I had a Line 6 Vetta for a few years and absolutely loved it. I mean, the raw tweak power of it was just great and I was satisfied with the sounds I got out of it (especially after the Vetta II firmware upgrade). Well, hard times came last year and I had to sell it. While I liked the sounds, it was a bit on the fragile side and suffered chronic noise/maint. issues.
With all the presets available on the Vetta, I found myself continually sticking with just 4 channels worth of custom presets and almost never deviating from them (super clean, bluesy/dirty funk, heavy rock crunch, over-the-top metal/solo). So I decided for my next rig, I'm gonna go with solid analog stuff running off a killer 4 channel tube amp. So I'm looking around and curious if anyone has any feedback on these amps or others not mentioned.
Mesa/Boogie Roadster: I LOVE the Roadster. Abso-friggin'-lutely love it. It think it sounds great, it's not too over-the-top in features, rock solid and sounds amazing (IMHO). Expensive but not excessively so (IMO). This is at the top of my list.
Marshall JVM410: I really thought this amp sucked. I wanted to like it a lot, but I just loathed it. I thought the dirty tones on it were great, but the clean lacked punch and definition and the distortion was thin-sounding and very VERY noisy. I tried a combo in CA and a half stack in AZ, and unless both underwent similar abuse prior to my trying them out, I'm not putting my money anywhere near this amp. Better luck next time, Marshall.
Diezel V4H (or V4HS): It's an orgasm with knobs, but way more than I can afford. My ULTIMATE dream rig would have the V4HS with an Eclipse feeding the stereo returns. Mmmm... so good. But too much $$$. I played on it and had to be physically removed by the sales staff.
Egnater Tourmaster: Looks like it's worth looking into. Looks like it's close to the Roadster in features and while they're not exactly the same, the Tourmaster is a few hundred less which is always appealing to me as a consumer. I have yet to locate one to try out. Online reviews give a lot of credit to Bruce Egnater as a great guy and amp designer, so I'm interested to try it out.
There are a few others out there... I believe ENGL has a 4-channel out there. I wouldn't mind working with fewer channels on the amp as long as it's not too much of a pain to use other tools to get the sounds I want and have them switched easily (I want 1 button to change settings, not 3 different stomps).
I had a religious experience with a Bogner Shiva a while ago, but they're crazy expensive. I wasn't all that into the Ecstacy, but I haven't tried the Uberschall yet. I'm also a HUGE fan of Laney amps; every experience I've had on them has been fantastic, however distribution in the US is poor to say the least. I'm glad to see that Sweetwater at least now carries something of theirs. I hope Sweetwater is able to start carrying more of their products because retailers in the US are always brick and mortar and only carry 1x12 combos at best.
Anyway, chip in any thoughts.
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