, the Fender lineage jumps straight from Champ to Deluxe, across every generation.

Yeah, I knew the reputation but it was still disappointing.
It got better with a new set of tubes.

[hulakatt]

I'm just saying, if you're looking for headroom, the 5e3 is not the tool for the job. If you're looking for fat, swampy cleans that segue into fuzz, it is the tool for the job. Kind of a 1 trick pony but it does that one trick very, very well. If that's not the trick you're looking for though, not the best amp to pick.

Honestly, I built a tweed Champ after I built my tweed Deluxe, the Champ had a much longer segue into OD and stayed cleaner, longer than the Deluxe but the Deluxe lived gloriously on that line between fat cleans and OD and it was so easy to vary pick attack to move between the two.

[stevejamsecono]

Seconded on the JCM900. They are a common practice space amp here in NY (or were until those Fender tonemaster solid state amps showed up... also yuk) and they were somehow insanely loud while also being completely inaudible at the same time. Very not fun.

[Maggieo]

JC120, hands down. It's a one trick pony and I didn't grok its trick.

[marqueemoon]

JC120, hands down. It's a one trick pony and I didn't grok its trick.

One time I was recording and working on getting a sound for a dreampop-type track. The engineer said “give me a second. I want to try something”. I was in the control room and couldn’t see want he was doing, but the second I heard it I knew he’s set up the studio’s JC120.

It was an instant NOPE.

They definitely do a thing, and I respect that, but it’s just not a thing I need doing.

[MechaBulletBill]

can't remember if i've ever played a jc120 or not but the JaCo is THE sound of a lot of japanese rock/punk/noise. big, loud, flat, reliable

[tombs]

The 900 again. Really had to put in a lot of effort to make it sound acceptable... Also the matching cabs as someone said are not that great. The 75W speakers in the sounded dull to me. I replaced the cab with a 1960ax, it's loaded with greenbacks... And I love that one!

[Gav Haus]

JC120, hands down. It's a one trick pony and I didn't grok its trick.

One time I was recording and working on getting a sound for a dreampop-type track. The engineer said “give me a second. I want to try something”. I was in the control room and couldn’t see want he was doing, but the second I heard it I knew he’s set up the studio’s JC120.

It was an instant NOPE.

They definitely do a thing, and I respect that, but it’s just not a thing I need doing.

See, I would implore any doubters to listen to Emily Kokal from Warpaints tone. Her 60s Jag through JC120 is absolutely glorious. I don’t play a 120 myself, but it’s an amp I’ve always fancied adding one day.

[Maggieo]

JC120, hands down. It's a one trick pony and I didn't grok its trick.

One time I was recording and working on getting a sound for a dreampop-type track. The engineer said “give me a second. I want to try something”. I was in the control room and couldn’t see want he was doing, but the second I heard it I knew he’s set up the studio’s JC120.

It was an instant NOPE.

They definitely do a thing, and I respect that, but it’s just not a thing I need doing.

Exactly. I still don't know how Adrian Belew got such good stuff out of it.

[i love sharin foo]

I’ve had good luck with mostly positive experiences with the amps that I’ve owned. They’ve always been pretty well researched and thought out ahead of time. But there’s a few that just didn’t work for me. None were really bad amps.

Orange AD30HTC. I just couldn’t get it to sound how I wanted. It was always fizzy. Like a high-mid presence that I just couldn’t dial out. And it didn’t do much clean and the dirt just wasn’t working for me. I couldn’t get the lowend I wanted. This was almost 20 years ago. I bought my old Orange Overdrive 120 to try to address the shortcomings. 18 years on, I still have and use that one

‘64 non reverb Princeton. I made the classic “Princeton mistake” of not realizing that this circuit is NOT simply a Princeton Reverb sans reverb. They are clean all the way. If you use a booster to push it into overdrive it sounds bad. Really bad. Buzzy. Fizzy. Not like you’d hope for. This was my error. In their own way, they are certainly good amps. Like baby Twins. I got a brownface after, kept both for a while, then sold the non reverb one. Still use the brownface a bunch.

Vox AC30CC. Not really a bad amp. I just found that they tried to make that model too versatile. I just wanted a Classic AC30 sound and I had a hard time getting it. Sold it, bought an AC4HW and haven’t looked back.

I never looked at it from afar, but I got it right second try on all those amps. Not bad I’d say!

[JSutter]

Mesa Boogie Rectoverb and 3 channel Triple Rectifier. Cleans and low gain are good. Parallel loop sucks. They sound good when loud and a boosted with an OD.

Peavey Special 212 red stripe. The lead channels use active tone controls. They do not sound nearly as good as other Peaveys with passive controls.

[cestlamort]

Fender Super 60 1-12 combo. Heavy, too quiet on the clean setting, loud enough but too hesh muddy distortion on the dirty setting. Covered in carpet. I’d thought I was getting a sleeper of the post-Rivera era but really the worst amp I ever owned.

For the record, I love my JC77. Different than clean fender and it sounds best with some entirely non-intuitive eq settings but meh with ones I use on other amps.

[DaddyDom]

A 1970s Marshall 2x12 50watt combo.
Had no bass, no depth and the cabinet was pretty thin.
Even worse, I bought it from Howard Devoto so I wanted it to be so good!!!