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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on March 23, 2017 at 5:45pm

Whoooaaa, yer gonna get a ton of answers, dependent upon people's favorites.

Soooo...here's mine.

For venues holding more than 250 people, I use a Crate V-16 15W Palomino tube amp, with the guitar plugged straight into the amp, and a Shure SM 57 in an AmpClamp set off center to the 12" speaker. I will sometimes alternate with a 200 W ZT Lunchbox solid state amp with a 6.5" speaker, if I feel the need for multiple guitar tones from a Digitech GNX-1 Multieffects unit; this amp also gets miked with an SM 57 in a floor stand. I have also used a Roland Stereo Mobile Cube in front of 1000 people with no PA. For smaller venues and house parties, I usually bring a Fender 600 Champ reissue tube amp, fitted with an AmpClamp holding the ubiquitous SM 57, and a Pignose 7-100 cracked half open and miked internally with same on a floor stand. I will also just for fun occasionally bring along my 9V-powered Zinky Li'l Smokey, and an LM-386 chip amp housed in a CAO cigar box with a 4" speaker.

I do not need a Marshall half stack; the ZT Lunchbox has been proven to hang with my friends that have them, and is far more portable.

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on March 23, 2017 at 7:27pm

As Ron points out, size of the venue is relevant to what you use, and whether you'll be going straight off the stage or miking the amp thru' the PA. Also, will you be having to compete with a full drum kit or band? In that case you might need something a bit more powerful.

The popular trend is for relatively small combo amps, and there's good reasons for this - people aren't playing at ear bleedingly high volumes so much these days, and a smaller combo is light and portable (compared with a heavy 2 x 12combo or 4 x 12 stack). In terms of power output, you'll get away with 20 or 30watts, into a 10 or 12 inch speaker. I like to have the option of a bit more poke when playing with my band, especially if we only have vocals thru the  PA, and my 75W Sessionette 1 x 12 combo is plenty powerful for that. The more powerful amp also gives me a bit more clean "headroom", ie I can turn the amp up without it distorting...but if you don't use clean tones at high volume, that's not so much of a consideration.

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Permalink Reply by Milt Haselmire on March 24, 2017 at 8:49am

50 watt Traynor YCV50Blue with YCX12 extension cabinet or 5 watt Blackstar HT5 for smaller rooms. Miced  up with a Shure SM57 when needed.  Any decent single 12 combo is probably the one size fits all option in my opinion. 

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on March 25, 2017 at 4:03am

And just to put a cherry on it...

Neil Young uses a beat up tweed Fender Deluxe 1x12, mic'd backstage (with the signal admittedly then run through a bunch of other stuff: see the Guitar Player interview with Larry Cragg, Neil's guitar tech, from 1992. Frank Zappa famously used a half-open Pignose 7-100 mic'd in the studio for many of his iconic solos. Mic'ing small amps is an art, that leads to lower stage volumes, better overall hearing health, and better musicianship,

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