What are some of the WORST amps you've played?

Everyone talks about how great this amp is, or how much they liked that amp back when they still had it.....

What is the biggest pile of crap, poor excuse for a tube amp that you have owned or had time on?

No solid state amps, otherwise the list could get long.

For me it would be my Marshall JCM900 4100 that I had for a while. That was the most boring, bland amp I've ever owned. It had a nice clean, but the OD channel was weak with no real feel to it and the amp itself wasn't very powerful for a 100W tube head.

My 3channel Mesa Dual Rectifier didn't do much for me either.

Marshall Jubilee, just couldn't bond with the gain channel.

Carvin V3. It had nice amounts of gain, but I could not dial it in to where I wanted, and any mild gain ended up sounding very shrill and harsh. Worst was it matched up with a carvin loaded gt-75 cab.

Mesa F-50 gain channel in the combo. Loved the cleans, but in the 1x12 combo I could not get a good drive sound, the eq controls did next to nothing, and it was so bright from the start, but turning down the treble made it lose any definition. (sounded much better through an extension cab)

engl powerball

played that thing through a bogner cab and couldnt understand what the tubes were in it for ....

im probably gona get flamed for that but w/e

I know, but back in the old days hated anything by Yamaha and peavey

Engl Powerball

Death by Uberschall":2zrypyj3 said:

Marshall Jubilee, just couldn't bond with the gain channel.

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Worst? Really?


For me it was the Diamond Spec Op. That amp was terrible.

Back in the early 90s i was about to buy a Mesa MK 4,a friend of mine told me to buy a Marshall
and i did,it was a JCM 900 and it was the worst,i hated that thing,no gain,floppy sounding and
it just didn't do it for me,now that i'm older though i kinda like them now for what they are.
That and a Crate.

For me it was the Splawn Nitro.
What works for some.......

Didnt work for me!

killertone":13iuom0i said:

Death by Uberschall":13iuom0i said:

Marshall Jubilee, just couldn't bond with the gain channel.

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Worst? Really?


For me it was the Diamond Spec Op. That amp was terrible.

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Gotta remember the title of the thread. "WORST amps you've played?" For me it was,........................

Back when I was in high school, I had a Trem-o-Verb head into a peavy 4x12 cabinet. I truly thought it was the beez kneez. Fast forward a few years, I found a great deal on a used 2x12 T-verb combo. I don't know if I remember incorrectly, but it sounded nothing like I remember. Even when I hooked it up to the same 4x12 cab that I used to run the head through. The gain was all fizzy, even after doing a complete re-tube, and the clean channel had absolutely no headroom. I came to the understanding that an amp of that nature should never be run through an open back combo cab with v30's in it. FWIW, I swapped the speakers from my overly dark Heartbreaker 2x12 combo, and wondered on both amps, why they didn't ship from the factory like that. The Black shadow's helped a lot with the T-verb, but not enough to persuade me to keep it.

mesa stiletto. as soon as i hit a chord i turned the amp back off and said forget it. there was no way i could bond with that amplifiers tone in general.

mesa three channel dual rec. another one of those 15 minute no-hope amplifiers. tried it through a few cabinets, adjusting knobs with care and hints that others have given, and nothing came out of it that i liked.

new mesa roadkings - i believe this is the brown/cherry red tolex model? too much tweaking, i didnt get to crank it to really see what it could do, but i didnt like the amplifier at all in general at any volume. very bland and alot of hype i think.

new peavey 6505's and 6505+'s. they sound like complete ass.

new marshall DSL's - that amplifier had some qwirks, wierd gain tone - definately nothing like a JCM i think.

Rivera KR-100 reverb - the amplifier didnt sound bad, but didnt sound better when turned up. alot of tweaking options, but still sounded sub-par to my ears.

marshall haze combo - blew it up within 30 minutes. sounded great right near the end of the pop.

the new lower modeling of vox amplifiers, the upper models seem to sound better?

alot of bogner's - the uberschall the most. the goldfinger seems to sound promising though.

splawn QR I and II. i dunno, played three models. just not happening for me. cant really say why? not sure if i would like a nitro after playing QR's.

diezel herbert. theres 3000 posts on this one on this forum somewhere. dont get me started on diezels.

Industrial amps. if anyone has never heard of them, dont bother. jesus what a trainwreck. best worse amplifier on this topic.

Engl has a few models that i just want to say what the fuck were they thinking.

best amplifiers i have heard were marshalls, tony iommi laney head through laney cabinets, early 92-94 5150's (owned 2 of them before my 5150 II), fender's, frenzel amplifiers. a single rectifier mesa through a mesa cabinet did sound alright. theres a few other no-name companies that i cant think of right now that really deserve to be mentioned in a good way.

as far as clips go i think eggie's sound great, never had the chance to play anything larger than a 30W though for cleans.

theres more in both categories, its just not coming to me

Lee Jackson M-1000

I really did not like the Ibanez metal amp .I don't even recall what it was Therminion????

the gear that left my rig the fastest was a Roland gp100 preamp ..other than the jazz chorus clean tone sucked large

Krank Krankenstein

Juggernaut":23jeo799 said:

Lee Jackson M-1000

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Oh yeah....that Metaltronix M-1000 I owned for about a week Is up near the #1 Spot!

For me it was the Engl e670 SE 34. Couldn't get rid of it fast enough. I've heard other people sound good with them, but definitely not for me.

Peavey 5150...flame on

Crate Blue Voodoo

Peavey JSX

Line6 HD147

Biggest let downs for me were:

Marshall TSL 100(absolutely the worst tube amp I've ever heard, tried it through at least 4 different cabs-complete fuzzy garbage IMO)
Peavey XXX,
Egnater Tourmaster, (Renegade just crushed it IMO)
Boogie Stiletto Stage 1 (However I LOVED Stage II)
Cornford MK50H (not a bad tone by any means, but I couldn't bond with it at all. Would love to try again though)
Elmwood M90 (same as the cornford, but had a fizziness to it that couldn't be dialed out. )

Best I've ever played were '94 XTC101B, Newer VH4, modded 800, Boogie Mark IV, Bogner Shiva w/6l6's,

Metaltronix M-1000

The biggest POS ever made!!!!!!!!!!