Roland JC-80

This review is for a Roland JC-80 Jazz Chorus solid-state 1x15" amp of unknown manufacturing year. The amp has two inputs for high and low volume, as well as reverb, chorus, vibrato, and distortion effects. There are footswitch inputs for each effect, and the amp comes with a three-button footswitch with handy colour coding to help you remember which button is used for which effect. It sports a three-band EQ. I use this amp at home, at jams, and on stage. I've never needed to turn to volume up even halfway - it's plenty loud. The amp has speaker and line outs, neither of which I've used. I never use this amp's distortion for reasons I outline under "Sound quality". I do miss having a headphone jack for quiet bedroom practice. I would have thoroughly enjoyed having an effects loop (and having the reverb be post-loop, so I could throw in a nice analogue delay there).

I am currently playing a 2004 Fender Standard Stratocaster (Mexican) that I upgraded with a set of Lace Sensor Gold pickups. I am also using an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi Russian Reissue. I play a wide range of rock music styles. Read on...

For deep, echo-y post-rock/ambient stuff (Explosions In The Sky), this amp is amazing. It has a sparkle and a shimmer while simultaneously having subtle amounts of that tube-y attack that we all adore so much.

For cleaner, traditional funk guitar, this amp is great. For dirtier stuff (Red Hot Chili Peppers, old Incubus), you really need an overdrive pedal because neither the amp's clean setting nor its distortion will give you the kind of edge or harshness that you need for (for instance) Chili Peppers rhythm parts. This amp has a very uncompressed sound, which while very dynamically satisfying does make for a less creamy and sustained tone. I believe this makes it better suited to clean rhythm playing than to clean lead playing.

For heavier rock stuff (later Incubus, Rage Against The Machine, Porcupine Tree, Radiohead), this amp is amazing with my Big Muff. I blame it on the 15" speaker; it gives the amp a bass kick that would otherwise be lacking with a Strat. Using my bridge pickup and Big Muff (Sustain at 80%, Tone at 20%) I can get an ass-kicking rock riff tone that is simultaneously punchy and wide. Harmonics sound good but they don't sustain for long.

Epic wall-of-sound fuzz of doom (Muse, Placebo) is where this amp truly shines. Due (I believe) to the big yet trebley and clear speaker, I can summon up fuzz chords that are absolutely huge. Playing Muse songs has never been so fun. :D Lead lines become absolutely smooth and liquid with the Muff. Tremolo lead lines especially sound very good.

The amp surprisingly (considering I'm playing a Strat and a Muff as opposed to an RG and a Metal Zone) just manages to pull off Tool- and Opeth-style palm-muted, pinch harmonic, polyrhythmic drop D chugga. While no real metal player would use my setup, I am more of a progressive rock type and this setup is versatile enough for me to use this kind of thing occasionally without it sounding terrible.

Overall, the amp has a character that I believe is what a Fender Twin would sound like if it were solid-state. That is, it has a similar kind of clean shimmer to it, and the kind of wide frequency response that we associate with the Twin; but it lacks the mid-range warmth and compressed sound of the Twin. The tone seems to emphasise that hollow characteristic of dual-pickup settings on my Strat, which though it may attract country and some blues players actually discourages me from using those settings as they sound silly in a rock context.

The equaliser seems very weak to me; even radical adjustments only make tiny differences to the sound. I do see this as a drawback because I am a bit of a tweaker and would have liked to be able to play around a bit. Furthermore, I do not like the frequency range that the Mid knob affects; I would have wanted it to be in a place where it could add thickness and punch, but all it does is add a nauseating midrange quack to the sound. Furthermore, the distortion effect is truly weak and unusably bad. I appreciate the reverb on this amp as being perfect for my needs - and you would be hard pressed to find a guitarist who needs more reverb than this amp offers. For all of the above reasons, the amp is only really capable of one sound - but it does it well. The chorus effect, while lauded by some, sounds far too cheesy and 80's to me for me to use it. The vibrato effect is very straightforward and sounds good. This amp has ridiculous amounts of headroom, so playing at high volumes isn't a problem. It can be slightly noisy with my Muff sometimes, but it's not extreme.

The amp even handles my stage piano, when the treble is killed.

This amp gets an 8 because a Fender Twin can do almost everything a JC-80 does better.

I would never play without a backup, but this amp is built like a tank. My friend recently broke a coil of some sort, but this was due to the space they were jamming in suffering from a combination of faulty electrical wiring and overheating due to bad ventilation. Otherwise, I have had no problems.

I have never needed to deal with Roland; however, I am essentially terrified out of my wits because I don't think they still make the 15" silver speaker, so if mine ever goes, I won't be able to replace it - and it is certainly a unique-sounding speaker!

I have been playing guitar for around 7 years. I have only owned two amps before this one - a Peavey Rage 115 and a Marshall VS65R. I got this amp in a trade for the Marshall, which I think was actually unfair - the other guy should have made me give some cash on top of the Marshall. If this amp were stolen or lost (or worse, destroyed), I would ideally want a Twin, but I would experiment a bit first to see if there is anything out there that better fits my needs and is more affordable than said Twin.

I wish this amp had legs so that I could tilt it back. I wish it had a decent, vaguely JCM-ish distortion. I wish it had a headphone jack. I wish it had an effects loop. However, no amp is perfect, and this one does a bloody good job at being a solid-state, pristinely clean amp. Jazz players will love it; as will rock players with a taste for clean sounds and a willingness to use a decent distortion pedal when they want to turn it up to 11.

I have no clue when this amp was made, probably mid/late 70's im thinking. The reason this amp is so versatile is because its so clean that you have tons of room to put effects in and theres nothing in your way. It has two inputs (high, low), a line out, an ext. speaker out(8 ohms), footswitch input for chorus/vibrato, and footswitch input for reverb. Knobs are: Volume, Treble, Middle, Bass, Distortion, Reverb, Speed (for vibrato), Depth (for vibrato), and there is a 3-way switch for Vibrato on, effects off, Chorus on. The amps on switch is also a 3-way switch (on, off, on). Use whichever on position has less noise when plugged in. the ext. speaker is great! exactly what i needed. the first time i played a show with this amp is used an additional 4x12 cab and it was awesome. im thinking about getting a 2x12 cab for it. The amp is 60 watts (solid state), and to say the least, i am very impressed.

BUT, my amp is a bit different. I got it used, and it seems that the owner before me replaced the entire baffle board to fit a 12" speaker (this amp originally came with a 15" speaker) and hooked up a 12" mesa boogie vintage speaker. When i bought it, the reverb didn't work and the speaker was a bit sketchy, so the speaker ended up blowing, but luckily i got a new 50 watt speaker for free and it works like a charm again. Although, me and a friend tried putting in a new reverb tank and had no luck. I assume the whole wiring or something for the reverb is done. oh well.

I use this mainly with a washburn strat and an ibanez gax30 and it sounds very nice. The amps sound is very bright, so if you like that its great. I play music ranging from ambient sounds to spazzcore. This amp is perfect for me, it has everything i need and suits me perfectly. So far the amp seems to have trouble with distortion. The built in distortion is very bad, but i like using dist pedals more. But even with some distortion pedals, this amp gives a weird sound. Even on low gain settings on the pedal, it seems very distorted and raspy. If you play with the eq on amp and pedal for awhile you can get a bit better sound. aside from that, all other effects work awesome. i usually use a phase shifter, delay, ring mod-simulators, and other things like that. but with my amp, it being a 60w amp, i have a 50w speaker so it breaks up a bit earlier giving me awesome natural distortion. i love it! ive never liked onboard effects, but the chorus is great! a very deep and present effect. There are no controls for the chorus, but its pretty much set at how i would have it if there were different settings. The vibrato is really fun to play around with, great for neat little solos. The speed and depth knobs are great, and after playing around with them for a bit there are some sweet sounds. also a great onboard effect! i usually just have both speed and depth at 10, that seems to work best. As for reverb, i will never know how it is! haha.

This amp is at least 25 yrs old, so it is bound to be a bit quirky. Ive played shows with it, and it does great. Its great for small-medium size rooms, but its on the line of being aaaaaaaaaaaalmost loud enough for certain areas, so sometimes you might have to mic it. I would trust this amp in basically any situation though, be it practice or gig.

Never tried.

Ive been playing for around 4 years and have played through a bunch of different amps/equipment. If it were stolen, i would probably just cry because the jc 80 is very rare and i will probably never see another one. damn. this amp is the perfect amp for me right now and i couldnt be happier with it. I was basically looking for a good clean amp, no extra junk, pretty much just volume and tone. This met those expectations, and surpassed them because i never like onboard effects and didnt want any, but this came with chorus and vibrato and i love them! probably the best built in effects ive heard. I highly recommend this amp if you ever come across one.

My amp was made in the 70's, exact year unknown. The main features of this amp are the same as all the others in the Jazz Chorus line, mainly great clean tone. The delivers beautiful chours, vibrato and reverb effects. The JC-80 has one 15" speaker and "high" and "low" channels as well as the infamous "distortion". The tone controls are very basic and easy to use. At 80 watts this amp has plenty of power to play a club with.

Here's my rig: Rickenbacker 360V64, to Boss Cs-3 Compression, Tubeworks Real Tube Overdrive, Ibanez TS-9 (reissue), Boss Tremelo, Boss DD-5 Digital Delay (with tempo pedal), Ernie Ball Volume Pedal, MXR Analog Delay, run stereo out to '65 Fender Pro reverb and Roland JC-80. The JC-80 gives me pristine clean tones that work really well with the Rick, and presumably with any hollow body or semi-hollow body guitar. My Fender is only 40 watts and starts to break up really fast, so the Roland provides me loud, clear, ringing tones but the 15" speaker has a bit of a beefy sound to it. This works really well with the Fender, which is brighter, warmer and full of all those tube nuances we all love. I use pedals for my overdriven sounds and the JC-80 sounds great with them, much better than the built in distortion, which is pretty much useless. The JC-80 is very versitile in that really lets the sound of the instrument shine through. I think this amp would be great playing jazz or country or any style that you'd like to have loud, but clear sounds. It would probably not be good for blues. This amp has completed my rig (for now, it's never really complete is it?) and I am very happy with the combination of the amps and the guitar. I would highly recommend a Jazz Chorus amp for any Rickenbacker owner.

Have had no problems.

Don't know.

I have been playing for 15 years and the Roland JC-80 is now an essential part of my sound. The clean tones, especially for the price range of these amps, are really unbeatable. I would say that the amp is going to give you a very honest representation of the sound of your instrument, so if you plug in something cheap and crappy into one of these amps, it's going to sound cheap and crappy. I would replace this amp if anything happened to it.

we are all familiar with the famous line from roland. this one is paticularly rare, with 1 15" speaker. we also have the more common 2x12 (jc-120), and they are very similar. the 120 has two channels (one without effects), while this one has only one. everything else is the same as the 120. awsome chorus (duh). this one seems to have a little better vibrato than the 120 i have. because it has everything i need in an amp (including a speaker out), i give it a 10. it does not really have distortion, but i prefer to get that from a pedal anyway.

the sound can really only be described as lush. i use it with guitars (usually an epiphone casino), but i also use it for my greek instruments (bouzouki, baglama, and tzouras). it gets the beefiest clean tone i have ever heard. the low end is similare to the old fender tubes, but the high end is WAY more milky smooth. as we all know, the distortion on these is meant for jazz, not metal. really, it shouldn't even be called distortion. it is odd that roland makes some of the greatest distortion units in the world, but has never incorporated it into these amps. they did with the new cyber-whatever amp, but that is a whole other story...

our band has owned 4 jc amps, and have never had the slightest problem with any of them - even at high volumes and on tour. i think they could beat down a tank.

never had to deal with them.

i have been playing for almost 20 years now (?!?!?), and have had tons of gear ranging from top end to crappy. none of that really matters. you know the kind of sound you want to make, and you know what you need to do it. some bands i have been in needed high end stuff, others used toys. if you are into clean tones, or shoegazer stuff (my bloody valentine, lush, ride, worms union, etc), then this is the best amp for you - period. with a couple pedals, it can do it all.

2 yrs old. Superb clean sounds & perfect chorus (can never get it from stomp boxes), distortion sucks..

use a parker nitefly, clean is amazing sounds better than a tube, or at least my tube Peavey pag 120w, due to its double speaker, sounds fuller with or without distortion, though not as powerful as my tube, as usual dist on the amp is useless. i am really impressed by its tone

damn good, no prob

nil

impressive for a solid state amp