| I would recommend you check out the Roland Jazz Chorus series amps,
as well as the Peavey Studio Chorus amps. Both have great clean
sounds with built-in chorusing. The Peavey amps also have a pretty
good distortion sound. The Roland Jazz Chorus amps have built-in
distortion as well, but the concensus is that the distortion in
these amps is poor. For playing acoustic, you wouldn't use the
distortion anyways, but since you are looking ahead to eventually
getting an electric, it would be nice to have the distortion. Both
the Peavey and Roland chorus amps have dual power amps in them to
effect the stereo sound. They generally have two speakers with
each speaker connected to it's own a power amp. Having both speakers in
one cabinet doesn't provide a great stereo field. For this, you
would need 2 cabs separated by several feet. I believe the Peavey
amps allow you to use external cabinets if you desire to improve
on the stereo effect. Don't know about the Roland amps for this
feature.
I demoed Peavey's smallest Studio Chorus amp (the Studio Chorus
70), and I must admit, it has a real good sound and a nice array
of features. The price is also pretty easy to swallow. Union Music
(not known for great prices) is getting about $325 for a brand new
Studio Chorus 70. Check with Daddy's Junky Music, you could probably
get one from them for about $250. I bought a PVM38 mic from Union
Music for $149, only to find that Daddy's was selling them for
$99.
Peavey also just came out with "The world's first amplifier with
built-in 16 bit digital reverb". This would be worth checking out,
but would most likely be more money.
Another great little amp for playing electric (although rather outdated
by today's standards), is the Fender Super Champ. These were being
made around 1982, but have since been discontinued. Features include
18watts (of tube power, that equates to a much more powerful transistor
amp), channel switching from clean to overdrive, and reverb. An
acoustic guitar would sound OK through one of these, but an electric
would really sound hot. These amps can be had used for about $200.
Of course, acoustic guitars sound best (on stage) when played directly
through the PA system, although they also sound good through clean
sounding amps.
Mark Jacques
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| As Mark pointed out, for performing, the PA would do just fine for
an acoustic.
From what I've seen, there are a LOT of amps on the market that
sound good for duplicating a clean sound, which I presume you'd
want with the acoustic. It's when you starting getting into shades
of distortion that most of the controversy begins.
Peavy makes several, Roland, Polytone.
just some ideas
Greg
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| Peavey Bandit can be had for around 265.00. It's a nice amp. If
you want real inexpensive, Crate has some amps, I have a G-10 that I use
at home, it has a wild distortion, but sounds ok clean too (priced
at 79.00). I mainly use it for my Rockmodules. I would suggest trying
the Rockman X100 (219.95). The CLN 2 setting with chorus and delay
sounds interesting with an acoustic. Scholz also makes a less expensive
model (the soloist-129.00) but I have never tried it with an acoustic.
The Rockman gear isn't really an AMP by definition, it connects
into your amp or direct into your mixing board. I would take your
guitar with you when you go shopping. My Epiphone 12 string, with
a DiMarzio pickup, probably sounds different than your guitar.
Happy Hunting !!
Tony
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