JCA22H 20W Tube Guitar Amp Head Black

Soldano is a 'legend' in his own right, but still these are made in China. Please read further for total de-MUDDLING of what is truly going on here.Production mistakes happen but quality control is of little concern, it seems, to China. where native children prolly still play with toys painted with Lead-based tint. Gotta do something with all that potential kiddie profit after the U.S. discovered it was an 'issue.' Still, I haven't seen any of those brightly colored leaden-laced toys going for gold prices lately..Don't get me wrong at all, I abso love these amps when you get a good one, which appears, in my modest research to be of any issue (is a couple hrs. okay to consider modest for an amateur musician of much experience & ISO a good/quality bang for the buck item in an industry flooded with fakes and corner cutting name brands?)So 4.5 stars to the product and Soldano's team, but 1 star to peeps who think a manufacturer cosmetic change very early in a new lineup is grounds for jacking the price so exorbitant on the old line that it becomes re-f-endikulous.This review concerns gouging NOT the product in-as-much okay? If you want a true Soldano you'll pay thousands. And his new Chinese Jet City line has made many improvements over these older units. For instance, you won't need to spend even more $$$ on a better sound by hot rodding them with better tubes. You can customize your own tube set up to your personal tastes with the new line. I'm not pushing Mr. Soldano's company. I'm calling YOU (the seller) out.I own several of these older 20 watt Jet City amps like this - one head of is so far out of being level and SQUARE that I have to literally shim one of the feet with a thick piece of wood in order to get it to sit level on the cab. Still, the open box sale price was only a Franklin less than MSRP. Even the tweed is crooked on the amp face - (this happens to be the vintage head model). It works beautifully aside from the particularly terrible issue of visual quality control.My point is does this justify doubling, TRIPLING, or even quadrupling the going price if I were to sell it? Because the head is so UGLY I'm gonna fondly name it 'the Hunchback' and maybe in 20 yrs it'll be worth 3x the original price. It's still a beauty inside. Warm and fuzzy-like. And I'm keeping it.Gimme a break - price gouging is so wrong.Even a '67 50w Marshall head and 8/TEN cab are worth only the going rate for a new rig.So my previous question to this seller was to verify this item is exactly as described b/c of the disclaimer "We try our best to have the most accurate catalog possible, but sometimes.." But I guess my previously unanswered question doesn't count-only the asking price cause someone changed their product appearance and old model stock is now real low-duh.To clarify my first question further; if this item is exactly as pictured, what reason do you - the seller- have for asking such an outrageous price other than greed?Maybe I'll put my 3 yr old 20k HD up for sale ad ask a mild 40k for it. Oh-wait, it's not stock. I changed the appearance of it by sinking another 10k into it. Well...despite the cosmetic changes.......................

I bought this amp because I heard good things and listened to quite a few sound clips that I enjoyed. When I got the amp I was pleased. I looks nice other than the big cheesy logo. Plugged in, turned on and let warm up for a minute or two and when I started playing I was very pleased with the sound combinations I was able to get at mid to low level volumes. I played around with the sound for about 20 minutes and turned the amp off as it was supposed to be turned off. I had plans to come back a few hours later that evening to give the amp a full blown test and jam for a few hours. When I flipped the on switch nothing happened. I looked for the light to come on but it never did. I checked the connection of the a/c plug and all was fine. I checked to see if I could see or smell a problem and i could find nothing. It just never came back on. So I contacted Musician's Friend and returned it. The sound was very pleasing, however I can not vouch for the amps reliability.

Mine has been working great for about six months now. The sad truth is that you sacrafice a bit of reliability with ANY tube amp, that is just the nature of the beast.If you could take one of the biggest baddest hotrodded Marshalls of the ninties and stuff it into a 20watt amp, this is it.It can cover just about any type of dirty sound you could possibly ever want, and cover it WELL! Just to be clear though, this amp does not have a real clean tone. At low volumes you can get a decent clean but with any volume at all, it is going to start breaking up...ahh but it does it so well!This amp also has the absolute best sounding effects loop I have ever heard. I thought the whole tube buffered loop thing was just a gimmick but it literally makes the pedals going through it sound better! I have never used the loops in any of my amps regularly but my equalizer, tremolo, delay and reverb all stay in the loop always now.I gave it four stars because it is made in China but if it was made somewhere else, it would be much more expensive. If it is still working in a couple of years, I will come back and give it 5 stars.The American made Soldano version of this amp costs around $2500 so that tells you something.The face plate is ugly as sin in my opinion. The expanded metal grill on the back is the same size as the front, so I switched them out and it looks better that way to me. Its cool cause you can see the tubes glowing through the grill now and no ugly 333 logo.If you like metal of ANY variety, this is the cheapest amp head out there that will get you the authentic sound without any sort of distortion pedal.I sure hope it holds up because after 25 years of playing guitar, this is my favorite amp I have ever owned, hands down.

Had this head for 2 years now. Was a big fan of George Lynch, Warren Demartini back in the day but could not afford the Soldano head back then... Now, all grown up, I own many, many different Marshall, Orange, Vox heads. I'm NOT a fan of Solid State. It has to be tubes for me. With that said it is not easy to get a great sound when you want to practice low volume (while the wife and Baby is sleeping especially). This is a great head for that. There are many other great heads out there with different sounds (all sound great). Like the Marshall 1watt heads (50th Anniversary) and the Orange Tiny Terrors and Vox Night Trains. I love them all for their unique sounds but this head comes the closest to that George Lynch "Back for the Attack" sound that I love.

I read decent reviews on this amp and was pretty excited but skeptica of quality because of the price. Got it in and the amp sounds killer. Has a great tone, and has alot of potential. About 15 minutes into playing, the clean channel goes out completely. Thought maybe was an issue with the footswitch, so I bought another one. Didn't help anything. The clean channel goes in and out and the effects loop doesn't work at all. Like I said, the amp sounds great. Just got a bad egg I guess...

This amp is awesome. Definitely a high gain amp. Don't expect any cleans from it though![...]