The Watering Hole

What a nightmare !  :)

I was searching an amp to use with the Pod for make some noise at home (again...history repeating).
The first choice was a Peavey keayboard amp. With the pod it sounded terrible! That tweeter was a knife in my ears. Cutting the highs was not enough and the result was an "honk" and boxed sound. No matter which eq I used on the pod or on the amp. This amp is gone... ;)

Second choice: a solid state combo with the FX loop.
Purchased a new fender frontman 212. Much better than the keyboard amp but...no life, flat. Plenty of lows, lot of (metallic) highs, poor mids. Swapped the stock speakers with two Eminence that I've at home. Better..but still a "dead" sounding amp. Anyway the amp was defective (the clean channel's volume was working from 0 to 2 out of 10 !!) so I returned it.

Unfortunately at the shop they gave me a new frontman... This time the volume is working but the amp emits some nice "crick, crack, pop" from time to time so I've to return it again !!

Fortunately at the shop, they don't have a new frontman for me and thanks to the the poor quality of these amps, they'll refound me! Hurray !!

I'm really really grateful to fender for it ! ;D ;D

The amp search continue.... :)

Marco,

Kind of pricey, but designed to work with digital gear.  Check it out as a possibility.

http://www.atomicamps.com/products.htm

send it back Marco and go back to real amps  ;D

Thanks for the info about the Atomic! Seems to be a good amp for the POD but I think it's really too much for me. :)
What I'm  seaching for is an "honest " amp that let me to play some chords ad home without the use of the headphones.

I was thinking to something to use with the POD, but after the last experience, I'll probably go for a little modeler amp like the Mustang or the new Vox valvetronix or the Fender XD.


Don't tempt me, Jon !!
Since three weeks I'm repeating the mantra (10 times a day x 10 repeats):
"I stopped to play in band, I don't need a "real" amp"
"I stopped to play in band, I don't need a "real" amp"
"I stopped to play in band, I don't need a "real" amp"

;D




 

why not play through your monitors, home stereo... something like that? I would think monitors would be the best way to go.

I tried using my PODHD through the power amp of the peavey C30.  It worked to a degree but everything was always far too bright. I don't know what it is about pods but they certainly don't work well when going into a power amp section with a real guitar cab (with the pod cabs off of course).  

Get the Fender Super Champ XD... best practice amp, ever. And when you plug it into a 1x12 or 2x12 cab it's legit... 15w tube power amp... I personally dislike solid state power amps, I think the tube power amp is where 90% of the magic happens, hell I have no problem using a solid-state front end, I use pedals all the time...

When I'm at home I usually use a little computer speaker setup with sub and two little speakers.  Just go straight out of the headphone jack.  This sounds pretty good to me  When I'm playing with other people/drummer, I use a Carvin Nomad tube amp and go through the front while setting the highs very low and the mids and bass up.  I always use the studio output setting with cabs and mikes  and full models on the POD HD.  I didn't like going through the power amp as much on either POD setting.  The Carvin is a lil 50w tube amp which stays very clean and I stuck one of those Celestians that Avatar was blowing out a while back (supposedly made for Vetta?) in it. Those two have given me the best results.  I didn't dig the sound my keyboard amp gave me as much.  I still want to try the PA and wedges at my Pops'.

Yeah, if you are sticking with the POD and not playing live I'd say go with a good set of monitors.  If you weren't halfway around the world I'd try to sell you my KRK V8's :D

Thanks all for the infos !

This evening I was checking the amp again and I've found a good sound using the pod in front of the amp using the amp's lead channel with the gain and the highs at 0.
The pod has just a bit of compressor and a pedal called "color overdrive" turned on. Well, in this way there's a really nice breakup, all those piercing highs are gone and the dynamic is controlled by the pod that is way more responsive than this amp.
Anyway I'll return the amp tomorrow and I hope to find something better (and reliable) than this one !

Ciao!
Marco