What Should You Check When Exploring the Best Guitar Amp Under 200?

Budget-friendly guitar amplifiers have always been the rage. After all, who doesn’t like an amp that would help you create your kind of sound without digging a hole in your pocket?

Thankfully, there are ample choices in affordable amplifiers today, and you can find the best guitar amp under 200 with just a little guidance.

When shopping for your guitar amp, refrain from taking the first one that you come across. You may love the sound it produces, and it may feel really good to play with – but remember that you need to feel good about it in the long run.

What Should You Check When Exploring the Best Guitar Amp Under 200?

Here are some of the things you need to check before exploring the best guitar amp under 200.

Type of Amp

Though the Tube Technology is considered to be quite decent, nowadays, both solid-state and digital amplifiers can bring forth excellent tone without making a hole in your pocket. Moreover, they also call for much fewer maintenance issues. The tube is still taken as the standard by the top players in the industry. You should judge for yourself by taking a blind listening test.

The Configuration

Apart from the types, amplifiers also come in various configurations. Combos or combinations are self-contained units that consist of the amp and the speaker in one cabinet. The amplifiers are also available in different head and speaker cabinets. With this, you can use any amplifier head with any speaker cabinet virtually. Another advantage of this is that it breaks the amp into two parts making each unit lighter and much more portable than a single one. This combination of a head and two cabinets are known as a stack.

Size Matters

The application and price usually determine the power rating and the speaker size you need for your amp. You can choose between solid-state and modeling combo for practice amps. This consists of 10-30 watts (low) power and 8-10 inches (small) speakers.

You can also get small Tube amps in this case. You can choose tube and modeling combo ads with power ratings of around 50 watts (average) and 12 inches speakers. This will ensure fuller sound.

For prforming loud or for a larger venue, you should go with power ratings of 100 watts and up for your amplifier. You can use combo apps that have a couple of 12-inch speakers here. But in this case, separate speaker cabinets and heads are most effective.

Other Options

Here are some added features that you can encounter in this regard.

  1. Effect Loops – These jacks permit you to add rack units or stompboxes after the amp’s preamp section to avoid amplifying effect noise.
  2. Reverb Units – While some amps use digital reverbs, some also go with spring reverbs that can be very natural sounding.
  3. Built-in Effects – Many amps are known for their built-in effects, like Tremolo, which is ideal for surf guitar. The modeling amps consist of multiple digital effects that are built-in.
  4. Channel Switching – These apps permit you to switch between different channels that are preamp. These let you switch between a clean one to a distorted tone. You can check for a footswitch in this case. To change tones remotely, many digital amps often need an added multi-function footswitch.

These are some of the things you need to check when exploring the best guitar amp under 200. If you keep these in mind, you can find something that suits your needs without breaking the bank.