FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Amp For Acoustic Guitar

Question:
Two questions for the accoustic guitar players: I am looking to buy an accoustic guitar amplifier (will mostly be playing my Godin Multiac Nylon through it) and would like to hear your recommendations on this. I am looking for something in the 500 to 800$ price range, a small combo with no more than 100w power. How do you think an archtop would sound through such an amp ?

Answer:
Let me second the recommendation for the AER Compact 60 http://www.aer-amps.de/ . It's a 60W amp. I bought mine over two years ago when the list price was $1000 and street price was $750 .Sound is clean, accurate and loud, especially for such a small and light amp (10.5H x 13W x 9D, 18.7 lbs.) . I suspect they mounted the speaker in an acoustic suspension manner like good bookshelf speakers. Tone is excellent, but tradeoff is that you don't get the airy, spacious sound most amps have. Very quiet amp with little or no hiss. The amp's clarity, loud volume and small size became my deciding factors. Bells & whistles: Second input for XLR or 1/4 mic or line device. Color setting - adds brilliance and a mid-range cut for fingerstyle playing. My version of the amp only has two reverb settings. AER has since issued rev. 2 of the amp with four effect settings - warm hall, bright hall reverb, chorus with reverb, and flanger. Effects pan knob lets you adjust amount of effect on guitar versus voice channel. Both inputs have switches for setting Outputs: 1/4 line output, XLR D.I. out, guitar tuner output, headphone output, send-return for external effects, footswitch (stereo) for turning internal and external effects on and off. Finally, the optional gig bag with equipment pockets makes the amp a breeze to haul. I struggled with picking the AER Compact 60 over the Ultrasound 50, another popular acoustic guitar amp that folks often recommend in this newsgroup (list $458-732 depending on model, street $430-$549 depending on model) - 50W. http://www.ultrasoundamps.com/. Great natural tone. I haven't tested the latest version of this amp, but recent testimonials suggest that Ultrasound is still well worth considering. Regarding how an archtop would sound through the amps, do what I did and test drive the amps at a dealer's shop. If possible, find a dealer that carries both so you can do a thorough side by side test. Be careful to start with flat tone control settings on the amp and your archtop to get a reference on the overall qualities of the amp before you start tweaking the tone or adding effects.