I'm looking to buy a tube amp, but I'm moving into an apartment, so I don't want anything too big or loud. I've looked at a couple of 5W tube amps, one from Crate and one from Fender
Does anyone have any experience with any of these two, or have any other suggestions?

This post has been edited by ActiveX: Apr 26 2008, 10:59 PM

Well, if you are leveling the too, I would say - Fender. It is a standard brand name, so you can't go much wrong with it.

I have this, as does Andrew. Just volume, no tone. They make mods for it. But if you use effects, what is the point? I think we can assume that the fender amp is no better quality, not for something like this.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Epi...Head?sku=482069

they have a blem on sale for $113, I would get that. Those are generally real minor imperfections, and you get warranty.

don't get a speaker with one of these, it is bound to be crappy.

This post has been edited by fkalich: Apr 27 2008, 02:29 AM

What type of music do you like to play? as this really changes things. When I was recently shopping for a new 5 watt tube amp I looked at the following ones:

Epiphone Valve Junior - huge tone for the price, very simple to operate, and of course cheap.

Epiphone Valve Special - very similar to the valve junior but has more tone controls with being able to control gain, treble, middle, bass, and has some built in effects like chorus, flange, and delay. The reverb on it is pretty nice as well. Only issue I have is that I'm finding it hard to get a nice warm overdriven tone out of it, sounds really good clean though.

Blackheart - much like the valve junior its just a great amp for the price. good clean tone, and breaks up nicely into the classic rock territory of old Aerosmith, Zeppelin, AC/DC, etc.

This post has been edited by Strungout180: Apr 27 2008, 03:36 AM

The Valve junior is great for the price and plenty loud enough - it really is a very honest cut down machine with real tube all the way through - 12ax7 and EL84. It would suit clean through a little crunch - great for blues I would think, but if you want fine control over the level of distortion and volume you don't have that - it just gets louder and more distorted at the same time as you turn the gain up.

A great buy though, you really can't beat it for the price if it siuts what you want to do!

I bought the Fender, but I returned it after a few days. Didn't like it at all. Not much punch in it and the sound was ... boring, it sounded very weak and the overall quality of it was questionable. Stuff was rattling inside of it.
I returned it and bought a Blackheart BH5 which I'm very happy with.

The Fender has a 6" speaker. That's not a lot. I agree with blindwillie that the Blackheart or the Epi Jr mentioned earlier are two good choices. You'd want them with 12" speaker.

check out the crate V series offered by guitar center.
Those things are great for the price.