- Homemade 1W amp (IC amp driving a 12" speaker). After 1 year the IC had melted into the perf board I mounted it on (I didn't know much about thermal management at the time).
- Marshall Lead 12. My first real amp that I carried under 1 arm on a 5 mile bike ride from the music store.
- Marshall JCM800 Stack. Inspired by the Rush ATWAS album cover. I had to take the passenger seat out of my car to take the speaker cab to gigs.
- Marshall MOSFET 100. The JCM was a little too big at the time, and the sound was good enough for me at the time.
- Peavey Rockmaster + ADA power amp. Went "rack" in the 90's.
- Roctron Piranha + ADA power amp. Went "rack + MIDI".
- Tech 21 Trademark 60 1x12. Wanted a portable rig. Never fully bonded with it.
- Mesa Boogie Tremoverb Combo. A portable (somewhat at >100 lbs) favorite of the modern rock bands of the time.
- Orange Rockerverb 50 Combo. Man, that was a heavy amp.
- Marshall JVM215C. Wanted t get back to the Marshall tone while being portable. I never fully bonded with this amp.
- Reinhardt Storm. Call me crazy, but I couldn’t coax a non-fuzzy sound out of it, even with an attenuator (only had it for a day).
- Diamond Spitfire II. The clean channel was killer. I finally bought it 2 years after first trying it out. After a while it was too heavy and the distortion was too smooth.
- Guytron GT-20. Was looking for a portable combo with many features. In the end it sounded too Vox’y, and didn’t take pedals well.
- BC Audio #8. Sounded ok (a little different than most of my amps) but it wasn’t very high gain, and was a 1-trick pony.
- Phaez Duophonic (SIBLY + Proximo). Looking for that Jimmy Page TSRTS sound. The EQ was very responsive, but it had too midrange of a tone for me. I had a hard time selling it, and unmoving the channel switching added hum, so I just tossed it.
- Marshall 2004 1959SLPX. Looking for that Jimmy Page TSRTS sound (I'm repeating myself...).
- Marshall JCM1H. Wanted to get back to my JCM days with a small low watt amp. It ended up being a 1-trick pony, and my DSL40 could do the same thing already.
- Marshall AS50D. Needed an acoustic amp for my piezo equipped PRS Hollowbody.
- Ceriatone TW Expression. Inspired by that classic Trainwreck video on Youtube.
- Fender Supersonic 60. Could never get a good burn channel sound out of it.
- Carol Ann Revo-1. Great when pushed with a boost, but the stand-alone distortion didn't do it for me (very grainy sounding).
- Tube Tone Supervibe. Looking for that Bassman sound without a 2 ohm output.
- Granger V20 Nitro. Wanted a small, low power, dual channel amp with a Marshall sound. After a Fargen tweak the gain went down and the effect loop stopped working. Sold it because it sounded too smooth and hi-fi to me, and never had enough gain.
- Marshall DSL40C. Looking for a 2+ channel amp that sounds good with OD’d for metal tones.
- Carvin V3. Sounded very synthetic, not a natural sounding distortion (only had it for a day).
- DV Mark Maragold. Way too much midrange that couldn’t be dialed out, and not enough gain.
- Bogner ATMA. Could hear clicking when switching channels. Very midrange voice with too much hum (only had it for a week).
- Egnater Renegade. The fan was too loud. No matter how I set it up there was a high pitch clicking when picking the guitar strings. It also didn’t sound as “open” as my DSL40C (I only had it for a week).
- Jet City JCA50H. Wanted a 2-channel amp that sounds like a Marshall and had a good low end (oomph). The amp is very mod friendly, and has a Solano type gain (smooth with many harmonics). Customer support is great.
- Marshall SC20H. Originally looking for a small amp for a backup, to replace my too-low-gain V20, but the DSL20H had too many issues reported with it. Traded it in for the 5150 Iconic since it had too much high end bite.
- Fender Vintage Modified '68 Custom Deluxe Reverb Silverface. Wanted a traditional Fender American tone for single coils. It sounded too midrange for me.
- Acoustic G120H. Heard it at Mystery Street Studio and thought it sounded great for the lightweight solid state amp.
- EVH 5150 Iconic. Wanted high gain amp like Deafheaven uses, but couldn’t find an old 6505 like they use. This was close and I could trade my SC20H for it.
- Fender BassBreaker 30R. I wanted something between a Marshall and a Fender.
I keep trying things to add to the pallet so to speak. With the exception of 3 amps listed, all have been in the past 5 years. Bold are still here (for now)