# Discuss: Reasonably priced rackmount programmable tube preamps



## prodigal_son (Apr 23, 2009)

Hey gang. Just looking to hear from anyone on what people would think is the best rackmount programmable tube preamp that is reasonably priced. I am into metal so personally I would choose one that can achieve that wicked tube distortion. Not as big of a fan of transistor distortion. Here is a list of items I know a fair bit about thus far:

ADA MP-1
ADA MP-2
Rocktron Piranha
Rocktron Voodu Valve
Marshall JMP-1
Peavey Rockmaster

Cheers!!


----------



## mrmatt1972 (Apr 3, 2008)

The Peavey Rockmaster is _not _programmable. Definitely a good tube preamp though. However, it is starting to sound a little "dated" now. The clean channel is amazing. The Crunch and Ultra channels have gobs of gain to satisfy even the most metallic of metal heads.


----------



## prodigal_son (Apr 23, 2009)

Good point. Forgot about that. It's three channels with five independant effects loops or something like that. I have heard that it is similar to the XXX.

You see, I am attempting to figure out which one I am going to get. The problem is that I am likely going to get one from ebay or a forum and can hopefully figure out which one is worth getting. The problem with the Rockmaster is that I don't want to get into extra switching gear if I don't need it. Rockmaster should have been programmable. I can't imagine why they did not make it as such.


----------



## Guest (Apr 24, 2009)

There's an older DigiTech unit that gets high regard: the GSP 2101. And there's a new GSP 1101 that was released recently. Similar deal: meant to be a preamp + effects unit. IIRC the 2101 had a tube in it. Or one of its siblings did at least.

The Ada and Marshall's you mentioned are the first ones that came to my mind when you asked for "reasonably" priced.

For unreasonably priced you can look in to the Fractal Audio Axe-Fx. It gets high regard as being quite amazing sound. And the Mesa Tri-Axis of course.


----------



## Ringwraith (Nov 17, 2007)

2101
.
.
.


----------



## Samsquantch (Mar 5, 2009)

ENGL?

http://www.engl-amps.com/index2.html


----------



## prodigal_son (Apr 23, 2009)

Well.. If we are going to go with the unreasonably priced (but really good) models, I would have to go with the Randall RM4:

http://www.randallamplifiers.com/Amplifiers/MTS-Rack-Gear/


----------

