Roland JC-40 Jazz Chorus 40-Watt Guitar Amplifier with Two 10-Inch Speakers

As a guitarist today - you certainly have choice. A lot of good ones in how you want to get your sound. You can choose to have an amp do the exceptional tone and dirty work, you can use standalone preamps with a cabinet emulator and tie into a PA system, or you can get a very clean amp and use pedals. I've tried all and have essentially gravitated toward a good clean amp with good pedals. Seems the most flexible. I can more easily get what I want when I want it. Change it as needed. If this is you - hard to do better than this amp! Starting with the JC Clean this amp is revered for. It is a unique pristine clean. Tremendous front end to a note. Many speak of tubes advantages over solid state. Well - there are some advantages to solid state and this amp accents it and delivers it in abundance. Absolutely no sag and the cleanest of punch into a note. Amazing headroom. If you want to hear all the nuances of your guitar and supporting pedals - this is about the best I've ever had the pleasure to plug into. In fact - it exposed some very subtle artifacting on some of my drive pedals I had not noticed before. When you want clean - this amp does it sounding great. Again not tube great, but in its own great solid state way. This amp tends to be kind of polarizing in that way - and you either like it or not. It can put a real smile on your face. You also get this amp for the unique chorus. Revered draw of this amp and is all that. Very adjustable chorus and vibrato. Reverb is likewise quality and adjustable. The bright switch adds a nice boost of treble and also upper mids to give even more clarity without increasing icepickiness. Good adjustment with the BMT EQ knobs. The distortion is more like a simple gain, but has a touch of grit and while it won't replace your favorite distortion pedal it can do a tasteful accent and has good range. I do like to nudge it on to get that hair of grit. It's kinda of difficult to quantify, but all the features and aspects of this amp seem excellently done and seem to really fit together in a way that gives a great and unique - distinct - sound. The quality 2x10 speakers also insure that sound quality is well heard in stereo. Now - getting into the 2nd half of what makes this amp great. Supporting platform features goes beyond what is usually offered at this price point. It has a stereo pathway from the input all the way to the speaker output. It is essentially 2 preamps sharing the same bright, volume, BMT and distortion settings. Each of these preamp paths can feed into its own path of one of the 2 power amps. The 2 power amps share the chorus/vibrato settings. The effects loop is feature rich. It allows a stereo return - each into its separate power amp, or monaural into both. The effects loop can be series or parallel. Series directs the wet return to the power amps. Parallel allows the stereo dry signals across and blended with the wet signal return. The only shortcoming is that the effects loop is not quite a full stereo path. The send is a blend of the preamp channels and you can't just get a return to a single power channel. Still - it's a lot to work with and this ended up being a large reason I got this amp after more closely looking at it. Summary: If you're looking for a JC Clean - this has it with quality. Likewise coupled with the chorus. Otherwise I suggest you try before you buy. It is a bit of a one trick pony with its sound. Be a bit wary if also trying to use it as bedroom amp. It gets loud fast. I had use a volume pedal at the end of my amp lead in pedals to allow a large and usable signal to be pared down enough to get bedroom levels. Very good speaker presentation, but stereo line outs too. It does go a nice extra long way with being that pedal platform with the stereo pathways options at the input and in the effects loop. Lastly his thing is built with quality throughout and can be put to work above just toying around. Tend to think it a good and lasting investment. A great clean never goes out of style...Update 4/18/2019:Still have this amp. This amp has really made me happy to have. It simply delivers a special sound, set of resources that makes it so useful - and fun. I think I can speak for many who have more than a couple of differing amps- That you can get tired of a particular aspect of an amp, and find yourself wanting to plug into something else. When wanting perhaps to go for a clean change after a period of whatever kind of dirt you got into for a bit - this amp is - to me - like the most rewarding way to do that clean nirvana. As mentioned before - this amp is a bit of a 1 trick pony. And yes - if like me - you can get tired of the 1 trick. But I guarantee you'll never get tired of coming back to the special 1 trick this guy does!

I bought the JC-40 because I wanted to run a small stereo pedal board in to the front end stereo inputs and use this set up in a 3 piece rock cover band. I also own some really nice hand wired tube amps and after a few weeks I have to say I'm very happy with this Roland JC-40. If you just want a nice clean reverb-y base tone that takes pedals well and is loud enough to gig and won't break your back you could do a lot worse. The on board chorus and vibrato are great but to be honest I hardly use them - it's a very niche sound IMO. The reverb which I do use is just fine to my ear. The on board distortion....eh.....if it's set really low for just a little bit of gritty blues lead thing it's OK. Anything higher starts sounding pretty transistor and nasty. I just leave it off and use a pedal. It seems to like single coils, P90s, and humbuckers equally well. The beauty of this amp to me is it's simple snappy clean tone with a dash of reverb and the tight note attack when playing. This lends itself well to funk comping, pop strumming, clean chordal blues and jazz. Volume knob at 9 o'clock which is something like 2 1/2 on the volume knob hangs with the bass and drummer just fine. Between 9 and noon the tone and attack stays clean and the volume is impressive. Loud bar band stage levels at this point. After that you start hearing a solid state power section beginning to break up a little and some cab resonance/rattling but by that point you are very very loud. When combined with a few pedals this is a very capable and flexible amp for around the house and playing live.

I have the JC 40 but wanted something smaller for home practice and rehearsals. This amp was the perfect solution. It still sounds great like the big brother - clear and clean tone with a surprising amount of bass; but now I can turn the volume past 2 without shaking the house.Some of the things I really like:- Stereo inputs help translated my auto-pan and ping pong delay pedals really well- Onboard reverb sounds excellent: just a splash for added dimension or crank it up for a big ambient hall vibe- Loud enough to keep up with a 5-piece band (with drummer) at rehearsals and smaller venues- Has stereo line outs for recording or for use at bigger venues- Classic JC chorus effect is lush and fun to use.Some things to consider:- Smaller cab and speakers can make you sound “boxy” in a larger room- It’s heavy for its size (roughly 25 pounds)- Would need to send a line out/mic the speakers for medium + sized venues.- No onboard distortion (but that’s why pedals exist).All said, I am really happy with my JC - 22 (and my JC - 40). They’re the only amps I use now.

This is a wonderful and "clean" sounding amp that I am using with my PRS SE CE Satin "budget" electric. Am running the guitar through Cryptic Wampler distortion (sometimes), Boss Equalizer GE-7 EQ, and Boss DD-8 digital delay pedals and have just the sound I am looking for. The Amp itself has built in reverb and chorus. Sort of an ethereal, alt rock (remember that?) type of sound, or, just clean sometimes. Plenty loud enough for home use but it would work well at a practice session or even a live gig. Also, I no longer think I need full blown, expensive amp modeling/effects boxes because this amp, along with a few pedals, provides the best sound I can get.