Cheapskate looking for good amplified sound

Hello Brian. I have experimented with it in the past and have never been happy with the results. A real good classic tube amp has a three dimensional sound... as you play at different volumes, the tone changes... the amp is an extension of you as a player. Another thing is that when you have an amp, you have your packline (your ability to hear yourself without the aid of monitors, which are not always available in small jams/clubs).

With this said, one of my private students has the Lone Wolf, Alpha Wolf and their Delay, and he gets a real good sound in the digital universe of Zoom lessons.

If you do end up going the amp rout, I can help you out. I have two amps from my personal collection here (just choose the one you think is coolest):

RCA https://reverb.com/item/76688892-rca-mi-12236-vintage-harmonica-guitar-t...
Operadio https://reverb.com/item/76688749-operadio-1010-a-vintage-harmonica-tube-...

Contact me offline (you have my email) and we'll work it out that you don't have to pay tax and I'll cover the cost of shipping to save you some money. This way you have a classic amp that you know sounds great and is fully serviced. For a cabinet, I can help direct what to buy used locally, so you can save some money that way. For a 12" new cabinet, figure around $350 price range.

So, some options.

Hi Brian!

Hope neither David nor you mind my chiming in.

If you've been following David's videos with Brian Akamine, you already know that the PA heads that Brian repairs and restores, and that David sells, are the real deal. Definitely on my own bucket list. And don't worry about what plugs in where. One of the things about the old PA heads is that they were designed for different types of inputs, e.g., a mic or two here, a record turntable there, a live radio here, with multiple speaker outlets to wire multiple speakers in whatever auto garage, deparement store or military base they were being used for. Nearly all restorations, including Brian's, are set up with a single 1/4" instrument cable input, and some sort of output for a speaker cabinet, tho' with potentially different spots for the most common speaker cab impedences, e.g., 4-ohm, 8-ohm, etc. If you buy from David or any other reputable dealer, you won't be left in the dark.

As far as tone is concerned, depending on what venues you're performing in, assume that about 99.9% of the audience wouldn't know an original Fender Bassman from a car radio. But you and your musician friends will enjoy hearing some subtle differences. E.g., I've played at jams with harp and guitar players who've brought everything from current amps like the Sonny Jr. and Fender Bassman reissues to anciant PA heads and vintage combo amps from Premier, Silvertone, Alamo, Oahu, and others. Each is its own type of fun. The only thing that makes any difference is what the player gets the biggest kick out of.

There are plenty of good harp players who use solid-state amps and pedals. I have met players who swear by gear like Lone Wolf's Boogieman combo pedal, played through a high-powered clean amp like a Rolland. Peter "Madcat" Ruth uses pedals through a solid-state amp, and a Shaker Mic, a low-impedence mic I've never liked. But he gets monster tone out of his own body, from 50 years or more of playing.

My own rig is a Lone Wolf Harp Train 10, an 8-watt tube amp David sold to me at a very reasonable price after buying it as part of the small amp review series he did. There are times I wish I had a bigger amp, but for the most part it works fine the way I use it: I carry it in a plastic milk crate that protects it while I'm wheeling it around on a hand cart, and functions as an amp stand when I set it up. Getting an amp up off the ground or stage floor makes a huge difference in sound. And in my kit I carry both a DI box (Lone Wolf's) that I can plug into the DI output on the amp and a Sennheiser e609 mic. More often than not, at the local jam the sound tech sets up his own mic and stand to mic the amp (using an SM58), but when there are a bunch of other harp and guitar amps on the stage and a possible shortage of mics, a sound guy loves it when you say, "You can mic me with a house mic; run an XLR cable into my Sennheiser mic; or run that XLR into my own DI box, whichever is easiest for you." Yes, mic'ing the amp's own speaker sounds a bit better than running the amp out of its DI output, but again, just about no one in the audience is going to know the difference, and keeping the sound tech happy DOES make a big difference.

For bigger venues, e.g., some theatre and concert stuff I've done in big venues and in a large church, the sound techs always appreciate my having my own DI box that they can plug into.

And now the most important thing: I don't know what your own experience has been, but those times I haven't been able to bring an amp, and just played into a vocal mic, or played my own mic into a DI box, I've had a lot of difficulty hearing myself, even where there have been good stage monitors. So one of the huge and important functions of my amp is that it's my own "private" harp-only monitor. I usually set it up so that it's close, turned sideways to the audience, but is playing directly into my left of right side. Even where there are good stage monitors, having the amp on stage with me as a monitor makes a really big difference. So in that respect, I agree with David that as a harp player, playing without an amp, but instead through a pedal or pedal train that is then put directly into the PA system via a DI box may produce an OK sound for the audience through the PA system, but even wih the best monitors in the world, you will still at best be at a disadvantage, and at worst be completely lost because you can't hear yourself at all.

Let everyone know what you end up deciding!