Behringer VT-100FXH Head
Behringer VT-100FXH Head
On a tight budget, I'd consider an old Marshall Valvestate. Really good-sounding amps for how much they go for these days:
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Not perfect-sounding, but for how much you can find them used these days, they pack a lot of tone.
IMO, a hell of a safer bet than *most* Crate and Behringer stuff.
Even though I'm not the biggest fan of Spider amps, a Behringer modeling/digital head would be a downgrade from a Line 6 amp. Big time.
MG and Valvestate are a whole different league of amps.
Older VS's were made in England. Don't know where these MG's are made, but not England, more than likely China.
Valvestates have a preamp tube which doesn't quite get it sounding like a JCM800 or something, but it does warms up the sound a little bit. MG's are full-on solid-state. MG's aren't really all that much better than your cheapo generic solid-state amp, IMO.
Valvestates are cheap nowadays because they're old and discontinued.
If you're aiming Randall... the RH150... is that a G3? If so, then it might be a good idea as well. Those were pretty decent heads too. The low-end is a little difficult to tame on those (lots and lots of huge fat low-end if you're not conservative with how you set the bass knob), but it can definitely be a good option.
If its good enough for Cannibal Corpse.... :p
The RH150 is also an awesome head, but make sure its the G3 Plus, not the regular G3.
Why's that?
I don't think there's THAT big of a difference between the two, TBH.
Hell, a G2 was even good enough by my standards. I was in a band where one guitarist was using a 6505+ and the other a 100-watt Randall G2 (with chorus, actually), and while it's not hard to figure out that the 6505 was all-around better-sounding (for the style of music we were playing), the Randall would very well hold its own against it.
Other than that... the Crate... meh. It can be alright. There's better, tho.
That clip of the B52 sounds nice. Isn't the AT100 quite a bit more expensive than all of the amps being discussed here? I thought it was around the 600-700 dollar range.
What about the "Flexwave" series by Crate? the head has a few effects (including chorus) aswell as 3 channels. clean, rhythm, and lead.
...I like this one too
I swear to god, if you get the Flexwave, I will go to your house, break in your door, and set fire to your amp
Joking aside, the. Flexwave is TERRIBLE. And why not get a cheap chorus pedal like the Dano FAB chorus and a reliable amp? You will have to switch it off manually, but youll get used to it.
Thats a good price, especiay since it has the included footswitch, which is hard as tits to find. But in my experience, a pedal was needed. Kirk Windstein and Dimebag also used some help (Kirk used a Metal Zone as an overdrive for the gain channel and Dimebag used a grahic eq pedal and a rackmounted parametric eq..)
My favorite budget metal head is the Ibby TBX150H. Can be found used pretty cheap. Some others are the Crate Gx130c and Crate Excallibur. Ive seen the GX900s and GX2200s go really cheap and they can get really heavy. Worlds better than modern Crate stuff.