Laney GH100L

This was made in about '94-'95 and part of what attracted me was the simplicity of the design. One channel, no fiddlesome EQ, just a Master Volume, switchable Gain, Bass and Treble, plus Presence and Resonance controls. There is an FX loop with a level control, though I've never needed to use it.
I suppose something like tremelo or reverb would be handy, but I don't miss not having them. I can't fault this amp for features!
It weighs a ton (as I discovered when first taking it home via public transport!) and is phenomenonally LOUD- I've had soundmen ask me to turn down when it's been set to '1'!! I've practically never needed to use it above '4'. For bedroom or rehearsals '1' or '2' is ample, but really this is an amp for gigs and BIG gigs at that.
It has more headroom than I am likely to ever need and has a good warm valve tone that is more than flexible enough for whatever I choose to play.

I use and have used this guitar with quite a variety of instruments including Rickenbacker, Burns and Fender (single coils), Shergold 6 & 12 strings, Ibanez (Artist w/Humbuckers) and even a Fender Bass VI! When I bought it, I deliberately asked to try it with the cheapest guitar in the shop, just to make sure my opinion wasn't unduly influenced!

I know these amps are associated with metal, but I've found it can turn its hand to everything from blues and jazz to clean country to FX-laden post rock. As said, it has a good clean tone and versatile distortion, so though you might need to vary your choice of guitar or FX, you've got an ideal bedrock on which to build your sonic sculptures!!

I use it with a Marshall JCM900 4X12.

My only criticism is that the amp is quite bright- I frequently have the treble on '0'! It's a sound I like, but it might not suit everyone. This may have something to do with the valves. I've had the amp since 2000 and I've never changed them, despite regular use. I don't think I need to just yet, but I doubt it will be long as the amp must be 10 years old by now (that said I have a 40 year old WEM still going strong with Mullards, so who knows?!).

As other reviewers have said, I think you'd have to pay a lot more to get something better (e.g. Cornford or Orange). I've found Laney to be better than anything else for similar money (Peavey, Marshall, Fender etc, good as they can be).

Never given me the slightest trouble! I've never had a back-up and have never felt the need!

My only gripe is that when the knobs work loose, they are hard to re-attach and tighten properly, because you can't get a screw driver into the space available- I think they must have been put on to the chassis before it was mounted in the cabinet.

I've never needed to contact Laney, but I did request a manual as a precaution, which they e-mailed by return.

I've been at it over twenty years. My other amps are a couple of old WEM's that I use for recording and small gigs.

I chose Laney on the basis of unfussy controls and practical design, strong sounds and bargain second hand price- it was listed at #299, which I just afford, but by the time I got to the shop (Coda, Stevenage), they dropped it to #199 and thrown in a Marshall footswitch!).
I would definitely buy another and always recommend Laney to other players, unless they can afford Cornford!

This is a one channel amp, so it doesn't have alot of features. But it does give you a gain boost which is great if you want an extra kick in your amp.

I really love the sound, i've played alot of amps and somehow found something wrong with all of them. This distortion i love,i play Metal and the distotion with the boost on is all i need. Its really heavy, but clear. Without the boost it loses a lot of gain, but its still playable, still good. Oh, i almost forgot...this amp is LOUD. REALLY F--KING LOUD. I played it like at 2 and it was already "gig high" volume. THIS IS NOT A PRACTICE AMP. Bring your band, play with your drummer, and get ready to lose your hearing. Ah?

Here's where it gets tricky, i got it used and when i first tried it, it blew a fuse. Now, the fuse was not the one is was supposed to have (it was a 1 amp fuse, and the amp requires a 2 amp fuse). I replaced it with a slow blow fuse and have not had anymore problems. But this is not the first Laney that did this to me. I used to have a borrowed Toni Iommi that did the exact same thing. But after the fuse and tube change it was perfectly fine.

I've been playing for 8 to 9 years now and have heard a lot of equipment. Personally this is only my 4th amp (R.I.P. Marshall MG), but gigging around i've heard the mesas, the marshalls, the line 6s, everything. This amp will not replace your $3000 rig, but for someone on a budget its perfect to begin in the tube amp era. Because honestly once you hear a tube amp, all the solid state amps are crap and weak.

Pretty much what everyone else has said.. It is single channel which isn't really a problem as you can roll back the volume knobs on your guitar and it cleans up nicely. Doesn't have built-in reverb, wish it did. It's got plenty of gain, haven't used the effects loop yet but I've heard very good things. I use this amp in a band setting, it can be played at bedroom levels, but this thing is just built to be played LOUD.

I play through this with an Epiphone Les Paul with a Seymour Duncan '59 in the neck and SD-6 in the bridge. The cab I'm using is a Mesa Boogie Rectifier oversize cab 4x12 with vintage 30's. I'm a metalhead at heart (it certainly satisfies that) but rocking back on the gain gives a pretty nice bluesy tone. I have noticed the head is quite noisy, I'm not sure if it's just mine or not. I'm looking into getting a Boss NS-2 in hopes that will quiet it down some. The distortion is some of the best you'll hear.

No issues this far, owned it for about a month. I wouldn't worry about gigging with it, it seems very reliable.

Never dealt with them, never had to.

I've been playing for about 2 years now, and this is my first tube amp. Overall, I'm extremely satisfied with it and would definitely purchase another. Other than the reverb I have no complaints whatsoever about it, it's an amazing amp that I believe stacks up to those selling for a whole lot more. If I could give it a 9.5/10 I would.

It's low on the bells and whistles, but the features it has are quality, i'm sort of a plug and play metal fellow so it definitely suits my needs, i would like to give it a 10, but I could use a little clean channel love once in a while

What it lacks in features it makes up for with some smooth-flowing distorted tone. Like I said before i'm sort of a plug and play metal guy, I mainly use an epiphone lp-100 with a duncan distortion at the bridge, and the head is run through a marshall 4x12. When I first fired up this amp I was immediately rewarded with the guitar equivalent of standing next to niagara falls, the sound was liquid and crashing roar. That's how I think of the distortion on this amp it has a very liquid quality, the sound pours out. Mine came loaded with EL34 tubes instead of the 6L6, which suprised me cause I thought the 6L6's were standard, but i'm more fond of EL34's anyways so no problem. It didn't take me long to find the settings I liked, gotta be careful with the presence though, it has quite a dramatic effect on the character of the amp. I'm pretty much happy setting this thing for one sound and leaving it that way, and I bought this amp with that in mind. When I do get a craving for less brutal tones, I roll back volumes and bluesy runs just jump out of my fingers. One of the things I really love and can't get enough of is the sound at the point of pick attack that comes off the unwound strings, it's this throaty "chunk" sound and when i'm playing slower david gilmour style leads it makes my face do funny things and puts this lump in my throat.

I've had this head for about 5 months now and have had no problems.

Never dealt with laney

I've been playing for about 9 years now, I own a marshall valvestate 100 watt head and a RedBear MK 120 watt head. I like all of my amps, the RedBear was probably the greatest deal I ever got, it cost 170 bucks and sounds in-between a Marshall JCM 800 and 900. The valvestate amp is pretty decent for what it is and is underrated in my opinion. One of my best friends had a Mesa triple recto and I had the chance to play that quite a bit, I didn't think it sounded all that amazing until he put EL34's into it, and then it sounded OK. I bought the laney cause the guys from Opeth use laney and they have some very quality tone. The price is a definite plus especially considering the sound.

It's 2003, bought in Poland,100watt amp, one channel that can be nicely boosted and switchable drive; effects loop at back
The only thing I wish it had, is a reverb; All 4 power 5881 tubes give smooth power and may be replaced by el34.

I play a '92 LP, which matches gh100l perfectly- mostly art and hard rock.Overdriven sound this amp delivers is well known; little crunch to brutal distortion, but what surprised me at first, it's easy to get really nice clean with gain at 0-1. Meets old style rock sound for rhythm and soloing easily.

So far so good- very solid

I've been playing for about 15 years, and I'm sure for this money it's an EXTREME BARGAIN. If you want a better sounding amp, prepare to spend at least 3 times more. Once I wondered of JCMs, thanks God I forgot it.

Build in 1994, I initially bought it 'cause I was a hardcore Paul Gilbert fan at the time. Now I'm sooo happy with it, because it absolutely suits my needs. However, two separate channels would be perfect.
The FX loop sounds great, I use it in the side chain mode, actually just with a Boss DD-5, but I like how the delay just has the right volume in both clean and overdrive mode. You can achieve a rich clean sound and a distorted sound where you still hear what you're playing.
I haven't yet figured out the resonance switch, but I feel my amp sounds tighter in the bottom end with it being switched on, just as the manual says. There are some rave reviews in here about the resonance control which I cannot quite share.
I play rock music and am now a die hard Nuno Bettencourt fan. It doesn't sound like Nuno, but neither do I. But it's a beautiful sounding amp and I'm proud of my own sound- which comes out of the Laney.

I'm using a Fender Highway-1 Strat with a Seymour Duncan Jeff Beck Jr. pu in the bridge. I play .011-.049 D'Addario strings. My setup is: guitar->tuner->Crybaby wah->Ollmann Capt. Hook (treble booster)->Maxon OD-808->MXR phase 90->amp. Boss DD-5 in the fx loop. I use a Marshall 1936 2x12" Cabinet, which may be the weakest part of my equipment, besides my guitar.
As said, I play rock music, like Extreme, Van Halen, Faith No More, Mr. Big etc. I'm a fiddler.
But I'm playing in a cover band,too, so I have to be versatile. And there is no problem with that.
This amp sounds so expensive, it is a real bargain. The clean sound is outstanding, a pearly, ringing sound. If you crank up the gain knob, you hear a crunch sound that you'll love. It's so dynamic it will reveal any weakness in playing technique, so this amp kinda helps me to keep practising. The distortion can do heavy metal to hardrock, just everything, and in top notch quality. It is a little noisy, but the 5150s I heard were worse. The amp is very pickup-depending, and I think I need a better guitar to keep up with the sound quality.
My settings: resonance on, presence 3, Bass 9, middle 4, treble 4, gain 4, drive 8, I use the Hi input.
This thing is frickin' loud! You'll blow your whole band away. I'm at 2-3 in volume, but 3 is already hard to stand.

I bought it ten years ago, played for 4 years and just picked up one year ago, having used a H&K Tubeman into several different combos at the meantime, was just easier to handle for a guy with a small car and bizeps. But now my bizeps has grown and I would even carry it to a gig...
Whatever: after such a long time, the tubes where down and I changed them (I used to have the stock 5881s replaced with EL-34s, but now I'm back to 5881s). I shouldn't have done it by myself, as the tubes overheated after a short time and had to be replaced again. Expensive shit. Something was wrong with the anode voltage or so, I'm not able to explain this in English.
Since then and before it worked well and never failed me, and I know tube amps are a little more sensitive than transistor ones, so I see it as a normal thing.
I don't have a backup, and don't have a bad feeling having only this one with me at a gig.

Never dealt with them.

I've been playing for 14 years now and didn't own many amps, but played lots of different gear in lots of different bands. I'm a semi-professional musician ready for the fulltime job and consider myself of being capable to judge the quality of equipment. But it is still a matter of taste (luckily). I'm working in a studio where I get to hear many different things, the only thing getting close to it was the Triamp, but I'm not that much of a Rectifier fan, so... It is not my dream amp in the matter of features, I'd like to have a H&K Triamp for that, but soundwise, it's one of the best amps I've had under my hands. It is solid as a rock, full of energy and sounds just cool. And I have the feeling that it will be the last amp I'll ever own. But who knows. Anyway, I love it: a clear 10.

100 watt, single channel amp. No reverb or onboard effects at all, though if it had them I probably wouldn't use them anyway. Since its single channel, when I've got the gain cranked as high as I need it, there's really no way to get a clean tone. This is okay for me, since the only guitar I play with which I'd want clean (EBMM Petrucci 7-string) has a piezo output that I run through my band's PA. Thats what I use for a clean sound. Works for me, but someone with a guitar that doesnt have that feature may have problems if they want to get a good clean tone.

This amp gives the best heavy-as-hell distortion I've ever heard. The gain is smooth, and the low end is incredibly tight and punchy. This is really perfect for anyone who tunes their guitars really low: it never gets muddy. With the drive boost off, this amp will also give a really nice half-distorted/crunch tone. If you adjust the settings, you can also get a very nice, crisp clean tone out of it, but as I mentioned above, doing so is impractical for my purposes. Also, this amp is LOUD. I can fill any audotorium in my town with the Master Volume at 4 or 5.

I use the following settings on this amp:
Resonance Switch: On
Presence: 6
Bass: 9
Middle:7
Treble: 7
Gain: 6
Drive Boost: 10

I run this amp into a Marshall 4x12 cab. I primarily play two guitars through this amp. The first is a Dean Evo 7-string (with a Seymour Duncan JB humbucker in the bridge) tuned to standard B, and the second is my EB Music Man Petrucci signature 7-string tuned to A flat. I also occationally play a PRS singlecut tuned to D flat through it, too. They all sound amazing through this amp, especially the 7-strings. I'm really impressed with how well this amp handles really low tunings like B, A, or A flat.

My band has been gigging with this amp (without a backup) for three years and it has never once had any problems. The tubes have blown once, right after I got the amp, but that was my own damn fault and I wont get into it. This amp has never caused any problems and I alsolutely trust it.

I had to deal with Laney once, and they were pleasant and had my problem fixed very quickly.

I've been playing with this amp for three years, and Im yet to find any amp with tone that compares to this one at all. There are certainly amps with more features, this amp has very few, but the hardcore tone is all I really care about. I also own a Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier, and while it sounds very good, the low end is very muddy, and overall it just does not sound as good as the Laney. People who need to switch between clean and saturated distortion on the same amp should look elsewhere (Id recommend the dual channel Laney VH100R) but to anyone just looking for some damn good distortion tone, I suggest this amp and this amp only.

'94, 100 watts, all tube, single channel w/gain boost, no reverb - I'll take a point off for that, even though I knew that before I bought it! It is was it is, and a LOUD mother fucker. It has a nice bluesy tone at lower gain, but I'll have to add a reverb pedal to really utilize. Nice effects loop set-up with level contol, and you can hook up any cabinet, with 5 (I believe) speaker jack options.

I use an '04 Gibson Les Paul Classic, and play mostly heavier stuff from 80's thrash, to Dream Theater, to Napalm Death. It's ALL in your gain settings, and tunings. This amp does it all, and very well. Tune to 440, you've got 80's Priest, Testament, Metallica, drop-D you've got more grind, and lower yet, just brutal. This amp IS the shit. I tried 5150, Triple X, Boogie F50, Nomad, Line6 and Marshall. This amp sold me on tone alone. The price & quality were just huge bonuses. Make no mistake about it, Laney is slowly becoming a premier company, and you better take advantage, the price is slowly going up. As far as noise, it's no noisier than ANY other tube amp. Tone is to die for - the tone I want! I'm extremely pleased with the tone of this amp!

Tubes are new, built like a tank. No opinions as of yet.

I've sent several questions to Laney. A Mr. Roger Hickman was extremely responsive, timely and helpful. I only wish there were more dealers. They all say that they didn't sell their products, and I believe Laney had a reliabilty issue in the 80's. I'm confident this is in the past, and based on these reviews, am confident I bought a trusting piece of gear.

I've been playing 22 years, and have owned 4 Marshalls, Peaveys, Line6, and others. It's been a journey to find the tone I've been searching for. This amp has it, and I'm very satisfied. You can find these well under $700 new, and I will get one brand new, if this one ever has problems. Mine's used, and I wouldn't hold it against Laney. I'd buy another in a heartbeat.
I wish it had reverb, but I've got a Boss reverb/delay pedal on the way. If it were a 2-channel, reverb head, it would be a solid 10 in every catagory. If it had all this, it would be $1200. But then, Laney had the right idea: A stripped down amp with the bearest essential, TONE!!!

this amp only have one channel, but there's a switch to get the drive on. if I set the drive for full distortion, I can't have a nice clean sound when I switch the drive off.
one good things about the feature is that this amp have an effect loops that can be switched to fifty-fifty option.So i still get the original sound with the effects behind it. I take an advantage of this, because this amp still kickin' and punchin' without cutting off gain by the effect processor I used.

I used fender floyd rose classic, and using zoom 91950 effect processor to the effect loops. I set the loop in fifty-fifty, so i still have the original sound, there's no gain cuting off.
I like the characteristic of this amp. Sounds rock! instead of marshall JCM 900 I prefer this amp. Because with this amp I can have a good sustain for soloing, which marshall JCM 900 can't do that.
This amp just suite to my kind of musics. My band in Indonesia called "Pendulum" plays progressive metal fusion music.

The amp never broken down.

I bought this amp in 1999 but it was built in 1996 so it's almost 10 years old. It's a single channel all-tube (4 EC833 preamp, and 4 5881 power) lead amp with a gain boost that gives it a bit of umph when needed. Simple layout; presence, low, mid, and high eq, two gain knobs and a master volume. The most interesting being the resonance knob that gives you a fuller low end. Other than that, the rest is pretty standard: Tube coupled switchable effects loop, slave in and out, and footswitch in. I wouldn't add any more features to this amp as it's all I need or want.

I'm using a Gibson SG special with dual Gibson 490 pickups with no effects; just straight from guitar to amp through a Monster cable Jazz cable. The head is connected to the cab (a 1969 Laney lead 100 cabinet with Goodmans 25 watt power series speakers- the same model Toni Iommi used to use in the good ol' days) via a Monster Cable speaker cable as well. I play most styles through it and I have to say the amp performs wonderfully in all aplications. The amp is relatively quiet except for when you kick in the gain boost and then it becomes quite noisy but that doesn't really matter when you're full volume. It can do most anything from glassy clean to full out kill-your-face distortion. It can get quite brutal but I don't usually use it to it's full distortion potential. What I like about it is it's high end is really smooth and chimey. It never gets obnoxious and piercing. The amp has a natural tendancy to be really bright and mid-rangey so I set my settings as follows: Bass: 9 Mid: 4 High: 4 Presence: 7. I use the presence knob to give it a really high end sparkle, but cut the treble as it gives it a little bit of mid high piercyness if turned up. Cutting the mid and high really brings out the low end the way I like it and helps smooth out a bit of the midrange honk. The end result is an even toned amp that has chimey high end, smooth mids and TOIGHT lows. It sounds good at most volumes and sounds even better when roaring loud as hell. I LOVE THIS AMP!

I've toured the whole united states back and forth with this amp and had not one instance of trouble with it. It's a tank!

Never had trouble with it so I don't know.

This amp is the dark horse underdog of valve amps and I would recomend it over a Marshall, or any other british amp, besides maybe a Laney Supergroup 100 Plexi or maybe an original Orange. But it's by far the best lead amp you can buy for the money and sounds even better as the years go by. I've changed the tubes in mine though and have to say that it sounds best with 5881's (I left the standard sovteks in) in the power section as they are warmer sounding, have a chimier high end and break up quicker than EL34's. I replaced the EC833 originals (they come standard with Sovteks) with vintage General Electric and Silvertone NOS american tubes and it really smoothed out the sound quite a bit. I RECOMEND THIS AMP TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE!!