The ESP Guitar Company

haha, this is funny.

Ya the VK rules, but recently I've fallen in love with the mini colossal. Check it out.

i dont want to have to pay more than a grand for it
i play nu-metal, industrial grunge, and i dont know what to classify meshuggah as

Well I'm guessing your looking for a very big chunky sound, something that doesn't have sloppy bass and tons of gain.

Even though it's not my thing, Line 6 does make some great "inexpensive" quality gear. I don't have much experience with a Spider Halfstack, but the one I did play sounded great. The cab reacted very nicely with the 75w head and gave me some great tones. I would recommend this for any player on a budget who needs more then just distortion.

With that being said; the only Line 6 amp I am very interested in and pleased with is the Spider Valve series. I spent a good hour with one and was very pleased with it and am considering getting the 2x12 for home use/backup. It has a variety of great overdrive tones ranging from Marshall to Mesa Boogie to good old 70's crunch. It was able to handle everything I threw at it, from tapping to sweeping, stop and go riffing, to good old metal chugging. With the built in effects it's a bargain hard to pass up. But it is still far from my Engl.

Also I would check out Peavey's Valve King line. I got flamed for this back on the old board as it was cheap and made in China and whatever. But honestly you get some great tube tones for a great price. Toss in a good overdrive or distortion pedal and you'll have some great tones.

If you don't mind buying used equipment you can get some great deals on:
Peavey 5150, 6505, Triple XXX, JSX ($600-800)
Crate Blue Voodoo ($300+)
Marshall JCM900 50/100w, DSL50/100, and TSL ($600+)
Mesa Boogie Single Rectifier, Dual Rectifier ($800+)
And you can find some good deals on cabs. I picked up my Marshall 1960A used for $300.

Hope this helped some.

If you are looking at an amp that is lower than $1k, then i really do suggest getting a used 5150. next to that would be the valveking, which is a great versatile amp.

i don't own it, but i've played it and i love how much you'd be able to tweak around with the amp. it's got good gain, and if you know how to play around with the controls, you can get a decent clean sound out of it too.

i can also vouch for the B-52...as long as it's not along the solid-state line. i own the AT-100, which is the head version of 2x12 all-tube combo that was mentioned earlier. it sounds great, but you'd probably need a nice overdrive pedal to go with it to give it that extra kick...other than that, it would be good for blues and good ol' classic rock n roll.

well, all of these are just in my experience, at least.

The valveking sounds great when you have it retubed with for example Tungsol 12AX7's and Svetlana/SED 6L6GC's...

The reason why they sound really shitty in the store are the really shitty stock tubes + shitty Valveking speakers...

The VK sounds fine stock.

I went to the bugera website... their sole distributor is Behringer.

"We assume no liability for the contents of third-party websites.

BUGERA is not liable for any damage to your software and/or hardware that may result from visiting third-party websites. We are liable neither for the availability of third-party websites nor for the contents/ goods shown/sold on third-party websites.

You will be directed to the website of our exclusive distributor BEHRINGER.

To leave the BUGERA website, please select "YES," otherwise select "NO.""

That makes me think that they are actually made by Behringer, & that essentially means that their stuff is copied from pre-existing products, & therefore no original ideas, which is exactly what Behringer is well known for-just ask Roland or Mackie about that....

Why imitate when you can innovate? Not a fan of behringer products at all. Then again Turbo Rico already stated they have 'clones' of this amp or that... oh well. Take it for what its worth & proceed w/caution people.
peace