Ashton GA-4012R

This amp has good features for a beginner. Distortion, clean, reverb.
Has footswitch and headphone jack. Has plenty of power for a beginner.

Im using this guitar with a cort cl 200 with two humbucking pickups, so the sound is decent. This amp has the vintage valve sound, not the far warmer, richer sound that the newer amps can make. The sound might not be good for today, but is good for its price, and a good feature of it is that it has little of that "hiss" that other amps are plagued with, like the zoom fire 30.

As for the distortion it is good, it is however quite high sounding, not as deep as your typical smashing pumpkins distortion

Good reliability. The knobs are a little scratchy, but not much

I have been taking lessions for about eight months seriously, longer not. I also have a cort cl 200 guitar. If it were stolen I would probably try to get a nicer amp. I generally like this guitar, it is good for a beginner, but if you were playing concerts you might want somthing better.

In comparison to other products it is good for its price, but other amps are better that cost alot more.

the features for this amp are great all the equalizers change the sound alot which is better than some other amps can do! VERY versitile you can get metallica to radiohead to fleetwood mac to eric clapton it is a VERY WICKED AMP!!!

the sound quality is another great asset to this amp the clean channel is BRILLIANT!! so warm and and clear and chrisp the distortion cannel is absolutly WICKED!! nice hard crunchy distortion ideal for metal rock and heavy metal and you can get a really nice bluesy sound out of it too

this thing is like a tank it is very stirdy indeed knobs are very firmly attached and feel very stirdy too i would probly not gig without a back up

never needed to have this looked at so i wouldent know but because this is a fairly modern amp so i would imagine it would be easy to have it serviced

this is a very wicked amp indeed perfect for the person upgrading from a 15-20watt amp and need somthing with a bit more grunt and features or for the person on the move/recording and for the person who needs somthing that is real good quality to bedroom play and make songs and stuff

being a 40 watt amp with dual channel clean/dirty the features are well used in my garage on a small stage or just in the bedroom. the reverb can be used to suit with just a touch or cranked right up can make a nice epic sound.prefering dirty channel not realy much useage on the shape knob but can add a small amount to filter a gain on full sound

im running a bc rich warlock platinum series standard pickups so need a heavy sounding dirty channel with as less background noise as possible this 40 delivers this quite well i set mainly to gain on full presence on full shape right down small amount of reverb ive found these settings pickup harmonics open strings and 12th fret upward notes succesfully wich are somtimes hard to hear. the clean channel offers a good variety of sounds treble near right up, mid just below half way,and bass on half way.

very reliable amp never had a problem with this dont realy do much stage work but wouldnt have a problem taking it any where with me very light too.

never had a problem when i brought it i recieved a 12 month warranty

been playing guitar for 7 years nearly every day have had my ashton for 3 of those went through 3 amps before that i also run a cry baby wah and a dod death metal distortion pedal. when buyin it was between the ga40 or a fender 15 or somthing at the music shop i tried both pushing them to the limits the 40 was louder and cheaper.

A fairly nice amp, with a rich deep distortion and very smooth clean channel. I got mine in 2001 and have been pretty happy with it, although it doesnt quite have the sound my band is looking for as a punk band. I still like the sound of it on its own. I would prefer it to have a little more varity than just shape, presence and gain on the dirty channel, though, as it doesnt leave you much to play around with.

I use a fender strat squire on the bridge pickup for it, with gain almost all the way up, presence almost all the way up and shape very low. This gives a reasonably higher-end sound, which is what my band needs. It has fairly good power, and can usually be heard well, but when put next to our lead guitarist's marshal stack, tends to get drowned out a bit (rich cunt)

The distortion is a good heavy sound, and i like the sound it gives on it's own, but again, doesnt fit into the band

Very dependable, never broken down on me once, did blow a fuse once, but that was because my drummer was setting it and up and accidently plugged the other end of the lead from the input into the headphones socket and turned it on. jackass.

Ive been playing for 3 years now, and i also own a digitech rp100 effects modifier, but i dont get the opiturnity to use it much, aand a fender strat squire. I would probably buy a more diverse amp, if I had it stolen or something, but only because of the band. I like the sound it gives and its certainly a reliable amp.

What can i say???? This amp is good for all beginers out there, the setting are simple and easy to understand. It have 2 channels, clean & distortion. but if u de-tune the guitar, this amp will give out a real muddy sound but its alrite with normal tuning though. This amp suited me when i begin learning guitar, but its now nearly 2.5 year old. STILL IN ONE PIECE after all those gig + road trips with it.

When i plugged it to my PRS (Paul Reed Smith) Custom 22, the amps sounds real normal. But when i plugged through the PA system, i can hear my guitar have the total different tones to other cheap guitar i borrowed from friends. i couldn't tell the different with the ashton amp though. But hey its only cost me $350(new zealand), it do the job as a practise amp.

As a practise amp, u can rely on it. But i would never bring and use it for a gig. Coz u gotta have a good sounds when u play LIVE otherwise it would sound crap. Actually i had a gig once with this amp, but it turn out real bad coz it haven't got that FULL sounds if u know i meant.

Only had a year warranty.

All i can say it is good for beginers coz it come with distortion channel so u can save up money later for a better sound effect pedals. If i had it stolen, i won't replace it and i will put little bit more cash to buy a marshall 60watt amp.
GOOD PRACTISE AMP!! AFTER YEARS OF ABUSE, IT STILL WORKS!!!!

i got this amp in 1999. looks like a marshall mg series. its a 9 knob amp with bass, middle, treble and all that stuff. 2 channels and reverb, footswitch ,line out,external speaker jack and a headphone jack. the gain channel is good and crunchy and the clean channel is smooth and does the job fine. 40 watts with a 12 inch speaker. the features on this amp are good for the money but it could of came with a footswitch. ive never used the external jack and the line out

im using this amp with a ibanez gax70, an old daion performer, and a zoom gfx 707 pedal. with the pedal i can get lots of good sounds out of it and use it for any style. the switch makes a big click sound that can get annoying. but i dont use it at all. the distortion channel has a good sound when you play around with the settings. it can get noisy sometimes. the amp is loud enough to do jams and play with a quiet drummer. but its probably best used as a bedroom practise amp. overall it sounds good enough

ive been using this amp for about 3 1/2 years and it did break down once and ive never neglected it. but it wasnt much to have fixed. since then ive been cranking it up and it has held up fine. it has no chips taken out of it. but the front pannel is a bit scratched from the dumbass who fixed it

ive never dealt with ashton. i got a one year warranty wich isnt long enough. all i got with the amp a very short manual that didnt explain much. i think the new ashton amps would be alot better than my one. i tried out the ga100 stack and that was good. id recomend this amp if you want to upgrade from a 15 watt bit of shit and youre not rich

ive been playing for about 6 years and i used to play through a 15 watt bit of crap. this amp was a good buy and i would recomend it to any beginer. if it was lost or stolen i would be pretty pissed off. im geeting a marshall soon anyway. i think that the new ashton amps would be better than this one.ive used this amp with my band and it tends to struggle but thats only when i use with a heavy distortion. overall this amp was good for the money.

I've had this amp for over a year and a half, and it suits me fine for what I use it for. However, I've just started in a band, and I'd say that I would need something a little louder than this one. Anyway, back to features.
II have no idea when this was made as it does not seem to have any details about its makers etc. I would recommend if are starting out on guitar, and want to play metal to buy this amp. It is a good price (I bought it for $279 Australian) For its features.
Clean has 3 equalizers, as does distorted.
It has reverb, which isn't bad.

I use a strat copy for this amp, with coil pickups. It suits my music style perfectly, as the distortion is excellent, way better than some of the more expensive crate amps I've played with before. It is awesomely heavy and crunchy. I normally set the equalizers on the distortion to full, except shape, as this gives the best sound.
The clean channel on this amp is pretty shitehouse. Maybe its just me, but it sounds pretty bad, no matter what the settings.

One bloody annoying thing about this amp is switching from clean to distorted.
It produces a VERY loud click noise, which annoys the piss out of the average player.

This amp is very reliable.
Its never broken down on me, though if it had I woulddnt know who or where to contact for repairs.
Another thing that pisses me off is once you go past about #5 on the level on distortion it becomes to get VERY crackly, and you cannot play past there.
this is so Frickin annoying.

Never had any trouble.
dunno what I would do if i did though, as the didnt include a contact thing with it.

Overall, this amp was a good purchase.
the price was great for what it offers, although there are a few let downs.
I give this a 9 Larry.
(Come on doooooooooown)

Me and my mate both bought one of these amps at about the same time. It has two channels (normal and boost). The normal channel has a nice, clean sound t it and the boost channel has a grunty distortion that can be easily changed.

I use an Ibanez GAX and an Epiphone SG through it. For the music that we play, (alternative rock and punk) it has the power and the sound. For the price that I wanted to pay for an amp, this was the best by far and when my mate tried it out he went and bought one as well.

I've only has this amp for about 6 months, but in the time I've had it, I've used it frequently and have never had trouble with it. I use it for jamming in my band and would use it for a gig if I needed to.

Where I bought it from (Palmerston North Rock Shop), they gave me a one year warranty, but I haven't needed to use it.

I would definately reccomend it for the price I paid.

Well, there was only one other review for this amp, and it has the specs and crap like that. It just about like every other 9-nob amp ive ever seen. The reverb and distortion sounds nice and the 2 channels is alright except when changing from channels it makes a f**king huge clicking sound and if you have reverb on, it is really exaddurated (i cant speel for shit). I dont konw whether this would happen with the foot pedal, but you'd bloody hope it wouldnt!

I use a strat with my ashton, and it sounds actually quite nice. The distortion has a nice warm sound and its actually not hard to get a sound that you like...

it hasnt f**ked itself yet, and it hasnt fucked me up at a jam, so thats alright... I would depend on it with my life

i didnt even get a instruction manual for it. I didnt get a box either but that's the store's fault.

ive been playing for nearly three years and although this isnt the loudest amp out there (its a pretty quite 40 watts) it can compete for sound... when I link it up with my 60 watt Magnum amp through the line out jack, it really creates a storm and it sounds pretty good. Im in a punk rock band and also in a alternative rock band and it suts me alright. I dont use the distortion channel much cause I like to use boss pedals, but for the price and the illigitimate brand, its alright

This amp was bought new, about a week ago. I've never heard of the brand before, it's made in China, and I can't find a website anywhere! Didn't come with a manual or warranty card, though the shop I bought from said it has a 1 year warranty with receipt. Seems to be in the style of a Marshall VS - gold strip, gold knobs, black cabinet. It's a 2 channel amp, clean (or "normal" as it's labelled) and boost. Clean has treble, mid and bass EQs, and a reverb dial (which also effects the boost ch.) plus a simple level knob. Boost channel has shape, presence and gain, again with a separate level knob as well. No effects loop but I don't really care as I'm just starting out (been playing a year, will eventually get myself a multi-effects), but has everything else I wanted: single input, footswitch (not included), headphones jack and also line out and a speaker extension (4-8 ohms) on the back. I haven't tried the footswitch or speaker ext. yet. I'm still learning so this is a bedroom/practice amp, but it's plenty loud enough to piss off everyone in the house - the headphone jack gets a lot of use. It should handle things well in a group with my friends' small Fenders and Marshalls. I'm also going to use it for computer recording, and the output comes out well. It's not too noisy, though not silent like some midrange Peavey Transtubes I tried. The controls on the boost channel allow a fair variety of distortions, though it can't really get up to epic thrash or metal levels (fine by me, I am more into warmer sounding stuff like Powderfinger or Stone Temple Pilots, if I want to do Tool or Vast I'll get a pedal). Turning presence down just sorta seems to muffle things, but shape can give everything from more rounded bassy distortions to grunge, to "the Blur riff in Bugman" sounds. Basically this amp easily had the most features for the price new, and even compared with the second-hand Peaveys and Marshalls I was considering.

I play a Yamaha RGX112, which is an Ibanez-style affair with pointy head and so on, but a Strat-style body. Let's just say I got it cheap, and for the money (very little for a 7 month old guitar) the neck action and tone is brilliant. Bridge is humbucker (the kid I bought it off mumbled something about it being dealer-fitted "or something", but there's no obvious brand on it) with coils at mid and neck. I was surprised at the variety of tones I can get out of this amp, compared with some of the others I tried (Laney HC15 and Marshall/Park especially). I tend to either thrash out neck chords or go for high complex leads (previously a violin player) and with the right touch and pickup selection it can growl or sing. The clean channel will break up with the level past 6 or so, and the boost will sound reasonably clean if gain is down. The distortions go from very nice deep rounded thru warm to quite a bit of bite, though a 30W Marshall can out-scream it (for $200 more). The tone is so much better than the muddiness of other amps I tried, though the Peaveys have better clarity... again, for twice the money here in Aus. It doesn't get all that loud, but I'll reserve judgement until I can compare high-volume with others. The reverb is great, very deep and cathedral-like in my opinion, but adds a lot of high-pitched ringing at high volumes with big chords. Best left at about 5 where it's still good. It is noisy mainly on the boost channel, which is just hiss, but seems immune to fluro lights and so on. Doesn't annoy me too much, but it ain't silent! This is still a cheap amp, and you get what you pay for! It'll never out-point something for twice the price, but for the money it impressed.

Well only had it for a week: "Made In China" on the box may not mean much, but it doesn't give me confidence either. Seems as heavily built as anything else though, and weighs a reasonable 14 kg (30 pounds?). Looks very beer-proof. None of the pots are noisy, but the on/off switch feels very flimsy and loose, but this is just a feedback thing (no definite click). May be easy to shove the rocker in too far. Also emits a fairly quiet hummmmmm for about 1 second after turning on, which sorta fades in then out once then stays away, but this seems ok to me as well. Only had it one week so time will tell, and it's well behaved otherwise. Has a no-name 10" speaker in it, which I may replace with something else (Celestion?) if it ever dies on me. As for gigs, well, it's a bedroom amp, and I'm a bedroom player :), but I would get something louder.

The warranty is one year, apparently. All I got (and all the shop gets) was an amp, a box, a plastic bag and a power cable! I would have liked a manual and a warranty card - I know what it all does but it would make me feel better. I can't find a website or even any mention of these amps anywhere else (the occasional guitar shop stocks them is all). The shop (Ellaways in Brisbane, Australia) was helpful, and gave me $70 off the price so I'm not complaining. If anyone has any more info on "Ashton" or if you have one of these things then let me know!

I've been playing a year and own this amp, the Yamaha guitar and a crappy Samick acoustic, which I beat the hell out of and it comes back for more. If it were nicked I'd probably save up for something better (a nice Peavey, Marshall, Trace Elliott or Laney - which is about all you can buy around here for less than $1000), but if I came across this bargain again I'd be tempted. It whipped the others I looked at for the money (T.E. Brat, various Marshalls, Laneys) and my other alternative was a used Peavey... I only ever tried new ones as cheap second-hand ones are VERY hard to find. I love its tone and features, and the fact it is twice the size (21" across, 18" high, 10" deep) and power of others for the money, however I hate the no-name stigma, the clone-zone absence of any warranty card or at least a website, the slight levels of noise and the dodgy on/off switch. And a 12" speaker would have been nice.

My aim was to avoid buying a complete piece of shit as my first amp and this is one or two steps above that, but no more. I may grow to hate it(!) but after a week it's great. For the money I can't really expect any more.... I think if I'd settled for something with a more recognisable name but with half the features and power and a worse tone then I'd feel more ripped off. I came closest to buying the Trace Elliott Brat for $300, but this one pulled me in. If it breaks I'll update for sure, but for now it's good value.