Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Hello,

After playing acoustic-only for a long time, I finally broke down and bought a sunburst 330/6. Have always liked the chiming, ringing sound a la The Church, etc. and decided to take the plunge. Am wondering if anyone has amplifier recommendations. Would be looking to spend ~$250 and would only be using for practice or jamming with friends.

Thanks,
Mike

If you can find a used Fender amp with Ultra Chorus. My Taylor acoustic and my simi-hollow 360/6 sounds great through my Fender Ultra Chorus with rate and depth set in the middle position. Fender has a new series out called Dyno-Touch 111 Series starting at $400 with built in effects that sound good plus they're small. Line 6 Spider amps 75watts with a 12" speaker start at $300 and a Spider 30watt for $200. BEHRINGER makes V-Ampire LX1 Modeling Amp that models 32 other amps, 15 speaker cabinets with 16 studio-quality effects with 100watts, 50w per Jensen 12" speaker with 125 memory locations and dual footswitch for...get this...$249.99. I've got some Behringer gear and for the money they give you the most for you dollar and at a good quality. If I had $1000 I'd get a Fender Twin Reverb with tubes but I don't. Check out the Behringer at your local Music Store and if you like it, buy it. If $250 is what you got, get the most for your buck.

Welcome Impy64. I would seriously consider the Traynor YCV40, especially should you be buying in US dollars. This amp is great for home or gig use. I would go for the Vintage 30 speaker option as well. This little amp will blow you away, and you can carry it yourself!

Seems the Traynors are held in very high regard here. I'm hearing high quality, low price....a nice combination.....

It may be time to try this new 200w tube bass amp out that everyone seems to be raving about....

I have a Vox tonelab and like it. the Vox AD30 sounds ideal fo your situation and in your price range.

One thing a cheap modeller will give that a tube amp won;t is flexibility to develop "your own sound." that accomplished, you can then move up to tubes if you gig or feel like playing loud at home

I have a 15 watt solid state amp to boost the tonelab. I never get the volume over 2.5, and that is more than enough to play at living room levels.

The main thing is to go to some stores and play as many amps as possible.

I have to second Peter's Traynor recommendation. I played a YCV40 WR (the one with the burgundy tolex and the Celestion Vintage 30 speaker) for half an hour in a local store here in Toronto and was really taken with it. Very nice sound, and quite flexible. Cheap, too. I have an Edward Amplification 18 watt head that I think uses the same brand of transformer, and that's a very nice amp, too.

Boy, there are a lot of choices in this segment these days, aren't there? I can't remember a better time for the astute amp shopper.

Here's a third thumbs up for the Traynor YCV40WR. Swap the stock harsh-sounding Sovtek tubes for a set of JJs, and you got a real nice chime machine.

They cost a bit more than your $250 budget though. I got mine for around $540 shipped from Gear 1 Music.

Traynor also make a 20-watt version, but the price is almost the same as the 40-watter.

My set up is a little different. The RIC 430 does not have the jangle/chime that the semi-hollow body's have.
I combine my Roland XP-80 with my RIC (switch back and forth and sequence a lot of stuff) Using a Roland guitar processor into a Behringer compressor / Nady stereo EQ / Alesis MIDIverb4 / Behringer mixer.
The whole thing is powered by an Alesis RA 250.
I let the RIC shine with a bypass on the guitar processor and use the effects from the MIDIverb4. (I can bypass the guitar processor and switch effects in the MIDIverb4 by program changes from the XP-80 to the equipment via a MIDI channel in the sequence)
If I need distortion, etc. I kick in the guitar processor and let 'er rip!!
The Alesis amp is very, very clean.

Can anyone recommend an amp similar to the Traynor YCV40-WR or Traynor YCV20-WR that has a headphone jack?

The newer YCV20-WR does have a headphone jack, along with an external speaker jack.

http://www.yorkville.com/downloads/manuals/omycv20.pdf

This probably isn't what you're looking for, but the Gilmore Jr. kit from Gerhart amps has been tempting me lately. It's a simple half watt tube amp kit that sells for $250. You've got to assemble it yourself and have a cab to plug into, but it sure looks cool - and fun!

http://www.gerhartamps.com/

...And when you check out the Gilmore Jr. page, listen to their sample mp3 of a twelve-string played through it. A beautiful, warm sound with just a bit of bite. Not exactly jangle, but nice vintage glow.