best country amp??

[Jim Phelps]

I had the idea that since the poster compared this topic to the "best country guitar" topic, which was about standard 6-string electric guitar, that this topic was aimed at standard guitar too, and not steel guitar. I could be wrong about that.

I sat in with my old friend Richard Edge once in about '72, I played my 6-string guitar through his Standel and he plugged his steel into something else, don't remember what...and I'll tell you what....my '69 Gibson Super 400 (I wasn't into Tele's then) had a tone I've never had since, and I've always enjoyed a reputation of having a very good guitar tone (not necessarily when on steel!). Richard's old Sho-Bud through that Standel got a tone that if it didn't make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, nothing would. Of course Richard was mostly responsible for that, not his gear, but a player who can get a tone, with the right gear....wow.

But since not many of us can afford a Standel or would likely beat it to death on the road even if we had one, I stand by Fender tube amps as a practical next-best.

When I was playing 5-6 nights a week in Vegas in the early '80's, I had at one time 3 blackface Fender amps; a twin reverb, vibrolux, and a Deluxe, and a Gibson/Moog Lab Series L-5. They all had JBL's except for the Vibrolux which had EVs.

The other guitar player had a Music Man, we used to swap his and all my amps around between us from night to night, as well as quite an arsenal of guitars.

No matter what guitar or amp we played through, he sounded like himself and I sounded like myself.

To my ears, the old Fender Twin Reverb and the Deluxe Reverb had the best sound for 6-string guitar, followed by the Vibrolux, the Lab, and his Music Man. Later I got a Music Man RD-112 that sounded excellent. The steel sounded best (to me) in the Twin Reverb, the Music Man, and then the Lab, in that order. They all sounded great but I list some over the others just for what my ears heard, as they say, others' mileage may vary.

I had a Peavey Session 500 for a while, but was not playing steel at the time. For regular guitar, I couldn't stand it but I know many love it for steel, which is what it was designed for so I did'nt give it a fair chance.

My old band did a gig in a casino in Iowa, they had a stage with all amps furnished. At the time we had another steel player and I was playing lead 6-string guitar so I grabbed the '65 reissue Fender Twin Reverb. I didn't expect it to sound as good as it did, it was excellent. <FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Jim Phelps on 28 December 2004 at 08:18 PM.]</p></FONT>

[Jussi Huhtakangas]

While it's true, that the new Standels are not exactly inexpensive, and sometimes the old tube ones draw astronomical bucks, you can still find the solid state models and hybrids for reasonable prices. In the past couple of years I've helped three of my buddies here in Finland to get one ( all from ebay ), one is a hybrid, two are early solid states, all with JBL D130's. None of them cost more than 700 bucks, and actually the last and the cleanest of the bunch was only 400+change. It was on ebay twice and nobody cared to bid on it, so my buddy got it for the opening bid. It's the same model Big E used on many Ray Price recordings, tone to the bone, dudes!
As far as taking one on the road; for five years it's been my only amp so I pretty much had to take it on the road. Never had a problem and it has always done the job from the smallest club to a big hockey arena.
But hey, I'm not saying you should all go out and get one; the more you play your Fenders and Peaveys, the more we Finns can buy the old Standels

[Bill C. Buntin]

The old Standel gets my vote.