Hey guys, I could do with your help.

I've been playing guitar for about three years now (just teaching myself so I'm still kinda crap) and finally got round to upgrading my gear. I used to play a Fender Squier through a 15W Peavey Rage amp but this was fairly lame when it came to playing any metal (I play stuff like Metallica, Machine Head, Pantera, etc). I bought an Ibanez RG620x axe (which f**king rules compared to my old Fender) and a Zoom tri-metal distortion pedal. It sounds OK through my teeny amp but I was wondering whether to upgrade that as well. Amps like the Randall RG100SC and the Marshall MG250DFX look kinda sweet, but I've also heard bad things about them and they seem pretty expensive given that I'm still not all that good at actually playing!

Any advice you guys can give me would be great

welcome to the forums man,

first off, congrats with your Ibanez, its a big step up from a shitty squier.

secondly, if you want to know what amp fits your needs, you gotta ask yourself some questions, how many watts do you need, are you considering to join a band and what kind of sound do you want.

I'de say, you want a metal sound, right?
Peavey Bandits are good amps for their money, and they pack a punch, but there's way more brands out there. I'm not too fond of the lower line Marshalls, the non-tube one's aren't that good in my opinion. (mind you I'm not talking about TSL's or anything here)

it kinda depends on what ammount of money you have to spend and what you're going to use the amp for, if you're going to do some rehearsal with a drummer and bassist, you'll need around 100w (non-tube that is) and some descent speakers in your amp. (like celestions etc.)

Okay, now to the amps you selected, the Randall RG100SC looks nice, 2x12 celestions, 100w, reverb, chorus. I haven't played this amp myself, but I bet it sounds pretty powerfull (Randall has kickass sound in most of their amps)

The Marshall MG250DFX has some good features too, pretty similair to the Randall but with digital (crappy) effects added, seriously, I don't like build in fx at all, especially not the Marshall one's. It's just my opinion, but I think you're paying too much for extra fx which suck and you probably won't use that much.

here's a link to the Peavey Bandit 12'
Peavey Bandit 112

and here's a link to the Peavey Special 2x12'
Peavey Special 212

both these amps are good value for their money, I played the Bandit, and it's one hell of a good amp for its money, the Special is even better. and they're both relatively cheap for what you get.

Ofcourse there's WAY more amp brands out there checking out, but it kinda depends on your budget.

Wow, thanks for the detailed reply - I didn't know Peavey did decent amps so thats a big help.

Marshall MG250DFX i love marshalls i get the perfect sound i want from them

lol peavey do one of the best amps 5150 that eddie van halen and machine head use! but welcome. i personally use a Hughes & Kettner Warp 7 even though its supposed to b for nu-metal it has some awesome sound and is pretty cheap £600 and when palm muting it rumbles the fuck out of my bedroom on 1 volume so dont listen to people if they are saying its for nu-metal but its what u play on it that counts cos they are probably using a marshall and every man and his son nearly owns one and i tell u theres more nu-metal bands using marshalls than nething else

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Agreed, the warp 7 suffered from the image Hughes and Kettner tried to give it.

Setdown (a member here too) uses the Warp 7 and he's quite fond of it, it does give you a lot of bangs for bucks, it's loud enough and it can handle low frequencies on high volume pretty good.

Hughes and Kettner also has the Triamp and Zen Terra tops, the Triamp is in the same range as Engl and Mesa triple rectifiers.

www.hughes-and-kettner.com for details on their amps.