Musicians, which amp to buy?

Hearing Loss
#1

Hi, I played acoutic guitar and now I finally have an electric guitar too, and I am wondering which amp to get. I wear Phonak Naida B hearing aids and music from a phone or laptop sounds like garbage (I stream music with Phonak compilot). live music or a good radio is totally fine. so, what type of amp would be the best regarding sound quality? is there a difference between a solid state and a tube? tube combo and tube head + reprobox?

I did some research and thought about getting a Marshall DSL5CR (tube combo). it’s quite small though so hope I would hear it fine. what do you think? if you play guitar, what do you use? appreciate any help! :slight_smile:

#2

Wouldn’t recomend the little Marshall at all. Very limited one trick pony. Sure it’s a great trick and five watts in a valve [you call them toobs] driven combo is pretty loud but it’s all you get. I’d suggest a small valve driven Fender and there are several models I’d recomend:.
Blues Junior plenty of tonal options plus reverb and tremolo. really loud
'68 Custom Vibro Champ® Reverb same power as the little marshal - loud
Mustang GTX also really loud

#3

I want to play metal and hard rock so I don’t know if Fender would be good for that…
what is the sound difference between a solid state and a tube? and tube combo and tube head + reprobox? I mean from the perspective of a hearing aid user, if it doesn’t sound too boxy or something like that

#4

Depends which Fender and how loud you want to play. The modelling fenders (Mustang) do reasonable simulations (sims) of metal tones and hard rock as well. The marshal 5 watter will do hard rock.

Any amp will do metal or hard rock if you have the right pedals driving it. Recommending an amp really requires the context it will be used in. I’ve assumed a play at home situation.

Get the best basic amp you can afford and use pedals or a multi FX unit for the tones you want. Another is to use a modelling amp like a Roland Cube or fender Mustang to cover popular tones like metal. A third approach is to buy an amp designed for a tone.
Eg marshal (Valves) for hard rock
Not sure on metal amps metal but solid state is common for metal…

Its a big area and to get good advice you need to be very specific. I recomend asking questions at any of the guitar forums.

#5

ok, thank you. do you have any idea if I can connect a Phonak compilot (ithas bluetooth) to an amp to stream directly into my hearing aids?

#6

ComPilot has an option to use an audio cable if what you want to connect too, doesn’t have Bluetooth.