Seeking Advice on Amp for Guitar Shop - UPDATED WITH PURCHASE

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by Chickee

...Considering you carry specialty high end gear, the cost factor shouldn’t be an issue for your business to absorb.

Keeping the clientele of your shop in mind, I can’t understand why you wouldn’t be considering a small assortment of amplifiers...

^^^^^ What he said... ^^^^^

[Organic Sounds Select Guitars]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

Deluxe Reverbs of just about any vintage are great amps - played my share, rented my share, and the best jazz tone I ever heard was at a catered affair, where the cocktail-hour guitarist was running his two-pickup Johnny Smith through a silverface Deluxe with factory JBL...

I've also played every iteration of the Twin from 1964 on, and there's much to be said for the sonic bloom, spread, and frequency response that can only be had from multiple speakers, regardless of volume - in fact, my first exposure to the breed was at a schoolyard dance in Summer '64, where the guitarist with one of the bands was playing his blonde thin-body '63 Gretsch Country Club through a similarly blonde (with oxblood grill) pre-'verb '63 Twin-Amp (see below)...

Given the ability to power down to 1W - and hit every classic Fender combo power point (5W Champ, 12W Princeton, 22W Deluxe, 40W Pro/Super, as well as the requisite 85W Twin) - if you absolutely had to have a single "Swiss Army" amp my first choice would be a ToneMaster Twin, likely in the highly-rated blonde version with Celestion Neo Creambacks...

Super helpful, thank you Steve!

Originally Posted by Rudy4

I've had a few nice amps, running the spectrum from an older twin to a JC-120. The thing that would be REALLY nice in this scenario would be if there was an small area of the showroom that could have an L-shaped wall and door added to an inside corner to make a small isolated area to demo electric guitars. Maybe even a doored partition across a hallway to create a small demo space.

Nothing convinces me to abbreviate browsing in a guitar store like getting the "Guitar Center" experience of someone cranking an amp of any size.

Originally Posted by Chickee

Attachment 88126

A perfect addition to your beautiful showroom stage, it can double as an isolation booth for both electric and acoustic tryouts and also a drummers booth when you host stage shows in your shop!

Considering you carry specialty high end gear, the cost factor shouldn’t be an issue for your business to absorb.

Keeping the clientele of your shop in mind, I can’t understand why you wouldn’t be considering a small assortment of amplifiers. Tube, solid state, digital modeling, hybrid tube/digital? All with nothing more than single speaker configurations to keep the footprint small and offer your buyers the best of all amplified worlds? Better still, amp heads connected to a singular cabinet for real space savings! Note: I love spending other peoples money! Bahahaha!
frank d.

Thanks Rudy and Frank! The idea of having an isolation area is attractive, but would be difficult in my shop due to size constraints. Frank, I like that isolation booth, but it would take up almost our entire stage! The assortment of amp heads connected to single speaker cabinet - now that is a cool idea!

Rudy, I totally agree with your feelings about a "Guitar Center" experience, and that is why I'm looking for an amp that can be played at low volumes. We aren't the type of shop that has a ton of traffic - in most cases, a customer will likely be the only one in the store.

The fact that we carry high end gear, unfortunately, does not mean that we have the ability to "absorb" extra costs. This business is a labor of love for me, not a high margin money maker. I do love it, however, and I want the buying experience to be unique and comfortable for my customers. An assortment of amps (or amp heads) might be in our future. We are just starting out with a limited number of electric guitars to go along with our much larger selection of acoustic instruments. We'll see how it goes, and adjust accordingly!


Thanks again to everyone who has offered advice - you guys are great!

[rmp]

Originally Posted by Organic Sounds Select Guitars

For those who play jazz, clean country picking, R&B, etc., would you generally prefer the cleans available with the Twin over the cleans available with the Deluxe (leaving aside the issue of clean headroom)?

Maybe it's 6 of one half a dozen of the other. Although I see more Deluxe's than anything else on stages and in vid clips.


Again with the tone masters , the attenuator is such a cool little feature.

at .05 watt setting, putting the volume on 4 or 5 will give that slight edgy breaking up sound, on 8 or 9, it's pretty much vintage gain.

Flip the attenuator to something higher wattage setting, and turn the volume down, and it's crystal clear clean.

The reverb is excellent, and the tremelo works exactly like you'd expect a fender tremelo to work.

I really love the idea behind these amps,

or was that not obvious?

[GoPappy]

Larry, be aware that that Tonemaster Twin Reverb's attenuator has a minimum setting of 1 watt. The TM Deluxe Reverb has two settings below 1 watt: .2 watt and .5 watt.

In a small somewhat intimate setting like yours, those two lower settings could be the difference between too loud and just right. It's amazing how loud 1 watt can be.

[Organic Sounds Select Guitars]

Originally Posted by rmp

Maybe it's 6 of one half a dozen of the other. Although I see more Deluxe's than anything else on stages and in vid clips.


Again with the tone masters , the attenuator is such a cool little feature.

at .05 watt setting, putting the volume on 4 or 5 will give that slight edgy breaking up sound, on 8 or 9, it's pretty much vintage gain.

Flip the attenuator to something higher wattage setting, and turn the volume down, and it's crystal clear clean.

The reverb is excellent, and the tremelo works exactly like you'd expect a fender tremelo to work.

I really love the idea behind these amps,

or was that not obvious?

Originally Posted by GoPappy

Larry, be aware that that Tonemaster Twin Reverb's attenuator has a minimum setting of 1 watt. The TM Deluxe Reverb has two settings below 1 watt: .2 watt and .5 watt.

In a small somewhat intimate setting like yours, those two lower settings could be the difference between too loud and just right. It's amazing how loud 1 watt can be.

Thanks again, Ray and GoPappy. Great info, and very helpful. I will try to find these to test out and make my decision for the store.

[Organic Sounds Select Guitars]

Thought I'd follow up and let you know what I've purchased for the shop. The Fender Tone Master amps were very difficult to find locally. Of course I could have ordered one online, but I wanted to practice what I preach in regards to supporting a local brick and mortar shop.

One local shop had a single Tone Master amp. It was their display model and happened to be a Super Reverb. They offered me a discount since it had a few scratches and marks on it. So it will now join me in Organic Sounds.

I played around a bit last night with my Tele and my Strat (haven't tried it yet with humbuckers or P-90's, or with pedals). Of course it sounds huge and wonderful, easy to dial in a great sound. The ability to attenuate down to 0.5 watts is really cool. It can get surprisingly loud even at that power level, albeit not cleanly. Going up to the full 45 watts gives it more clean headroom than I would ever want to hear in a smaller space.

So a big thank you to all who offered their guidance and advice to me in this thread. I really appreciate it!

[rmp]

Congrats on that!

Glad the journey ended with a good story.

The super reverb is a lot of amp. I bet it does sound HUGE at normal settings.

But yea man, these Tone Masters are really cool things.

My tone master DR sits right next to a JTM Marshall combo in my studio room,

Guess which amp gets the most use?

[Glennwillow]

Wow, a Super Reverb Tonemaster! That's very cool, Larry! Good for you! That will be very nice to have, especially with the attenuation feature!

- Glenn

[ghostnote]

That’s a nice amp, and I think you made a wise decision. Hope it helps you sell a lot of guitars!

[GoPappy]

That’s a lot of amp. Congrats!

[EZYPIKINS]

My go to gigging amp for years was the JTM45 and 1960BX.

For a more compact 112 combo I went with the Deluxe RI.

That said, Most electrics I buy anymore are spur of the moment. If I like what I hear I will buy.

But, I'm going to need to move some air, in order for the guitar to move me. That means volume.

[rmp]

Originally Posted by EZYPIKINS

My go to gigging amp for years was the JTM45 and 1960BX.

For a more compact 112 combo I went with the Deluxe RI.

That said, Most electrics I buy anymore are spur of the moment. If I like what I hear I will buy.

But, I'm going to need to move some air, in order for the guitar to move me. That means volume.

yea.. but that's a job for a Marshall head/cab combo! At least in my corner of the universe..

[Chickee]

I know my opinion counts for nothing, Larry, but I think you made a terrific choice for your business needs. All the best to you and yours.

frank d.

[Organic Sounds Select Guitars]

Thanks for all of the comments, guys! I've played around a bit more with this amp, using different guitars with different types of pickups, and with pedals. It really is a great amp, with so many ways to adjust tone. The best feature for the store is certainly the attenuation abilities. The only feature I'm not thrilled with is the tremolo - it's a little sharper than I'd like, and even at it's slowest speed, it's a little faster than I'd prefer. Compared to the tremolo in my PRRI, it's just not as pleasant. The reverb sounds fine.

For the record, and responding to Frank's comment immediately above: all opinions were greatly appreciated! You guys are all terrific!

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by Organic Sounds Select Guitars

Thanks for all of the comments, guys! I've played around a bit more with this amp, using different guitars with different types of pickups, and with pedals. It really is a great amp, with so many ways to adjust tone. The best feature for the store is certainly the attenuation abilities. The only feature I'm not thrilled with is the tremolo - it's a little sharper than I'd like, and even at it's slowest speed, it's a little faster than I'd prefer. Compared to the tremolo in my PRRI, it's just not as pleasant. The reverb sounds fine.

For the record, and responding to Frank's comment immediately above: all opinions were greatly appreciated! You guys are all terrific!

Congrats on the amp! BTW, you are going to have a hard time finding a trem you like as much as the PRRI: it is a bias-based trem and has a sound of its own that I prefer over any other. The amp modulates the bias current to get its trem and the result is really nice. The Tonemaster Super is emulating the original in the Super, an opto-coupler based trem that is just a little more jagged. On the PRRI, I open up the trem and "Crimson and Clover" just comes to mind.

Bob