How to Choose Your Next Guitar Amp

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Looking for tips on choosing a guitar amplifier? Then keep reading.

If you're looking at buying a guitar amp, whether it's your first amp or the next in a series of many, then look through the questions below.

We'll go through the steps and discuss what you should consider. What I'd like you to recognise after reading this is that your decision shouldn't just be down to price, size and brand.

There's a lot more to think about and, once you get down to selecting which features you need, it can actually make your decision easier.

1) Budget vs Features vs Tone 

Ok, the big questions first:


  1. How much can you afford?

  2. What do you what the amp for?

  3. What features do you need?


Actually question 3 will mainly be driven by the answer to question 2. So let's look at question 2 in more detail further down.

2) What do you want the amp for? 

It's time to be honest and decide what you want to use the amp for. It could be that you just want the amp, not to worry, plenty of us have Gear Acquisition Syndrome (see bottom of page for a definition of GAS). So first of all, what gap does this amp fill?

Do you need an amp for:

    Practising at home
    Rehearsing with a band
    Recording quietly
    Recording silently
    Playing in a live gig without a PA
    Playing in a live gig with a PA
    Provide a tone that you can't do with your current amplifiers
    Being a backup amp

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3) What features does the amp need? 

Here are some features to think about:

Volume
    Is the amplifier loud enough?
    Does it sound good enough when turned down to practice volumes?
    Does the sweet spot for power attenuation work for you?
    Are all the tones available at the volume you want? - e.g. if you set the clean volume right, then are you happy with the overdriven volumes or are they too quiet/too loud?
    Is there enough clean headroom? - e.g. if you have a great overdriven sound, what does it sound like when the clean channel is switched in?


Switching
    Does it come with a footswitch?
    How sturdy is the footswitch? What connectors does it use?
    Does the footswitch operate all the functions you need?
    Does it have midi switching?
    What does the midi switching enable?
    Can you get all your required tones with the footswitch?
    Is the footswitch/midi switching included in the price?
    Can the unit be switched by another unit, e.g. a rack fx unit?


Tone
    Does the amp have inputs suitable for your guitar(s)? e.g. Hi/Lo Inputs - I had an amp that sounded great with strat guitars, but put a Gibson Les Paul through it and it saturated. And not in a good way.
    Do you need pentode/triode switching?
    Do you need any tone controls other than bass, middle, treble?
    Do the other tone controls offer something that eq controls or a boost/eq pedal can't do?
    Can you swap preamps or poweramp routing?
    Do you need a valve or solid-state amp? Need help, I have another lens: tube or transistor amps?


Channels
    How many channels does the amp have?
    Do the channels have separate eq/tone controls?
    Do the channels have separate gain controls?
    Do the channels have separate output volume controls?
    Do the channels have separate reverb level controls?


Reverb
    Do you need reverb? - I used an amp without reverb for 4 years and didn't miss it.
    Does it have the right reverb for you? - e.g. spring, tube, digital
    Can you switch it off when you need to?


Outputs
    Are the speaker outputs of the right impedence for your speakers?
    If it's a combo, can you connect an external speaker cabinet?
    If it's a combo, can you disconnect the internal speaker?
    Are the speaker sockets of the right type for you? - I've met people who only use speakon connectors.
    Does the amp have a direct recording out?
    Does the recording out include a speaker emulator?
    Can you change the speaker type that's being emulated?
    Where in the signal chain is the direct out?


Portability
    How portable does the amp need to be?
    Weight
    Size
    Number and location of handles
    Head and cab or combo
    Will it handle international voltages?


Effects
    Do you need an effects loop? - go for yes, unless you're absolutely sure.
    Is the effects loop of the right type, e.g. series, parallel or variable?
    Does you need a built-in noise gate?
    Do you need fx/signal processors built-in?
    Do you need to emulate specific amplifiers/cabinet combinations?

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4) Figure out priorities 

So you've figured out your budget, you know what you want the amp for and you know what features you want. Great.

Do they match? Can you get what you want for your budget?

A more important question is can you get what you need for your budget?

How about second hand?

Still having problems balancing budget and features?
Ok, it's probably worth taking some time to rank your list of features properly. Remember a basic decent sounding valve/tube amplifier will often get you closer to a great tone than a fully digital do-everything, emulate-everything. Also basic valve amps tend to retain their value more than digital amps.

It's also worth looking at some of the less famous brands. For instance, most of the public can probably name Fender, Marshall or Peavey, maybe even Mesa Boogie, but you can often get more bang for your buck by looking at Hughes & Kettner or Laney.

Look at the best

over at the Search for Tone.

5) Some other questions 

1) How well does it take pedals?
This is a common question on every guitar/amp forum. Mainly the poster wants to know if the amp is used with an fx pedal, then will it sound nastily saturated. Valve amps are less prone to this than solid-state transistor amps.

2) How much does the amp in your bundle cost?
If you're just about to buy a bundle with a guitar and amp, ask if you can upgrade the amplifier (and the guitar) for an additional cost.

Links to Guitar Amp advice sites 

Want your site listed, then contact me.
Search for Tone | where tone comes first
Awesome Amps in one place.
Guitar Amp Tone and Effects Placement
Guitar Amp Tone, Effects Placement, and Cranked-Amp Tone at Any Volume Since 1997

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Gear Acquisition Syndrome 

Gear Acquisition Syndrome (sometimes Gear Acquiring Syndrome, both abbreviated to GAS) is a term used to describe an urge to acquire and accumulate lots of gear. This term commonly associated with:

* Guitarists (tend to acquire guitars, guitar amplifiers, pedals, effects processors, etc.)

* Keyboard / synth players (keyboards, synthesizers, samplers, effects units, etc.)

* Drummers (various types of drums, cymbals, percussion accessories, drumsticks, etc.)

* Photographers (cameras, its parts and accessories ? bodies, video cameras, lens, mounts, filters, flashes, lighting rigs, etc.)

* Audiophiles (high-end preamps, amplifiers, converters, CD players, speakers, etc.)

*Saxophonists (saxophones of all types, mouthpieces and other accessories) http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?t=74897

The term "GAS" was coined by Walter Becker in 1996 in his article G.A.S. in Guitar Player as "Guitar Acquisition Syndrome". The term started to be frequently used by guitarists and spread out to other people of creative professions who were familiar with similar tendencies. As it no longer concerned guitars only, GAS became a backronym for "Gear Acquisition Syndrome".

GAS shouldn't be confused with collecting.

GAS is similar in many ways to very mild obsessive compulsive disorder. However, the urge or impulse to buy can be resisted without too much discomfort, and does not lead to panic attacks. Indeed, if it did, then the diagnosis would be obsessive compulsive disorder.

read the rest of the Wikipedia article

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