I'm looking into getting a new amp. Though I do love the vintage sound, I'd rather get a custom amp, so I don't have to worry about continuously repairing it, and it'd last a lifetime. I'm looking into Li'l Dawg Amps. Even though Jim mainly builds guitar amps, with his expertise and knowledge, I'm sure he'd make an awesome harp amp. Anyone ever play through a Li'l Dawg Amp? Does anyone have other recommendations for custom amps? What amps are you playing with, custom or not?
The big names in custom harp amps: HarpGear, Sonny Jr, Meteor are all great amps. Then there are people like Marble, FatDog, etc that also make good harp amps.
Don't rule out Fender though. Most pro players have at some point (and many still do) play through Fender amps.
The best current production Fender amps for harp in my opinion are , '59 Bassman LTD, '65 Princeton Reverb Reissue (my personal favourite), Pro Junior.
I would recommend trying out as many amps as you possibly can before buying one, both stock and custom.
Harp Gear amps are your best choice. They have excellent tone and punch, and Brian Purdy is an easy-going guy to deal with.
If you want a truly custom amp -- one built for you and voiced to your taste -- I suggest you call Bruce Collins at Mission Amps in Denver, CO. He makes the most amazing amps I've ever heard.
Meteor! I own two of them. The "mini" is available in two speaker styles, and has a feature that allows the use of 2 6v6's for 20 watts, or 2 6l6's for 30 watts. With a line out for larger venues! The Meteor is vintage tone in my mind. Pluto
+1 on the Meteor Amps, another good choice. Scooter makes a great product.
I also agree with Kinley's list of Fender amps.
But if this is your FIRST harp amp, I strongly recommend the 7-watt HG2 amp from Harp Gear. Every good harp player needs a good small amp, and the HG2 is excellent. Great Champ-ish tone, a much bigger bottom than you would expect, a sweet-sounding line out, and nice tweed cab. Adam Gussow plays this amp.
Remember...A small amp turned up sounds WAY better than a big amp turned down.
Some newer Fender amps that I've had the chance to play thru that I found pretty decent for harp are the Vibro King and the Custom Shop vibrolux. The vibro King's reverb unit is set up like an outboard reverb unit including its own seperate power tube for the reverb.
The '59 Bassman LTD is a far better amp than the first Bassman reissues were.
Most of the classic blues harmonica recordings were done with smaller amps as they have always tended to record better in the studio than the vast majority of large amps do. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
A great small amp you can find sometimes on ebay is a Kalamazoo model one or two. Big 10" speaker and about 5-7 watts. I believe Greg Heumann above rebuilds these things and attests to them. Rig a line out and you're set!
I agree, though, that for a first harp amp you cannot beat a Champ or tweed Princeton style amp. Victoria, Clark, Collins and a ton of other companies make these.
Btw, Howard Levy recommended Marble amps. I think I'd buy HG if I'd live in the US, but in Europe the Marble is a better deal because of taxes and shipping expenses.
There are also comparisons between HG and Marble - basically the result is a draw: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=51523264&blogID=218196836
Nowadays they sell also Max with bigger cabin + speaker which makes it basically the same as the review was suggesting.
I would agree with people that if it's a first amp, then a Champ style amp is an ideal choice. HarpGear HG2 and Marble Max are great options. There are of course many. many more as well.
If it's for gigging and you're upgrading and playing small to mid sized venues then I'd look at 15-20 watt amps. If your playing lots of outdoor festivals then I'd look at 40-50 Watt amps.
Last Edited by on Feb 10, 2010 4:16 AM
one important thing to understand about the wattage is that actually the loudness of the amp increases only 3db when you double the power. So f.ex. 15watt amp is only 3db louder than 7wat amp. In that sense it really doesnt matter whether you have 7 of 15watt amp. Even 30watt amp is just 6db louder than 7watt amp. There are other things that are more important..
apskarp is correct, but I might add that you don't add dba values to get your total. Quote: First, remember that the decibel (dB) is a logarithmic unit, meaning that you cannot add and subtract dB like ordinary numbers. For example, an increase of 3 dB is a doubling of the "strength" of the sound, and an increase of 10 dB means that the sound is 10 times as loud; i.e., 70 dB is 10 times as loud as 60 dB." Pluto
Ev630 - Dug the Double Trouble video. It's the one amp I own, I hope I will never have to sell. It's the most usable 18 watt amp that I've come across.
Here's me on a Kalamazoo (sound file only): CLICK ME (this wasn't a rehearsed composition - just a spontaneous noodle to a jam track to demonstrate a range of playing styles and levels though the Zoo. )
And here's Japanese pro Koei Tanaka playing one of my Kalamazoo's at SPAH. Note the amp is un-mic'd, and he is playing in a LARGE room that holds 200+ people. If this were a typical jam you wouldn't be able to hear the amp. But it shows what happens when the band knows how to manage their volume!
Pluto, You're right, that 70dB is ten times as loud as 60dB, but your ear hears loudness logarithmic, too. So what you HEAR is, that loudness only doubles from 60 to 70 dB. This means, that you will barely hear a 3dB increase. If you want to an amp thats two times as loud as a 7W amp you'll need a 70W amp! Of course there's a lot more to consider, like Speaker size (total) speaker efficiency, tone (your ear can hear hights a lot better than bass) projection...
Joe - I really liked that amp, too. But I have way too many amps and am heading overseas for work, so I have downsized. I still have the Clarks, but not the Meteor.
All the above is good info and thanks. So, say you chain 2 Champs together, splitting with an active A/B/Y. Let's say for the Champs are 7 watts output each, are you then putting out 14 watts? How does this arrangement affect decibels?
javajoe: If you put two similar wattage amps together it will result as 3db increase in volume.
Think of motorcycles f.ex. If you have one running you hear it as some level. If you have two of them, the increase of volume is noticable but not much - it's 3db. When you have 4 of them it's just 3db more to the previous setup. And then when you have 8 of them it's just 3db more etc. This is why you can be f.ex in some motorcycle gathering with hundreds of them without losing your hearing. And another factor is also the projection - the motorcycles aren't at the same physical point but they are spread in the area which results that the total power (wattage) is spread in the area resulting some db in the larger area. The sound power also diminishes logarithmically when you move away from the sound source..
Javajoe: additional to what apskarp wrote: You will need 10 Champs to make it twice as loud (+10dB) as one champ alone.
Sound can be tricky! While speakers will project tremble very directed in the axis of the speaker, bass will go into all directions, projection is spheric. This means that an amp will sound different if you test it in different environments. If you place your amp in a room corner the bass is reflected from the walls towards you (tremble is very much directed towards you anyway) so you hear a strong bottom end. If you place the same amp in the middle of a big room it might sound whimpy as you hear only a fraction of the bass you did before!
Well, have fun in your search, purchase and use of a new amp.
Those Lil Dawgs look nice. I currently play a Super Sonny. Nice amp, works like a charm, no worries. I have played his products for years (SJ1 for 10 years) and have had no problems. It also has some excellent features that just are not on other amps or they soon will: sound panel, bright/normal link, crystal channel, speaker mix. You can swap the tubes around and my guitarist can use it when he wants. Very versatile.
As for a custom amp. I have a Masco17n that Skip Simmons made. It is a super duper low down tone monster. Sounds unreal and looks like a toaster, but frankly, I would rather use the Sonny at gigs because it is bullet proof. It is popular to pick up a Masco or Bogen or some other antique PA and rehab them to a harp amp. It's a tricky process, but fun. Pick someone who has done work for harp players.
I also have a Sears Silvertone 1682 w/ a 8" speaker which is great for rehearsing. I swap it for some livestock or something.
Meteors and HarpGear are excellent choices. I haven't used a Meteor, but I have used some of the small HG's and they were fine, but I found them to be similar to a number of other small amps. I would like to try one of his larger amps. Brian Purdy is excellent to deal with.
Good luck, you'll get lots of opinions, but at the end of the day, blow through the amp and make your decision.
6SN7 - I know of Skip, he lives near me and I hear he does excellent work. However, I only thought he repaired/restored amps, not built them. Did you bring an amp for Skip to rebuild into a harp amp? Or did he simply build it from scratch or from an old amp he had? Around how much did you end up paying for it?
I have an MA17 on order from Skip right now. He takes several amps and combines the best components then adds a few custom tweaks so the amp is set up for harp. Price is listed on his website as $600-800 depending on the amp.
If you get a tube amp there will come a time when you will have to repair it no matter what! You'll see, they need to be serviced a lot! ---------- http://www.youtube.com/user/asilve3
Not a lot. Just keep the tubes up to spec and the occasional rebias for new power tubes and maybe a cap job. If it's a well-built amp you will rarely have to do anything else. Skip Simmons told a friend of mine that he had NEVER seen a Clark amp in for work (even though he had heard plenty in the clubs) but he had seen every other kind of amp in existence.
Greg, Nice sound clip of your Zoo. It reminds me why I love the ones I have. I bought one model 2 off ebay (Just beating Greg by a second). I proceeded to build 4-5 clones of varying degrees of this great harp amp circuit. One which was put in a custom built purple cabinet which I sold to Brian Purdy. I still use my zoos often, though I play out with my 3 custom 5F1 amps, which are very much like Harpgear amps.
DJKim, let me answer your questions and a few comments to things that came up. I bought my amp from Skip for $700. It is my understanding he has a bunker full of old mascos and gosh knows what else. He told me he took an old masco he bought from a flea market and rebuilt it from the ground up and it will be good for my lifetime. I don't know a lot techy stuff about amps and certainly do not talk about oil caps and other such stuff. I wanted a good amp that sounded classic and I had a referal of a harp and guitar players that bought stuff from him. I did pay half up front and the rest before delivery. (It is my understanding all sorts of dopes call him pumping him for info on making amps, etc. I wouldn't bother calling him about unless you are ready to do it, but that is me. Buying a Skip amp is like buying a Rolls; you either want it or you don't and you sure as shit are not test driving against a Toyota.)
I have seen in Vintage Guitar mag a new amp he built. But I think his main deal is restoration of vintage gear.
As for tube amps needing to be fix and maintained. My SJ 1 I played for ten years for gigs and it needed a little contact spray. My '57 Deluxe has never needed anything. My silvertone is solid as a rock. My super sonny has been knocked over mid-solo in a gig, picked up and continued to work. As long as you don't leave it out in the rain or tinker with it, you will be fine.
Nah, tube amps aren't a burden. It's like anything, if you decide not to take care of it, it'll bite you, but if you take the time to replace tubes, etc, you'll be all good.
