Laney GH100TI

read the other reviews below for features, as they pretty much covered everything.

frankly, i wish i didn't get rid of this. i started to get into home recording and quit my last band, so i traded my half stack on a boss gt3 and some other stuff. now that i'm getting that itch to play with a band again, nothing else will do. i have an arsenal of jackson kelly's with emg81's in the bridge slot. i play everything from frank zappa-esque oddities to anthrax-type thrash. this amp's got me covered. great focus in the distortion. not soldano, but great in it's own right. my rig is simplicity defined. jackson kelly w/emg81 -> monster cable -> boss volume pedal (w/lowest volume set for fairly clean and wide open set on stun) -> amp -> morley bad horsie wah in efx loop (gets better sound than if used before gain in my opinion).

used it for two years in my last band with nothing having to be done. sold it. bought it back after a year. still blows me away. always carry extra tubes, just in case.

never had to deal with them.

been playing for thirteen years, and tried millions of rigs to try yo get "my sound". the only thing better for me would be a soldano slo100, but i'm just a working stiff. i'll just have to go to the music store if i ever want to play it.

This is a brand new LANEY GH100TI (Tony Iommi) 100 Watt Head. It is basically a one channel no-frills amp with 6 chicken-head knobs, high and low input jacks and 3 switches (resonance, bright and bass) which alter the sound a bit. I'll get into that later. Here are some other cool features on this amp that are worth mentioning:

- Slave in-out jacks on back
- Can use either EL34 (stock) or 6L6 power tubes
- Effects loop with 3 settings (slave, input or bypass)
- A total of 5 speaker outs (One 1x16 Ohm , two 2x16 ohm and two 2x8 ohm) (The 2x jacks can also be used mono as 1x4 or 1x8)

The front panel looks real cool because it is a mirror finish. Tony Iommi's signature is written really small in black under the input jacks. The cool thing is that is doesn't distract from the look of the amp. You can't even notice it. The plain white "LANEY" nameplate is on the front also. The amp looks really deceiving because at first glance it just looks like a plain tube amp. People probably don't realize this probably the best deal out there on a tube amp head.

I would have liked to have had a reverb of some type on this head but I know different people like different types, etc. Also, it would have been nice to have a footswitchable setup of some kind to go from clean to high gain, etc. I guess this is Tony Iommi's head so beggers can't be choosers.

I bought this amp at Easy Music Center in Hawaii. I am stationed in Hawaii and it is hard to get certain brands, etc. here. Alot of times if you want a specific piece of equipment you feel like you have to snag it before someone else buys it. That is what I did with this amp. One of the only LANEY dealers on the island (who actually carries the amps), Easy Music Center, had one Laney Combo and then the GH100TI head. I probably have the only GH100TI Head on the entire island.

Just a quick note. I had no intention of buying an amp before I entered the music store. I have just been doing home recording into a LINE 6 POD 2.3 and was content with that. Then I saw the GH100TI and things changed....:)

I play a Gibson Gothic Explorer with stock pickups (500T in bridge and 496 I believe in neck) strung with 10-46 D'Addario's. I am currently using no effects, just straight into the head.

Let me just say this first. If you gig you better tell everyone to get earplugs when you play through this. This thing was built for stadiums.

This crunch on this amp is fantastic! Even at bedroom levels, the gain is very usable and the amp sounds great. This amp can achieve many sounds and even does clean very good. By plugging into the low gain input, I get some very nice clean sounds. If you are reading this review though you are probably more interested in the high gain since it is a Tony Iommi product.

I have had some people ask me if it is more the Mesa or Marshall direction and I have to say that I think it is a little of both. It is definitely it's own monster. If I cut the mids all the way and crank the gain, I can't get a very Godsmack type of sound. If I have the gain at about the 2:00 position and have the mids at 12:00, I get a great ACDC type of sound.

Now, as far as the 3 switches (resonance, bright and bass) they actually affect the sound quite a bit. The resonance puts the sound more "in your face" and really improves the sound. The bright switch seems to help with definition of notes, etc. and for me it seems to give the amp more "chug". The bass switch is interesting because it muddies things up a bit, but for a good sound. I would say that the bass switch is good at taking a Godsmack type of sound and turning it into a Black Sabbath or Soundgarden type of sound. It is not overwhelming, but you do notice it.

This amp is super loud. People were serious when they said that. I believe I could play gigs with the master volume on 2 or 3 on the knob, easy. The power overwhelms you when you first turn it up. Trust me though, you can play at bedroom levels when you have to and it sounds great. This amp has 5 gain stages so the great sound is there (not as great as cranked obviously) at low volumes.

I have considered buying a power attenuator (THD perhaps) but will probably hold off for now. I might get a BOSS SD-1 pedal to boost it a bit so I can hear tubes pushed at lower volume, but I don't think anyone would need any kind of distortion pedal for this. Very brutal gain on this thing.

The amp does not seem noisy to me. I am getting some pickup "honk" at high power and high gain but I definitely think it is the pickup and not the amp.

I owned a Dual Rectifer and Single Rectifer and love this amp waaaay better. More gain at a lower volume.

Tony Iommi actually uses this exact amp head for his live sound. The amp feels sturdy, tough and roadworthy. They seem very well made and I am impressed. Nothing sounds or feels loose. I am currently not gigging, but If I were I would just bring some backup tubes, fuses, etc. I don't anticipate any problems with this thing.

I like LANEY's amps and I have not had to deal with their customer support, but I imagine it sucks. Here's why. Their website has absolutely NO phone numbers, email addresses, fax numbers, etc. NOTHING! There is no way to ask questions, get help, etc. It would be frustrating to get assistance.

On a positive note, they do have downloadable copies of their user manuals which is good. On the negative side, with all of the technology, etc. these days why not throw soundclips of your product up there? They need to follow TECH 21's lead. Those guys have customer service down.

This is one of the best deals around honestly. Marshall solid state AVT heads cost the same as I paid for this 100 watt tube head! There is no better deal for a tube head anywhere. Soldano stuff is up at around $3000, Marshall and Mesa start over $1000. The price of this is just insane!

Toni Iommi amp,,,one channel,,fx loop & send level,, slave in and out for daizy chaining several amps,,,hot self biasing EL-34 power section..chrome chassis,weird dounut transformer,, less transformer hum or sizzle than a lot of 100 watt heads,presance knob and resoninse button are part of the power section

I use this amp as a power amp and a backup head,,I run a Bogner Uberschall full stack with the matching =X= cabs i run a slave out to the slave in of the Laney that is hooked up to another 4x12,,,I love the presance on this amp. I just like the sound I think you can nail almost every SABBATH album with this amp.. It really sounds like Heven and Hell,,,,the gain goes higher than that thoug. you can get even mesa boogie sounds like Master,,,,,I like my Uberschall a lot more but I tell Ya this is a great amp for the $$,,,,,

I had it about 6 months ,, I think it will be fine,,, TONI IOMMI uses 9 of there live,, one master head that slaves 8 more with a 4X12 for each head..

well,, a power tube went out after a couple days and I called the U.S.A distributer and he sent me a whole new set...

man this amp is loud and sound better the more you turn it up,,,the high gain is really clear.. nice edge in the high end very MARSHALL like....listen to TONI's solo -CD- called (IOMMI),,,really cool tone.. It is weird that this amp is not that popular.. zemjla2000@yahoo.com

made in 2002. Amazing. Lets simply leave it at that. No reverb. If you need reverb to fill in your mistakes then you just need more practice. Channel switching would be nice but i use it in conjunction with my Laney VH100R head. I use the VH100R for everything except solos and really heavy rhythms, and sometimes the solos too (blues solo, some metal solos). So I use the Tony Iommi as my "Overdrive" pedal so to speak. It does one thing and it does it great. Tone is a feature and this amp has great features. I use a Jackson Kelly with a Bill Lawrence L-500XL in the bridge

oh shit this amp is god. The el 34's are great. they make lead playing a dream come true. haha. anyway i would put them in the vh100r but i get two completely different sounds this way so its cool. The fact that this is permanently on the 5th gain stage would be cooler if it could go from 4th to 5th like the GH100. Whatever. It has high gain mods, put up next to another laney you can tell. And my VH100R has pretty brutal distortion. Well nothing is brutal compared to this. Also this head will make you better. The fact that its distortion is so clear, u will hear your mistakes and then learn to correct them. That way in a year or so youll be playing like Alan Holdsworth or Steve Vai. The VH100R is a better amp in terms of versatility and i guess value because it is 4 channels, but this has WAYYYYY better distortion. The clarity is still every bit there on the vh as on the ti though.

This is the most dependable amp ever made. I am not kidding. I use another amp with this so i guess i always hav a backup. But i would use it without a backup but i always have spare tubes sooo.

I hear England support is awesome. So i will judge that. Its not an american amp so it wouldnt be fair to judge their shitty presence in america.

I love it. Playing for 3 years. Ive had a Mesa Triple Recto. Then I played a Used laney at Sam Ash and haddddd to find one. It is the difference between me being a good guitarist and me not. The mesa covers up mistakes,which can be good, but not if you want to become Paul Gilbert or something equally as good.

Go to the website for details. Single channel amps can be versatile if you know what you are doing.

Excellent, and different. If used correctly it can go from clean to wide ass open. You just have to use the right pedals to achieve this. Besides, nobody would buy this amp with the thought of ever using it clean. I set the gain of the amp on 1 and use a combo of clean boost and overdrive pedals to achieve slighty dirty up to make your ears bleed distortion.

Only had it for six months. It seems to be built well. I did add two small fans for cooling. If you do this use 220v fans. They will spin slower than a 120v fan, thus making them very quiet.

Sucks ass! They only have the manuals to their amps on their website to be downloaded. But guess what, you can download the manual to every amp they sell, plus discontinued amps, but the Tony Iommi is not listed. I'm just trying to find out what the amp rating is on the fuses so I can buy some spare ones. You are at the mercy of their dealers. No Laney contact # or email.

I've been playing bass and guitar for 18yrs. I heard and used alot of gear during that time. This amp is not for everyone. If you want the Mesa/BooBoo sound, buy a Mesa. If you want a Marshall sound, buy a Marshall. If you want a............buy it.
If you lose something this big and heavy, you're a moron. I never leave my music stuff unattended or in a place thats not secure, plus I have an itchy trigger finger. But, if for some reason it got 5 finger discounted, I would buy another one with the insurance money.

This head made 1997, 100W tube amp, multiple impedance speaker outs, FXloop, master/slave for chaining heads together - cool feature. Lets you set your tone on one head and use the other amp's power sections for more volume. Why you'd want more than one of these things working at the same time is beyond me. Loudest amp I ever heard! On the fron pane, you've got a resonance switch (for added "chug") presence, bass middle, treble, master, gain (controls 5 permanent gain stages), and bright and bass switches. My only gripe is that there is no channel switch. You have to plug your guitar into either the Lo or Hi input to change between clean/dirty respectively.

Using quite a few guitars with this head: Washburn Dime333, Epi Les Paul and a Kramer Baretta (all humbuckers). I play mostly metal (Metallica, Pantera, Creed, Megadeth, Sabbath*surprise!* etc)and some blues. This amp's distortion is frankly amazing. Without any effex can pull off Metallica's "Black" album tone, the fizzy pantera distortion, muddy Sabbath and so on. It also does well with Nu-Metal tones. Plugging the guitar into the Lo input gives some nice, warm clean sounds, and upping the gain gets great crunch tones, too. It's a bit noisy when cranked, but no more so than any other amp. There's not too much clean headroom, but that's not really what this amp's about. In short, very versatile, and as someone else here pointed out, the distortion easily beats Marshall and Boogie in my opinion.

Fuse kept blowing when I first got it, but it was an isolated problem, sent it back to Laney to get it fixed. Haven't had any problems since.

Never dealt with them directly, only through a dealer.

I've been playing about 3 years now, and also own 2 Marshall heads (A JCM 900 and a VS8100), and a Roland BC-60. This is easily my best amp, and the only one of the lot I'd replace with the same if it was stolen. In fact, if my Marshalls were stolen, I'd probably just get another of these to replace them.

This amp is a 2001 model which is no different from the others as it is a signiture amp. TI standing for Tony Iommi. This amp the way i use it is only as a power amp for my pod. But on it's own it has an intensly powerful distortion which i sometimes use for a lot of the metal songs that we play. It only has one channel and is in permanent hi gain setting, which is good if ur the rhythm guitarist in a heavy metal band. But if u need multi channels e.g clean, rhythm, lead then i recommend one of the other Laneys either the VH100 or the GH100 as these are both ultimately versatile great sounding pieces of quality gear which are worth a try. My pod handles channel switching etc. This amp is all tube with 6 12AX7 pre-amp tubes and 4 EL34 power amp tubes which are switchable to 5881's if need be. This amp has a resonance switch which is a very handy tool as it dampens the power amp section for tighter bass response and it doesnt resonate the sound so much, in other words the sound is super tight. It also features a bass and treble switch to boost both these frequencies, very affective. The reason i bought this amp is because it was fairly cheap and did exactly what i wanted it to do, act like a power amp, as power amps are F'in expensive i.e Mesa Boogie 90/90 #1000 approx no thanks!! This amp has recorded 1 album and a large number of live shows. It has balls of power and with my two matching laney 4*12's it looks and sounds the biz. In the future i intend to buy another head to make full use of the pod's stereo mode and have two laney half stacks and the pod. Quality!!!! The reason i gave it six is coz it's only got 1 channel.

I have an Ibanez RG470, BC Rich Jr.V and an ESP les paul style with active EMG 81 pickups on all guitars. My BC and ESP are used for the majority of songs, i am the lead guitarist in the band the Ibanez is only used for songs with intense solos in thats y it has a whammy bar.This amp is as quiet as a mouse no hiss and very limited hum which can't be detected by mics. I have no use for the amps settings but i use the amps resonance switch, that is a quality feature. If imagine a band like linkin park or papa roach and combine with the sound of metallica but with the mid range of GNR then your not far off of how it sounds.

I've only had it for 3 months and have never had a problem, i always use it without a back up. Solid as a rock so are the cabs.

Never delt with Laney

I have been playin for 8 years and i am 15 years old (seriously). I used to own a laney TF200 but it was not loud enough and did not have a tube based power amp section. If it were lost i would without a doubt buy a new one, as i have not found a better amp that i need for what i do.

the gh100ti has one channel, effects loop, and some other choices in the back.havent really looked into using them since i mainly go direct with my zoom 3030 effects pedal. its pretty easy to eq and get the sound you want(other than full on distortion) considering that this was primarily built for all out metal.

this is my first half stack that i have bought although ive tested out a marshall and it sounded like shit(at the time i tested the marshall i didnt eq it to my liking)so theyre probably still good amps (no offense toward marshall)since they've been around for awhile)
this amp head has the best sounding distortion ive heard yet in an amp head. the el34 tubes help make that possible along with the other internal parts. tony iommi and laney really made a great amp head this time around.i play through a zoom 3030 directly and have the channel set to clean so i can use the zoom distortion but if your not the type who likes processors then just go with the alternative. WARNING: THIS AMP HEAD IS AMAZINGLY LOUD!!!!!!!!,the cabinet really compliments the head in this case.

it seems pretty reliable although ive not taken it out on the road yet.

havent talked to customer support although theyre probably reliable and helpful.

if you play all out metal then get this one,and you can get some alternate sounds with some time and tweaking.i would highly recommend this amp as i have a tfx200 and going to buy a tfx300 later.there are a few places to buy laney amps but you will probably have to hunt for the places aliitle bit but its worth checking this amp head out before you make a final purchase.

1 channel 100 watt head. Mine was made in '99, I think they still make them, it's the TOny Iommi signature model, which is different from the other GH100 heads because of gain modifications

I play hard rock and use a hollow bodied es335 copy, and this thing just sounds amazing. It is an insanely loud amp, but part of this is because it just sounds so good at low volume. On mose amps to get a really crucnhcine tone you need to crank the gain and the master, but on this one it doesn't need much prodding. Yu don't have to spend to much time dialing in a good sound, it's kind of line a dual rectifier in that it always sounds good. I feel like if I maxed this thing out it would be unbelievably loud. Eseentially, if you are a hard rock guitarist and are looking for an alternative to that lame hollwoed out over saturated "nu" metal amp sound that is so popular today, this is the amp to get.

I've had the amp for a year and a half. I've played numerous shows and recording sessions with it, no problems whatsoever.

THis is an amp you have to hunt down - there are very few laney dealers. If you go to their website they list them in your area. Several people who have heard this amp have made their own trek to go buy one. It just sounds that good. While the older AOR laneys have that vintage Hiwatt sound, this one is a nice mix of a Rectifier head and a Marshall head, while (in my opinion) sounding way better than both fo those. The distortion is not as thin and ratty sounding, and any palm muting results in earth shaking rumble and crunch. If you play hard rock music, this may be just the amp you have been looking for!

this is a one channel 100watt head.it has a bias switch for el34or6l6 tube use.
also has a mix control on the effects loop.the gain on this amp makes it versatile.

i got a mexican strat with ssh config.two ceramic single coils and a dimarzio tone-zone on the bridge.also a gibson dc standard lite with a 493r and a 57classic paf in the bridge.the amp is noisy at high volumes.going to try useing the best speaker cable i can find to hush it up a bit.the sound of this amp is simply the best gain iv'e ever experienced.it does marshall with simplicity and has a character all it's own.harmonics forever!!!this is the best purchase iv'e made related to music gear.clean tone is excellent punchy and clear.according to pick attack you can distort the clean whenever suitable for your taste,again you must roll back on your volume.i must admit i expected to see more reviews on this amp.it is definately a well kept secret.everyone's opinions are different!i'm not trying to sell the amp,just trying to say before you dump over a grand on marshall,you might want to take a look at this amp.at $700.00 i found it hard not to check it out,and i'm glad i did.no distortion pedals needed here,this thing sizzles.from a blues tone, to a rock tone ,or a hard core tone this thing has it all.

it is 40pounds of tank for sure.but i have not had it that long to test reliability.laney has a one year warranty and an extra 2years if you fill out a survey.

it doesn't have extra channels,but i must say iv'e overlooked all that cause of the tone this amp produces.didn't kill my wallet as much as a marshall would have either.