360/12 V64 with 12 K 's, TI flats, through Boss CS 3 Compression-Sustain (put the J-box aside recently) and Boss RV 5 Reverb into a Fender Bassman 59 reissue, normal input - a full, warm and rich tone with lots of jangle , spacy. The bassman isn't so sharp as the AC 30 CC1 was - due to the 4 x 10 Jensons.

Out of interest, what were the old and new tubes? (I'm going to guess here... old: Sovtek; new: anything Chinese. ;-) I'm not a fan of Sovtek 12AX7s AT ALL... muddy, weak-sounding junk in my opinion. The typical Chinese ones aren't the greatest - especially for reliability - but they at least have plenty of gain and some sparkle.)

I like a few Crate amps, some of them are seriously underrated for a 'cheap' brand. I also like hybrids too... not as much as all-tube amps, but many are quite acceptable if your main tone is more a preamp-gain-into-high-powered-output-stage type of sound (like a big Mesa). I've been quite happy playing through many, and sometimes even wondered why I bother to own something so expensive and heavy as I do.

It sounds like the speakers in that thing are probably worth about what you paid for it too!

I plug my Guitar (Danelectro 12-string, don't worry, one day I will be able to replace the Danelectro Name with Rickenbacker) Into the Ibanez Tubescreamer 808, then through my modded Boss CS-3 Comp, then throug my Danelectro Cool Cat and then finally into my 1975 Silverface Fender Twin Reverb with JBL Speakers and 100 Watt output. It's so chimey and jangly I could cry :D

Cheers

For years I ran my 360-12WB through a late '70s silverfaced Vibrolux. Well, the Vibrolux had to go to make a house payment during a low spot a few years ago, and no matter how nice my other amps, and in spite of the POD 2.0 being just about the best emulator out there for straightforward use, nothing had the right flavor of jangle for me.

Then recently I tried out a friend's Vox Pathfinder that he had me repair, and my jangle came back. Not bad for a solid-state amp, and the 8-inch Vox Blue Celestion Bulldog has a ton of character. I may just have to get one for myself.

My 4002 sounds great through anything. And I've played it through literally tons of equipment, including direct out to board, over the years.

QUOTE FROM BlueAngel:

Out of interest, what were the old and new tubes? (I'm going to guess here... old: Sovtek; new: anything Chinese. ;-) I'm not a fan of Sovtek 12AX7s AT ALL... muddy, weak-sounding junk in my opinion. The typical Chinese ones aren't the greatest - especially for reliability - but they at least have plenty of gain and some sparkle.)

I like a few Crate amps, some of them are seriously underrated for a 'cheap' brand. I also like hybrids too... not as much as all-tube amps, but many are quite acceptable if your main tone is more a preamp-gain-into-high-powered-output-stage type of sound (like a big Mesa). I've been quite happy playing through many, and sometimes even wondered why I bother to own something so expensive and heavy as I do.

It sounds like the speakers in that thing are probably worth about what you paid for it too!

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The old tubes were probably Sovtek. But I'm not 100% sure, since they had no names on them. As for the new tubes - I specifically asked for Russian tubes at Guitar Center, when I bought them (the only other ones they had, were Chinese, and I'm not a fan of Chinese tubes after an unfortunate incident I had with a pair of Chinese 6146Ws I tried in a vintage Kenwood ham radio I have; I also didn't feel like wating for tubes I would have ordered online). The new tubes are Groove Tubes branded Russian tubes (not sure if they;re Sovtek, or Svetlana). Yes, an all-tube amp would have a rounder sound. But, I aint gots the cash for a decent one. I will say this, like my old 100W Valvestate, my GXT-100 is a bit easier to carry than my Mesas, or my Peavey Classic 50 were. It sure has a beefy enough power trasformer in it - it's large enough sizewise to probably power up a pair of EL-84s, or even 6V6s. For now at least, the GXT-100 will do.

As for the Celestion Silvers in my GXT-100 - yeah, they're probably worth more than I paid for the amp.

I have a Kustom Quad 65FX. With compression, it does the job quite nicely for my 360/12. A good delay pedal won't hurt either.

I play my JG 360 through a Mesa Boogie Studio .22+

With a boss eq and MXR Carbon Copy.. that gives me a nice tone. I usually have quite a v shaped eq on the pedal. I think that brings out the nice tonal qualities of this fine piece of workmanship.

325C64 + Vox AC30CC2X + Barber Tonepress = heaven.

Or 360/12V64 + Boss DD-7 delay, very nice.

Haha, I really think we were twins in a former life! I actually really like the older 100W Valvestates (the original 8100, and the VS100R) - they sound very good for such a cheap amp. I've played through dozens of them in practice rooms and even a few at supplied-backline gigs, and never had trouble getting decent tones from them. They don't quite hold it together at really high volume compared to a tube amp, but not bad considering how small and light they are. The best is the first version of the VS100R combo with the Celestion speaker, or one of the heads. I've very nearly bought one several times, but the build quality puts me off... even though they sound good I've just repaired too many of them.

Once I posted a sound clip of a VS65R on another music gear website and asked for guesses as to what it was... the answers ranged from an EL34 Marshall to a Rivera and a Bogner :-).

Regardless of what amp I'm playing through, I set treble at about 4, set the bass at about 5, and push the mid-range to 8 or 9. Then I set distortion, reverb or vibrato depending on what the song is. It gives me great full tone for playing rock and blues on my 650. I play my 330 with less distortion but still push up the mid-range for a full, warm sound...or add distortion to give it a good growl when playing slide blues.