Laney LC15R

tasty tasty tubes :D not sure when this amp was made. bought secondhand from a pawn shop for the meagre price of ??140. this amp isnt incredibly versatile. 6 knobs - gain, bass middle treble volume and reverb. i spose the reverb is ok. after about 5 or 6 it can get seriously weird, which some think is cool, some not so. i pretty much exclusively play SRV n cleaner hendrix sort of stuff, n jazzy chromaticism, n id say this suits me. a simple amp for a complex style of playing :P 15 watts for me is just fine. allows me to get power amp OD while keeping friendly neighbours... might possibly want channel switching, but tbh, i wud probs use my bd-2 anyway even if it was there. overall, pretty nice :D

trust me, with the right stuff this amp can sound phenomenally thick n creamy, almost 'dumble' like (well, not THAT good), n that sort of sound is pretty much exclusively what i leave it on, and what i think it does best. i use a fender lite ash telecaster, strung with 12s or 13s (whether im giggin or not ;-) ) either straight in or via a keeley BD-2 and a 72 jen super crybaby. this amp will inevitably need mic'ing up in any sitch other than a rehearsal, personally, i use the line out into my laney linebacker 65 bass. sounds nice n BIG like that :D as much as i like this amp, it sometimes leaves something to be desired... nicer rock OD please?

this amp works like a dream. well. a pretty kooky dream. the way i have it it hasnt done anything bad to me yet. but i let a mates band use it once. he used an epi zakk wylde into the low input. its never been the same since. an alarming tendency to cut in and out on the low developed. also, like many solid state amps, this can crap out when too much gain is shoved in. less so than u wud imagine... once when recording the amp decided to sulk n wudnt work. but over a yr have the tubes lasted :D

never dealt with them, so no opinion.

with this annoying cocky demeanour u might have guessed i am 16. been playing maybe 8 or 9 years. played with richard hawley! YEH. as well as my LA tele, own an old vintage v100, a shitty squier copy, a jay turser acoustic and a manuel rodriguez classical, a laney linebacker n a broken hohner hr30r, a keeley BD-2, a jen super crybaby, n a 94 dunlop crybaby. if 'twas stolen wud buy a vc30 to dry my tears :D i bought this pretty much on a whim. got bored of the shit ass marshall mg30. love the tone i sometimes get from this amp. hate the fact its not a bit more powerful for cleans. overall, rather good.

Great for a range of styles, sounds good clean right up to dirty rock and early punk. All features have been mentioned previous, i havent much call for the bright switch and never use low input, reverb is ok just to add a touch. Definately get the LC15 R as the regular doesn't have ext cab socket which u need! if i'd had more money i would have bought a 2 channel amp, but this does fine if you have stomp boxes. I use it mainly for practice/ jamming.

As i said before only one channel so if your just using the amp you are limited to dirty, crunchy or clean depending on what you dial in. The great thing is with this and other tube amps is you can use your guitars tone and vol controls to change the sounds, back of the vol and this little amp cleans up a little which is cool and something you cant do properly with solid state. I find small amps very harsh when turned up loud, and even with the upgraded jensen speaker this is no different, it goes v loud and is a bit of a headache. However if you get a gig or have the chance plug it into a speaker cab and this thing changes into a fat tone monster that you can really crank up. Stick and o/d or distortion pedal in front and push the tubes for some wailing solos. Def a 9 or 10 with a cab!

This was bought second hand and went wrong the day i got it. It was my first tube amp so i was a bit stumped. I tried replacigng the HT fuse which commonly goes with this amp but i think i used slightly the wrong value ( i didnt realise at the time)and they kept blowing. I took it to a repair guy and he said it was prob the power amp transformer and he changed it for ??60. It worked fine and then went again so i bought some fuses (the correct ones this time) and it worked fine. Ive replaced the power tubes once since ive had and it and its been nearly 2 years. It does run v hot and i would prob rig up a fan behind it or turn it upside down for a long loud gig.

Never dealt with laney but they have a good website, and the net is full of advice for repairs etc.

Been playing about 8-9 years this is my first tube amp, ive had marshall valvestate before which is ok but doesnt compare. When you get a tube amp you realise that is a real amp. I play mainly les paul copies like epiphones. If it were lost or stolen i'd prob get the new small laney tube amp they bought out or an epiphone one. If i had the money and massive house with no one for miles i'd get a marshall jubilee. dream on!

LC15 R is great first tube amp, but experienced players will get alot from it as well.

Mine is from the earlier series made probably around 2001-2002. The previous owner already put a Jensen P10R inside. I suppose this is a big upgrade as the stock HH speaker was truely the weak link
in the Laney LC50 I had some time ago.

Anyway, the 3-band EQ here is VERY ineffective. The bright switch works fine at lower gain settings. Its effectiveness depends A LOT on the guitar you use. So does the hi/lo input which is one great feature. I don't use the FX loop as I prefer my time FX in front of this LC15 (and the LC50) unlike other amps I had in the past. I think that's because their loops are parallel which is a stupid idea IMO (you can't have a more than 50% wet sound).

The reverb is decent if kept within reason. If you like loads of reverb then you need a pedal since anything above 6 sounds strange here.

Gain goes up to hard rock. No metal possible without an additional pedal. Most distortion/OD pedals work fine in front.
I had good luck with the original Guv'nor, a Zoom PD01, Zoom HL01 (at low levels) and a Tech21 GT2.
I had bad luck with most fuzz pedals (fuzz factory, DHA Ge fuzz, Big Muff and DOD FX52). I suspect the LC15 doesn't have enough clean headroom for those but what do I know ...

Any gain above 7.5 gets muddy. Hard rock is only feasible using a HB guitar into the Hi input. A SC guitar into the Lo input yields medium rock gain at best.

The actual sound is more geared towards blues/blues rock than modern rock. Harmonics jump out on demand and your usual tube sag/compression happens at higher levels. A very "wet" sounding amp if that rings a bell. More "creamy" than "focussed". Fat, loose low end, not tight sounding.

I for one wouldn't play funk (or SRV) on this amp as it does not deliver those sounds all that well. I've heard and owned amps that deliver better defined cleans.
I wouldn't play punk or metal on this one either as it is too loose sounding. Remember none does it all. This one was made for BLUES - BLUES ROCK !

I used it several times with my previous (loud) band when the JCM2000 TSL was being serviced. It was not loud enough as one could expect. Moreover, after half an hour with volume on 9-10 and gain on 5-7 it always ran dangerously hot. I'm sure it would have broken quickly. Hopefully the band split even before the half-stack came back haha ... :))

I didn't experience the cabinet rattling others are talking about, even with volume on 10. The amp is surprisingly quiet even at full throttle (the exact opposite of my LC50).

I do plan however to install a small AC fan for cooling the transformer. You never know and I would be very sad if this little fella died because of overheating.
It has somewhat grown on me ...

I keep this amp for practising in my basement and the occasional "different" gig, like some jazz jams I did already and where it behaved very well. I doubt I'll ever replace it provided it doesn't break ...
Knock on wood ...

I wouldn't suggest it for gigging with a rock band because you might have to run at levels where it probably gets dammaged quickly. That's been my experience anyway ...
It might work for pub gigs with a civilized drummer though.

Over here the LC15(R) is the cheapest all tube amp one can find and frankly I don't see it being inferior to the Blues Jr. fro instance. Hence buying a LC15 becomes pretty much a no brainer if you're shopping for an inexpensive, lightweight, low wattage all tube amp that delivers blues oriented sounds.
I'm 40 and been playin all kinds of original music (from pop to electro to metal) for some 20 years.

It has EVERYTHING you can possibly desire - read on.

I sometimes use it just as a pre-amp for one of my other tube amps !

Or sometimes I plug my THD Univalve into it's power section ...

Sometimes I link it with my Fender Deluxe Reverb or Gibson GA15RV !

It is not exactly 10, but it is a good 9 thanks to huge versatility
of the whole design.

I didn't change the valves but mine sound great so I must be lucky
(it is easy to replace them - buy CRYOGENIC variety like JJ or Harma).

I did replace the speaker but wouldn't claim that the original HH was very bad - the new Jensen is better (?90).

I play latino-blues-jazz and I played zillion concerts live with it and even with a drummer and 2 LOUD conga player it was able to cut through, while NO modelling amp can survive the stage test !

In short, everybody should have one and I bring it always as a spare yet it ends often as the main amp !!! so I use my other more expensive amps less and save money on expensive valves :-)

Yes it deserves 9.5. if you can play and can upgrade tubes.

No problem in 6 years.

No idea.

As a second stage amp that is often my first one and that weighs nothing and sounds fabulous and is very versatile I give it 10.

In reality it is at the 7-9 value point when you compare it to THD Univalve =10 (THD requires perfect guitar and expensive speakers).

I play since 1960, play mainly a Strat and LP and have only the best tube amps: THD Univalve for all situation, '65 Fender Deluxe Reverb for clean stage sounds, Trace-Elliott designed Gibson GA15RV class A bluesy combo ... and this small back-up Laney LC15R that in all small gigs or Big stage gigs I use as a main amp. Recenty in the open space gig in June I played again Laney (no risk if somebody spills beer) and it went through the PA and sounded fabulous.

GREAT VALUE for money - your best bet as a small amp and back-up.

Price: 170 used, delivered.
It's an old one w/o reverb or a speaker out and has the hh invader speaker. All seems stock or at least the tubes are that same as stock.

It's pretty good over all but the cab vibrates so much that it goes back through the tubes and out the speaker as a high pithed squelching type sound. (in layman's terms)
I have a few mods in mind to make this usable and would like to buy another hh invader speaker if anyone still has a working one. email me at curtman2000@comcast.net

Looks like it runs hot but seems to have been fine. I see no indication on the board that heat has had any effect on it.

na

Seems like a good amp to work with and mod.
I have been playing for 15 years, off and on and play sloppy rhythm on fenders
I got this cause the price was right and 5 watts (Epi VJ head) was too quiet to gig or jam with friends.

About 4yrs old and outwardly bog-standard,but at the back lurks a secret,what singles this one WAY!out from the crowd is a black box with 2 knobs fitted on the inside panel.IT is the totally fantastic roger alcock VINTAGE_VALVE unit! an original ef86 vox pre-amp valve unit with seperate vol.and 4 stage tone network that transform this amp into a messa-monster.Also a vintage celestion speaker .

Using the amp as a moniter fed by a pod xt-live into the vintage'unit then into a bose p.a.s.system via a red-box pro.The sound is awsome.On its own with a variax/fender custom,custom tele-e.m.g loaded and a 95.anniv.strat with j.b.hot noisless p/ups plugged in,it sings with the best.Valves are a mixture of premium ecc83's and boogie el84's.I absolutely LUV_IT.

GIG-IT for a living and it aint broke yet.If it did I would fix it as its a very simple circuit,might add a cooling fan to help it last.

N/A.

I have played 40+yrs,had one of the first ac30TB's,marshalls,kustom's(roll&pleat)fenders,H/H,Messa-boogie,session,yamaha's and this ranks with all of them.I would certainly get anather and definately fit the VINTAGE'unit as it will improve any valve amp.

all you need for blues and classic rock, not enough gain for metal but reverb and fx loop help versitility.

Awsome lead sound when pushed, say gain and master volume on 7 and the clean sounds with lots of reverb are outstanding. the speaker lets it down a bit at higher volumes though, and the construction of the cab means it rattles too. it may be cheap but for most styles it will blow away any digital modeling amp.

This is starting to P**s me off now. for the first 10 months it was perfect, but then the output transformer went. to be fair the amp had seen some pretty loud practice sessions but no gigs. Last week however the same thing happened again after not very much use at all, and it's just out of waranty too. this seems to be a common problem so why have laney not sorted it???

prompt return under warranty last time, however since i'm being arsey about paying for a new transformer i'll reserve judgment this time. prompt replys to email enquiries though.

Iv'e been playing15yrs and this is the best sounding amp i've owned for the less extreme stuff. buy it for practice/ rehersals where you can keep the volume low- reliability wise I don't think you can run this amp loud for too long so giging is out of the question as far as i'm concerned.

I think the spec is covered in the various reviews below. I play within a blues/blues rock/hard rock domain and use this amp at home, where I have a small recording set up down in the basement. I don't gig anymore, but I often play with friends and for friends, so I bought this amp for the portability mainly, as my other amp is a home made point to point monster and not quite easy to cart around. This Laney is a single channel master volume amp, which I like, because I think that two channel amps don't respond as well in the low end in the overdrive channel. I also liked the fact that it's loud, very loud!

I play a Warmoth tele with Rio Grande pickups and an Ibanez S1540FM with stock pickups. Stock, the amp is decent, and for the price very good. All the juice in stock form is in all combinations of gain and volume between 3 and 6, to my ear at least. With the gain below 3 the amp sounds clean but impotent, and above six very gritty. So if you play blues the stock amp will probably deliver all the ground between the classics and SRV, for practice with a light handed drummer. If you need more gain for hard rock or more volume for a larger venue, an unpleasant grittiness/harshness in the high-end creeps in. With a pedal, such as a Tube Screamer, in front of it, things improve a bit, but not a lot. So, upgrades...

Phase 1. Out go the cheap TAD valves. Things improved a bit, but not a lot. I tried various combinations but 3 Mullard reissue GT12AX7M for the pre-amp and 2 EL84 (6BQ5 is the U.S. name for the tube)by JJ really stood out for better high end, more balls, and organic distortion. I didn't like the Sovtek and Electroharmonix equivalents for being quite harsh (mind that I only had the cheaper WB variety for the pre-amp). I finally settled with Harma valves (watfordvalves.com), which are also excellent (especially if you're on a budget), because the Mullrads really belong to ...the other amp.

Phase 2. Out goes the Celestion Tube 10. Not a bad speaker, but too generic and uninteresting with a flat high-end response and and a slightly muddy low-end. It was replaced with a Jensen C10Q. This made quite a lot of difference and added all the sparkle that was missing.

(watfordvalves.com had an offer of a set of Harma valves and the Jensen for 65 pounds (about 100 euro) plus shipping).

Phase 3. Still quite unhappy about the grittines mentioned above, although now improved a lot, I had the amp scoped. To cut a long story short, the main finding was that the cheap output tranformer used had a lot to do with all the unpleasantness above 6 on the amp. So, out it went. It was replaced by a high quality Sowter (sowter.co.uk) tranformer. This made the grit dissappear by 90%.

(The new transformer cost 70 pounds (105 Euro) plus shipping)

I realise that all this is expensive stuff. I bought this amp from Thomann for 329 euro and after all this it's gone up to about 600. This will bring you into Peavey Delta Blues and Fender Blues Junior territories. However, having played these amps, I could clearly see myself doing similar things to them. So, better to start with a cheaper platform for upgrades. There maybe some exceptions in this price range, perhaps the Laney LC30, but then we are mixing different types of amps.

Some guys here think that the cabinet is a disgrace. Well, I agree. If you're recording it is important, but unless you have a seriously flimpsy one it's fine for practice and rehearsal, I think. For recording I use external cabinets.

No problems so far.

Never needed it.

Stock spec will get a great little practice amp for the blues player, probably the best for the price. Upgrading it in a way similar to the one suggested above will get you an excellent versatile amp for blues, rock and hard rock players for up to small club levels, with tones to be found in amps costing seriously more money.

I play classic and hard rock and some blues. this amp is plenty versatile for all of the above, and then some. only one channel- the idea being it cleans up when you turn down the volume on your guitar.
has built in reverb (spring i think)and a jack for a footswitch. also has an effects loop, a line out and an extension jack to drive a half stack.
wish it had 2 channels.
use this amp to practice in my room. it has plenty of power for that. turn the gain and volume up to 5 and you will deafen yourself.
it is all tube-2 el84's and 2 ecc83/12ax7 preamp tubes and an ecc83/12ax7 phase splitter. class a/b

sounds amazing whatever you play through it. i play a strat and an epiphone les paul. both sound great. at low gain it shimmers and at higher gain it rocks. its pretty quiet as far as background noise is concerned. if you keep the gain around 4 and turn up the volume to 8 or 9 you get this amazing clapton style output tube distortion.

only had it 2 months.seems pretty solid.my only concern is that it gets so loud that the whole cab shakes.never broken down

never dealt with them

been playing 4 years.got a strat and a les paul and a cheap acoustic.if this amp was stolen i would go out and buy a new one straight away.i love everything about it.i was considering getting a hybrid amp like a marshall avt or a vox ad. glad i went with this.

gain, master, bass, mid, treble, hi lo inputs, extension out 8-16 (dunno how that works without an impedence mismatching which is bad for an output transformer). Single 10 inch speaker Celestion Red Label Tube 10.

Les Paul into Low input sounds fine but the cabinet is dreadful. It is such that the amp is unusable out of the box. I have just posted it back to the store I got it from. Vibrations on E string Ab and a creaking sound when muting and then strumming. Very bad, I tightened the chassis screws, checked baffle screws, speaker nuts, all tight. Nah this is either best left as a practice amp so as not to go too loud and vibrate the way too light cabinet, or else take out the chassis and build your own cabinet. I build cabinets and with this thing a rebuild is mandatory if you were going to try to use it professionally for performance or recording. The actual amp sounds are great, but the cab makes it unusable. It's also not very loud and if you go putting in Vintage Jensens you will lose another 4 db. The best bet is a Jensen Mod10/70 which will give 6db more than a Jensen C10Q - that's DOUBLE the volume. But anyway, good amp (8), bad cab (0).

Just used it for an hour and it didn't break. The power tranny was pretty warm as was the output tranny also. I can't see that the output transformer is up to full speck for this amps output. I larger replacement just LOOKS necessary and if people are having trouble with these it comes as no surprise. The output tranny is a toy one suitable for about 8 watts RMS I would think.

I wanted to like this amp. It is definitely a great sounding amp. I may have recieved a defective one assembly wise but I doubt it. It looks more like a design for manufacturing cost rather than a well Researched and Designed product. I am not going to take another gamble on another as I was surprised at how quiet they are. Best in it's class by far, good sounds terribly inadequate cab.