Gear Regrets: Amps & Cabs Edition

[metropolis_4]

Massive regret.

I bought a Line 6 Flextone II xl and floorboard when they were first released in 2000. I had about £1000 saved for a new amp and it sounded pretty good super quiet in the store. I was young and thought having all these classic amps in one box was the way to go.

After 1 rehearsal at band volume I recognised it for the POS it was. I couldn't return it to the store so it sat unused until I gave it to someone. Worst gear purchase I ever made, I basically threw £1000 away and it put me off modellers and anything digital until I bought my stomp in October 2020.

Hey me too! That’s funny, I have almost the exact same story about that amp.

But I had to gig with mine for almost a year before I could save up to replace it with something else

 

[spawnofthesith]

Amp I regretted buying: randall diavlo 45. Unbelievably bad sounding turd. That said many people who's opinions I hold in high regard like them. But damn that thing sucked


Amps I miss the most:
Fryette Pittbull 50cl
Fryette Sig x
Mesa Mark V
Mesa Mark III
'65 fender bandmaster
ENGL Steve Morse
Orange Thunderverb 50

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Hey me too! That’s funny, I have almost the exact same story about that amp.

But I had to gig with mine for almost a year before I could save up to replace it with something else

I still had my jcm900 thankfully so just went back to using that. The flextone literally only moved everytime I moved house.

A friend of mine only played at home and I gave it to him after he had to sell all his gear to pay some bills. I gave him an old Chinese squier strat and the flextone so he could jam along to tracks in the house.

 

[gearJunkie]

A friend of mine only played at home and I gave it to him after he had to sell all his gear to pay some bills.

I gave my Flextone to my stepdad years ago, and he still uses it to this day.

 

[KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!!]

Sentimentally I miss the early '70's Dual Showman Reverb and '68 Bandmaster heads I had for years. They did the one thing they did beautifully. The Axe-FX I got in 2008 made them redundant for me because 99% of my playing time was spent learning songs, rehearsing or playing cover band gigs. But a Strat in to those heads through a 212 cab with Weber California's was pretty sweet. One trick. But it's a pretty cool trick.

 

[SillyOctpuss]

I gave my Flextone to my stepdad years ago, and he still uses it to this day.

For low volume playing or going direct into a PA they're probably fine but if you want to keep up with a drummer then forget it.

 

[Trollbait]

Sold my used 1960's Fender Twin Reverb in 1978 to help fund the move out West.

My Gibson black custom Les Paul also was sold along with a Univox tape echo to help buy 20, two day old dairy cross steers that I raised on the cattle ranch where I worked once I hit the West coast.

Before that move, If I had passed the audition for a disco band that was set to tour the Pocono Mountains my life might have been different. But I was nervous and continued to play the one wrong chord. I heard that band quickly folded due to infighting with the horn section who felt that since they could read music didn't need the rehearsal time.

While I may regret selling that gear, I would not have changed a thing. I didn't even like disco music, never did.

 

[Achilles]

 

[SillyOctpuss]

Which model is the cornford? A Mk50 is a bucket list amp for me.

 

[gearJunkie]

The pictures are great, but where is the story behind that regret? Tell us more.

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

All of them.

But notably-

Mesa Studio Pre I did not know how to use, like I didn’t know I needed a power amp and all that. In ‘98 someone bought a Mesa Studio Pre off eBay for $125 and I’ve died inside every time I’ve thought about since.

Carvin Legacy- It was the first run, the first few months they made them and while I sold it because it was too Vai for me then, it’s basically a cheap, 2-channel modded Marshall/Bogner with an outstanding clean channel.

Mark IV head- Don’t really need to say more bout that. I got a combo a while later but I still miss that head.

I bought my Mesa Studio pre in '97 off eBay for $125! Also stupidly sold it for under $200 a few years later.

 

[Achilles]

Which model is the cornford? A Mk50 is a bucket list amp for me.

1st version of the Harley. Had just discovered Guthrie and he was using them back then. LAAF and had a terrible master volume. Plus it didn't make me sound like Guthrie! The Aiken was found during a long search for the best low watt classic Marshall tone. Killer little amp! Selling the Mark Sampson Nova still haunts me 15 years on. Pretty limited run hand wired by MS himself. Never saw more immaculate PTP guts ever. Think I paid around $800 for the 10" combo originally and last I checked they were getting $2-2.5K on Reverb.

 

[mk5]

Hey me too! That’s funny, I have almost the exact same story about that amp.

But I had to gig with mine for almost a year before I could save up to replace it with something else

Man that sucks. I had the luxury of managing a guitar chain store many years back and would jam with other coworkers after hours. I tried a Flextone and came to the same conclusion, luckily without costing me anything. The following jam go-tos were a 2205 JCM800 and Peavey Classic 50 212.

 

[Baba]

I'm definitely not in this camp. Any amp that I had, and got rid of, was for good reason, and still to this day, not unobtanium, so, no regerts.

Even if I sold an amp in the past, that would be perfect for me today, I had to go through my journey to discover that, so . . ,

I will say though, I did go through a period where I wanted heads that would sound good with this 1x12 Avatar cab that I had, and not much sounded good with it, but I didn't realize until later that, that cab just wasn't for me, so, there was some wasted time and money there.

 

[mk5]

I regret selling my Boogie Mark IIC+ and not holding onto it for 20 years as an investment.

I do not regret selling my Mark IV, although it was a cool amp.

 

[gearJunkie]

I'm definitely not in this camp. Any amp that I had, and got rid of, was for good reason, and still to this day, not unobtanium, so, no regerts.

Even if I sold an amp in the past, that would be perfect for me today, I had to go through my journey to discover that, so . . ,

I will say though, I did go through a period where I wanted heads that would sound good with this 1x12 Avatar cab that I had, and not much sounded good with it, but I didn't realize until later that, that cab just wasn't for me, so, there was some wasted time and money there.

Since this is the Amps & Cabs forum, cab regrets are appropriate. I'll update the thread title.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Ooh, almost forgot; Vox AC4. Bought it on a stupid deal of the day, and damn was it ever a cool little amp. Was going to do the whole "Mercury Magnetics mod kit" deal to it, then decided to instead sell it to upgrade to a Vox AC10, but then never did. I miss that little guy.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Just reminded of my red tolex OG 5150 I sold here towards the late 00's/pre-10's.

 

[laxu]

Amps I regret buying:​

• Laney AOR3012 1x12 combo. My first tube amp, a 1x12 closed back combo bought used. It was way, way too loud to make any sense for my uses and I promptly sold it.
• Marshall JCM2000 DSL50 head. One of the originals with all the bias drift issues, Tone Shi(f)t button and everything. When it was loud, it sounded great but it was really poor as a channel switcher when you could dial one channel to sound good and the other would be either tubby or thin.

Amps I have no regrets selling - liked them, but had good reasons to sell:​

• Diezel Einstein 1x12 combo. It's a great sounding amp, with an incredibly stupid channels witching setup. You had clean to crunch to high gain rhythm on channel 1 and channel 2 was just for high gain leads. It just wasn't that good for anything else and it had too much gain to even turn the gain knob halfway. All the great sounds were on ch1 but you couldn't switch between them.
• Bogner Goldfinger 45 Superlead 1x12 combo. I wanted the head, but there was a 2 month lead time for getting it and the store had the combo. It was way too heavy, how does a 1x12 weigh as much as a 4x10 Super Reverb? I turned it into a head and cab which made it work well.
  I think it sounded fantastic, but ultimately it did pretty much all the things I can get out of my much cheaper BluGuitar Amp 1 Mercury Edition. I could dial the two to sound very close, with the Bogner only having a slight edge on the clean channel.
• Egnater Tourmaster 100 head. Heavy as hell, but it was way ahead of its time in features like per channel power scaling, multiple near-identical channels and more. Perhaps not the most "character" in an amp, but it did sound good. Don't miss it, but wouldn't mind playing it again.
• Yamaha THR100HD. This amp is so close to being great. It just needed more power, a volume control for the boosts, a footswitch that remembers its state after turning the amp off, summed mono line out and a better reverb.
  I wish Yamaha would make a 2nd gen version, but they probably never will. Most likely didn't sell all that well.

Amps I miss:​

• Yamaha DG80 1x12 combo. The best designed modeler ever made. Motorized pots controlling both amp and effects settings with ease. 8 amp models covering clean to mean. Tape echo, chorus, tremolo and reverb effects built in. The Lead 1 model with a Soldano SLO-ish sound to it probably sparked my love of modded Marshall tones.
• Stephenson LJ-10 head. This was basically like a low wattage Trainwreck Express. The most dynamic amp I've ever played, it made me learn to play with picking dynamics in a whole new way. London Power's power scaling built in, ultralinear mode and more. It was relatively cheap because its lunchbox chassis was very home made type deal with sticker labels and everything, but inside it was fully handwired on a turret board. It had a huge ton of sag for some reason but it was an excellent lead amp. I miss it for its uniqueness.
• Victory VC35 head. It's the perfect modernized Vox AC30 type amp, pair it with Alnico Golds and it's awesome. I sold it mainly because I knew I couldn't effectively use it for a long time, but I also expected that by the time I could, maybe there would be a Mk2 with e.g IR loading built in. Hasn't happened yet though.

 

[Bob Zaod]

Do you regret an amp purchase?

How about regretting the sale or trade of an amp?

Here's a thread to share your worst gear regrets.

I'll start. I regret getting rid of my first tube amp, a Marshall 50 watt JCM 800 4010. combo. I didn't know how to properly use it at the time, and I was too poor to afford pedals back in 1989, so I traded it in towards an ADA MP1.

I wish I could go back and do it differently. The MP1 was great, but I couldn't afford a good cab or power amp, so my tone suffered.

If you look closely, you can see the amp in this photo from band practice circa 1988.

View attachment 13102
Live and learn.

Who's next?

edit: updated thread title to include cabs

First one off the top of my head is the Fender 75 head. An abomination to mankind that amp model was. The Marshall MA100 was a close 2nd followed even closer by another Marshall, the Code 100.

Regrets? Too many to list but atop that list is my Mark V 90 combo in Bronco White. Though I did make a pretty penny on that sale, I miss it. Alcohol and 3k cash was involved...