Laney LC15

This is a very basic amp, gain-eq-master and a bright switch. It's not very hard to get a good sound out of it.

I play on a Yamaha Pacifica 112 and a ephiphone lp through a dunlop crybaby and some old chorus pedal someone gave me.
The overdrive is great, I love it. Hard to get a good clean sound though. I play funk, blues and rock, this amp is especially good for rock/metal but you can also get a real bluesy tone. I think you can compare this with some much more expensive amp's. Therefore i'll give it a nine, not a ten because of the noise.

I've almost got it for a year now and I never had a problem.

Never had any problem's so I never had to deal with them.

I use it for home practising, I bought it so that I could practise whitout making everybody else in the house deaf, but it's still pretty loud. I use a Marshall vs265r for gigging and the Marshall is to loud to play with at home. Once I took the Laney to bandpractice just for fun but it is loud enough to hear through our drummer and basplayer. But I don't think i would gig whith it. This is probably the best amp in it's pricerange.

I don't know what year this amp came out. It is my second one of this model. They have GREATLY inproved the reliability, so I went out and purchased one for the second time and it works like a champ! I have used it heavily for several months and it has been through gigs and practices without any problems. It is a simple 15 watt tube amp with 1 10" speaker. No reverb, but I use an external echo unit, so I could care less. Sure, I would love an old Fender echo unit, but that would cost as much as this amp alone! I wish they had this model with a 12" speaker. It would sound MUCH better, even though the 10" speaker is top-quality they use in this model. A stereo model in this configuration (i.e. with an external little cabinet with a 10 or 12" speaker) would be cool! In general, I think the amp companies push the musician too much to get gigantic amps they don't need instead of giving a lot of options in their smaller amps. I hate dragging around big equipment. That is appropriate when you are playing gigs in large rooms or outdoors all the time. And you can always mic your amp, so why hassle with large equipment?

I play a G&L Broadcaster, Hamer Sunburst, and a Stage Strat and this amp sounds the best with the Hamer. The amp sound fantastic turned up loud. The more you crank the amp up, you get a Marshall-like distortion and sustain. I play psychedelic space rock with it. The distortion is sort of like Black Sabbath distortion, though a 10" speaker doesn't quite give that. It is fairly smooth, though if I were Laney, I would listen to the Peavey Classic 20 tube amp and make the distortion a little more in that direction - more smoother. I have a Peavey Classic 20 and I think both that amp and the Laney LC15 are great amps. It really is preference. They sound a lot different. But, the Peavey Classic distortion is more blues-like and not as "British" sounding, maybe I would say that the Peavey is more "Fender-Twin" like - you know, those old Fender Twin Reverb amps that used to be used all the time. One this is certain - the Laney gets MUCH louder than the Peavey. The stock speaker is probably better in the Laney and perhaps it is just the way the circuit is designed. The Peavey can get sort of "Out of Control" when you crank it all the way up - the sound will break up sometimes and feedback too much, but the Laney seems more "firmer" and in control. Of course, small tube amps tend to sound like they are going to explode when you crank them up all the way! That is part of the charm of owning them - you don't go deaf when rocking out.
With this amp driving (the preamp out) my Laney 50 Watt amp, it comes closer to a big amp sound. Fairly versatile, but NOT like a Fender sound at all - pure British. Can get Hiwatt sound. Clean channel is clean enough at high volume, but note that 15 watts is not that much, but this amp has MORE head room than any other amp this size, that I have seen. Overall, I think this amp compares favorably with a JCM800 and Sovtek, which I think are the two greatest amps out there if you want a powerful head. The Sovtek probably has the best crunch for the buck out there. I don't know if it possible to get a small 15 watt amp to sound like a Sovtek for only $225.00. I compared the Laney to many amps and it blew most of them away. Only the Mesa Boogie small combo amps, the Peavey Classic 20, and I heard that Soldano makes a small amp, have compared to this Laney amp.

Never has broken in several months of use. I use a Solid State Laney anyway, along with this amp, so that is my backup.

I wrote Laney a letter and they were extremely helpful to me when I considered giving them a chance again. They actually called me and worked out my problems with the first amp breaking, which really made me want to do business with them again. I think this is a company that learns from its mistakes and improves its products. What happened to me is proof of that. i was ready to hang them up as an amp company, but they proved me wrong. I have heard horror stories on some other amp companies, so it is good to find an amp company that cares about their customers.

I have been playing for 26 years. I own Laney 50 watt amp, Peavey Classic 20, Peavey Rage 158, Hamer Sunburst, G&L Broadcaster, Stage Strat and other stuff.
I think that no amp comes close to the sound and value of the Laney LC15 unless you spend a lot more bucks. For bigger amps that have a similar sound (i.e. you need a 50+ watt head), I would get a Laney Solid State amp and use the LC15 as a "tube preamp" or get any other solid state amp you like to boost the volume. If you have the money, a Marshall JCM 800 or Sovtek amps are good values and have great sound, comparable to the LC15 but lots louder (and more expensive).

I bought this amp in april 1998 in Amsterdam for 495 Dutch Florines which is about US$ 250. This amp is an all tube one with 3 (chinese) 12AX7 pre amp tubes and two EL34 Sovtek power amp tubes. It has a very basis setup: two inputs high/low which can not be used at the same time (pity), a preamp gain, with a little knob for boosting the highs, bass, mid and treble knobs and a master volume. The amp has a 10 inch speaker and a preamp line out jack. No channel swithing, which is ok for a small amp. No effect loop (pity) No reverb. But then I should have bought the more expensive LC 15R
I bought the amp for home practicing and it it is loud as hell (some times a bit to loud, at least that is what my housemates say).
I like to play Jimi H. , Santana, Pink Floyd. It does the old Marshall stuff pretty well.
About the power, it is rated at 15 watts but I never have the master volume knob above three (which is very loud) so I think I can jam with this small monster in a band and have club gigs when it is put through the P.A.

I have a US standard stratocaster and an Ibanez Artist with Gibson PAF's. With the strat I can have very good clean funky sounds and a very nice crisp (Jimi's the wind cries mary). The high gain is also pretty good but than it has too much treble for my taste and it is hard to have a nice warm blues drive. The amp is (too) easily distorted with the Artist, for clean tones I can't have the preamp above 1, but still the poweramp goes loud enough to wake up the neighbours. Again, the gain is heavy but trebly and I use a stomp box (Boss DS1) with low gain and high level for the smooth sustaining lead (Santana, Gary Moore). Overall I think the basic sound is very good, clean as well as distorted, but it is hard to adjust the tones.
I think for an all tube amp it is not really noisy.

I have only used it in my room and up till now I haven't had any problems with it. It looks pretty tough, the housing is made very well and because of the few options there is less chance to break something.

Never had to deal with them

I bought this amp when my old practice amp went down. I wanted a small tube amp with a nice sound, which is small enough for practicing at your room and light enough to take it anywhere. I am pretty satisfied with the sound quality, it realy does not sound like a small practice amp but more like a heavy marshall. I am not an expert but I compared it to small Fender amps and I played on big Marshalls and this one just does the trick for me. When it breaks I think I will buy a small tube amp again, but then with more options ( 2 channels, effect loop, reverb) maybe a Mesa Boogie DC 2, but then I have to spend more money. I am not saying this is the best small tube amp because I don't have enough experience to say this, but I think for the price it is really a great amp an worthwile to try it!

One channel... gain, 3-band eq, master volume + bright switch.. you know 'em. No reverb .. no footswitch.. not really the most versatile thing out there.. A distorsion / more gain switch should be in there..

Tried it out at the shop with one strat-copy (all single-coil) .. quite good clean sound.. I miss a reverb though.. Distorsion was a bit of a bore.. couldn't get more than slight bluesy... if I tried more gain, it went all sucky.. Also tested a humbucker-epiphone-guitar.. distorsion improved as expected, but was still not enough.. you might be able to get high gain, but there's no way you get that smooth tubey-distorsion out of this amp, .. i'd say it sounded like "crackle 'n pop" when I cranked it.. Quite loud though, but not good for rock/metal or anything more than blues.. Not my style at all.. I wanted much gain.. SMOOTH gain... this was quite the opposite.. lowering the treble made it a bit better, but most of the distorsion disappeared aswell.. :(
This thing aint sounding like a tube amp.. it sounds like some shitty solid-amp.. My old Marshall 8020 (solid state 20 W) did it better... (not saying that either one of them are good...they aren't)
Bluesy / clean people will like it though, i think. It really responds to your picking.... not compressed at all..

Can't say too much... it looked sturdy though.. but the pots was a bit flimsy.. but its a cheap amp.. so...

I was excited by the other rewiews... obviously one should never trust other people too much.. :) .. I guess this just aint my type of amp..
I don't want solid-state fuzz.. and I don't want a 100W head+box at home ruining my hearing... and I want it somewhat cheap.. Seems impossible, but I'll keep looking and when I find something, I'll post it here!

From around June 97 to January 98, I owned a 15 watt Laney tube amp combo with a 10" speaker. The amp was extremely versatile and could emulate Vox, Marshall, and Fender guitar amplfiers, in my opinion. Besides being the cheapest decent tube amplifier on the market, I really liked having a line output jack. I fed the Laney into my 50 Watt Fender Bassman head with a 12" speaker cabinet. I then had the warmth of the Fender with the sustain, harmonics, and distortion capabilities of the Laney. In fact, I found myself sometimes just using the Laney for band practices WITHOUT having to use the Fender at all. It was plenty loud cranked up and I suspect the Laney could handle small to medium sized clubs if you crank it way up. At clubs, I would feed it into the Fender for more volume and less strain on the Laney. The speaker that came with the amp was the best speaker I have ever owned except for my 70s Electrovoice 12" speaker I use with the Bassman. It is unbelievable that Laney can include such a high-quality speaker for a $225 tube amp. I compared the Laney's speaker to other brands that had similar tube amps, and there was NO comparison! The Laney blew them all away.
I was satisfied except for two things - the amp had way too much hum, which is typical for tube amps and the internal circuit board had too many minature components, which didn't make sense to some electronics wizard who looked at it. It appeared to fragile. This relates to my second complaint is that the amp seemed to be way too reliable for gigging, which is why I traded it in. Within a time span of several months, the amp broke twice. The first time was within a month when the amp blew its transformer. The second time was recently, when it croaked during a band gig. I had to use the trusty bassman, but had no tube distortion after that, since the bassman is very clean and difficult to distort with a G&L Broadcaster. We took the amp apart and could not find any burned out tubes or components, so I took it back to the store and prepared for another long wait in getting it fixed. After much thought, I decided to trade the amp in for something more reliable. I purchased a solid-state Laney HC50R 50 Watt amp with a 12" speaker and an Ibanez Tube King. The tube Laney sounded much better, but this present setup seems to be more reliable and I could not afford to ruin any more gigs with an unreliable tube amp. Its a shame, since I still have my heart set on that Laney tube amp, but am going to wait until some future time to try it again.

I play a G&L Broadcaster with single coil pickups. The Laney LC15 was perfect for my style because of the versatility of sounds and the harmonics/distortion. I play mostly blues/space rock/ 70s type music. It seemed perfect for getting that Black Sabbath/Who sound. The amp was very noisy when making it distort. Not so bad on clean settings. But, most tube amps are too noisy and you really couldn't notice it while a band is blasting away. The amp was very clean if you wanted or extremely distorted, but in a very musical manner - not harsh at all. You could get Beatles Vox sound or Hendrix Marshall sound, you name it. The tone controls were incredible.

As I mentioned above, the amp was a dog as far as reliability goes - broke down twice within several months and ruined two gigs. I am willing to try buying one in the future, but I would never depend on it without a backup, unless proven otherwise to me.

I just dealt with the dealer I purchased it from and I was pissed, since I thought I should get a complete refund instead of having to sell it as a used amp and trade it in for another amp. I think if an amp fails more than once within the first year, you should be able to get a refund or a brand new amp of the same model or trade it in for a comparably priced amp. But, as I have seen, the amp market doesn't work that way.

I love the sound and hate the reliability of the Laney LC15 tube amp. I compared it against Fenders, Marshalls, Mesa Boogies, you name it. I wish it had less noise.

This is at first glance a basic amp. 15 watts rms, 10inch single speaker (HH Invader), one channel with High and Low inputs, gain, bright switch, bass/mid/treble, master volume. All valve construction, (Class A) and a very simple circuit. Cheap 12AX7s in the pre amp (Chinese?), a pair of Sovtek EL84s in the power amp. No effects loop, no reverb. It does have a line out from the pre-amp. Unfortunately there's no standby switch.
Physically it's about as small as a 1x10" combo could be.
Personally, the single channel amp suits me fine, so I'd give it a 9 for features (adding presence would get a 10). If you feel you need channel switching, then reduce the score to suit.

I play blues/r'n'b and folk/roots. I need an amp with a very good clean tone, that is loud but not too loud, and use sounds ranging from "traditional Fender" through to metal.
The LC15 despite it's rated power is a loud little amp. I find no problem heraing it over drums/bass/foldback..
The quality of tone is quite unbelievable for the price. It;'s difficult to stress how good without ounding over the top. Very much like a Mesa/Boogie Subway Blues or an AC15 in quality. There is a depth of tone that is lacking in many (most!) much more expensive amps.
The gain control allows tones to range from glassy clean through to Plexi-Marshall style roar. Sustain is very good even on low gain settings (I play a Telecaster with Duncan Alnico Pro bridge pickup - that will drive the amp into breakup by about 40% gain through the high input and 50% through the low). Overdrive is vintage, warm, natural, smooth, roaring and not at all buzzy. The amp responds extremely well to picking attack/guitar volume/tone changes, with distortion being very controllable from the guitar.
There is a version with reverb, but I haven't tried it (I use a Fender Reverb tank).
OK, now the downside. Any amp this cheap is going to have compromises somewhere, so here are some of them.
The factory fitted pre-amp valves are not very high quality. NOS or Sovtek (I've tried both) replacements make a definite imrovement to my ears.
There is a high level of hiss when gain and master or EQ are cranked. This isn't really any worse than on many vintage amps though, and for some reason nearly all goes away when a guitar is plugged in. Background noise isn't a problem while playing. I suspect quality of mains electricity is important in how much hiss there is; using a cheap mains filter really makes a difference.

Construction is a single PCB with pots and jack sockets mounted on it. Luckily the tracks are large and well spaced, and there are few sub-miniature components so repairs should be possible to the board itself. The valve bases are good quality, but mounted on the PCB. I'd suggest dropping the chassis out and supporting the PCB around the valve base if re-valving as the PCB will get twisted/cracked if you just try to push a new valve in. There is a bias pot, by the way.
The cabinet is not the last word in carpentry, but is acceptable.
I bought this as a practivce amp, but it's impressed me enough to start gigging with it (mic'd up in most places, though the amp will cope with a 50-100 seater venue if you don't want Who-like levels of volume). So far no problems with reliability at all, but I don't think I've had it long enough to be sure. Ask me again in 10 years time..

I've never had to contact Laney. My band has a Laney transistor PA amp that's been in use at least once a week for 14 years, running flat-out most of the time. It hasn't broken down yet, so I see no reason why this amp should.

I intend to buy another. As they don't channel switch, and the overdrive beats any pedal I've ever heard in 20 years of playing I intend to use a two-amp clean + overdrive setup with an A/B box.
I'd been looking for a small valve amp for some time before I bought this one. I'd already auditioned the Mesa/Boogie Subway Blues and Rocket, Vox AC15, Fender Champ 12, Fender Pro Junior and Blues Junior. In the end I chose the LC15 because it does what I want, has tone that competes easily with the more expensive amps, and is half the price of the cheapest of them.
Unless reliability turns out to be a problem, this amp has to be one of the bargains of the decade.

This is a 15 watt all tube Class A amp with one 10 inch speaker. It is intended as a practice amp. However, this amp is also useful for small club or church gigs. The LC15 has 3-12ax7 preamp tubes and 2-EL84 power tubes. It has one channel with Hi and Lo gain inputs, Gain, Bass, Mid, Treble and Master Volume controls and a bright switch.

This amp is very British in the Marshall and Vox tradition. It is capable of tons of gain. The settings of the Gain and Master volume controls give the amp a wide variety of sounds from Voxy clean to really over the top distortion. The tone controls have a limited, but useful range. The Hi and Lo gain inputs really make a big difference in how this amp sounds and the type of pickups on your guitar as well as your guitar's volume and tones settings makes a big difference. This amp doesn't neuter your guitar's natural sound and is very responsive.

Just got it, but my amp tech says that these are reliable and I trust him. I did get replace the cheap chinese 12AX7s for Sovteks, but other than that it is great. The ten inch speaker seems over-rated for an amp this size and the construction is first rate.

Haven't use it.

For the purpose I needed it for - a low power amp that sounds good - Yes. I'm going to check out their bigger amps too. This is probably the best tube amp deal on the market.