Now then. Hello all. Having read the title of this blog you may be thinking one of two things:
"£100? For an amp? Well it'll be terrible!!"
Or
"I've never heard of them before, I want a Marshall, everyone uses Marshall, so they'll be better than everything else, end of"
However I'm here to tell you all that, even if you're an advance player looking for a portable bedroom/practice amp, help is at hand, oh yes! Here are my top 3 cheap and cheerful less than £100 SS (this stands for solid state by the way, i.e. there are no valves/tubes to worry about) combo amps! These are in particular order it should be said.
Orange Crush Series - the one over in the picture is the 30w version. I own a 15w version from the previous series (still called the crush) and I couldn't believe how 'real' it sounded! Having heard plenty of Jim's Tiny Terror I thought Orange would struggle to get a sound even half as good - sure enough they have done. Its an 8" speaker inside the wicked orange casing. One thing I love about this little amp is, unlike a lot of SS small amps, it really has some character and life to it. Sure it doesn't have the same kind of clarity and texture of a tube amp, but when its up towards 11 it still sounds amazing. The cleans are really pretty vibrant and with a little bit of overdrive you can dial in a sweet 'classic' rock tone. Couple of other nice features - its got a solid back but a small hole so you can threat the power cable in so its not hanging out. Nice and light and if you're playing on single coils it sounds brilliant - top amp this one. Kudos Orange.
Crate FW Series - another one I own (but its the 65w version) which is really rather impressive. The one on your right is the baby of the series, the 15w version First off its so simple to use. You've got 2 channels (clean and overdrive) with a volume, high, mid, and low tone gages. Along with that you've got a really handy headphone socked for when you want to still play but your neighbours have been round to tell you to pack it in. 8" speaker again in this one with an open back for a couple of leads and a pedal or two. In terms of sound? Well the 3 band EQ gives you a nice variety of tones. The cleans are good and bottom end'y so if you want to run a distortion pedal infront of the amp, you'll still have a nice beefy sound (that is one drawback of the orange above - it can get a little aggressive in the top-end). What about the overdrive? That's got a really good tone to it as well for a SS. Lovely little amp to have tucked in the corner of your bedroom for when you wanna do a little practice - probably don't carry it out with you at a big gig though - it might get a little scared!
Roland Cube XL Series - we're looking at the 15w version here because you can get one for under £100. I've played on this one a couple of times in shops and it's so awesome I actually spent a lot of time (where I was trying out guitars), playing with the amp! This one is a little bit more 'gismo'ed up' compared with the others so its a fraction more expensive £85ish. You've got a huge variety of tones and the 'select' button on the electrics allows you to chose from 4 different overdrive/distortion tones. I shall admit the 'extreme' tone is rather nasty, but the rest sound pretty reasonable given the price. Its seriously sturdy (albeit its not much of a looker) and the main thing is you've got a huge variety of tones. Only drawback I would say is that in comparison with particularly the orange, its not as loud. But I suppose when you're just practising that's actually an advantage as oppose to an issue.
So there you go! Proof you don't need to spend big money on big names to get a decent sound! Any questions just post below and I'll get back to you.
Peace, Linus
Crate FW Series - another one I own (but its the 65w version) which is really rather impressive. The one on your right is the baby of the series, the 15w version First off its so simple to use. You've got 2 channels (clean and overdrive) with a volume, high, mid, and low tone gages. Along with that you've got a really handy headphone socked for when you want to still play but your neighbours have been round to tell you to pack it in. 8" speaker again in this one with an open back for a couple of leads and a pedal or two. In terms of sound? Well the 3 band EQ gives you a nice variety of tones. The cleans are good and bottom end'y so if you want to run a distortion pedal infront of the amp, you'll still have a nice beefy sound (that is one drawback of the orange above - it can get a little aggressive in the top-end). What about the overdrive? That's got a really good tone to it as well for a SS. Lovely little amp to have tucked in the corner of your bedroom for when you wanna do a little practice - probably don't carry it out with you at a big gig though - it might get a little scared! 
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