Roland JC-90

2002, I think.
Great for jazz and country.
Excellent tone shaping.
I play in restaurant and pub type settings with crowds of generally 50 or less. More than enough power, obviously.
I'd like a vibrato (a la the JC 120) or tremolo, but it's more than enough for jazz and country and ska and even surf or rockabilly. It is also good for punk, but I don't publicly use it for that.

Sublime clean sound. Best that I've heard in 30 years of playing, anyway. The chorus is has a liquid quality. The true stereo of the speakers makes it shimmer.

The sound is fairly directional, midrange-friendly, and the amp takes effects well (particularly delay, compression, and so on).

I've used both a Nashville Telecaster and a Heritage jazz guitar with it. Both sound exactly as they should through this amplifier and better than they do through any other amp I've tried.

At the last engagement I played, several people came up to me to comment favourably on the sound. That's the acid test.

So far, it has been reliable.

Aren't all big companies terrible?

I chose it over a Fender because the sound is less commonplace in the guitar world. I can't afford a boutique amp, otherwise I'd try that. I'd say it's better than the particular Polytone that I tried, but that was a used amp, so that might not be fair.

Roland JC-90 -- super sweet clean sound -- can be clinky or trebley sounding with the reverb cranked.. Definitely a one or two trick pony here with this amp-- either super clean, or stereo chorused clean-- I never use the distortion-ever, and roland should just do away with it on this particular model- but I guess it is tradition to have it there..
It would be nice if this amp had a tremolo effect like the JC-120-- or possibly a phase effect(ditch the distortion already).
What is great about these JC amps is that they do a great job with stomp boxes/ effects pedals -- and that is how I get away with using this amp as a gigging amp for several different rock acts.

Never had any problems with hiss or hum.. A bit of operation type noise-- very small. Although solidstate, this amp has an intangible sound realm of it's own- that I feel other solid state amps miss.. This amp is great in that you can have a super clean chord sound- which I feel is very aesthetically rounded, pure and crisp-precise-- and then rely on pedals for crunch and lead sounds.. I usually run an armada of pedals in a BCB-60 case at gigs- including BOSS- turbo OD-2, BOSS dist/ OD, Blues driver- for chord crunch, digital delay-6 - depth on solos, analog delay, digital reverb..
One thing about the sound on the JC-90-- is that it is super directional-- there have been many nights where the bass player has to dodge the signal path -so to speak..
In closing, although I love the clean sound of this amp-- it does not quite have the breath of a tube amp, but it still has an awesome clean tone that is unmistakenly JC..

I guess some of the other reviewers have commented on shoddy parts etc.. Personally I don't like the plastic input jack screws- which have a tendency to crack. But for overall Reliability here lies some of the beauty of this puppy though-- it's toughness-- yeah it is kind of made of pressboard- but all the reinforced corners and sidetrim make this a tough little pissant.. no microphonic tubes, or temp. concerns. Really don't hav to baby this at all- like some of he boutique amps where you have to standby for 10 minutes-- on shutting on & off.. I gig without a backup and have had a good run of 3+ years gigging with it..

N/A ..no repair issues

I own some other amps-- a 1960's Gibson- all tube saturn(styled like a fender deluxe) which is a sweet smooth ride.. Play mostly on a Gibson Les paul Standard with burstbuckers, and a Fender strat plus deluxe..
I have been playing for 26 years -- fun fun fun.. If my JC was lost, stolen, or destroyed by some angry biker at tomorrow nigt's gig--- I really would like to have a kickass new fender supersonic- or a mesa lonestar-- maybe even something from the fender hotrod series-- also I would have to consider a JC-120...
rock out-- rock on...

Made in 2005, solid state, single channel, very clean, transparent sounding amp. 2x10 inch speakers in stereo. I play acoustic and indie type music, I find this amp is perfect for that. I use a MIM fat strat mainly but have also used a Yamaha Pacifica 112 and a Peavey Generation with Piezo acoustic pickups. This amp has handled them all well as it really allows the tone of the guitar to come through. The chorus is excellent and can be set to either fixed or user defined with a rate and depth knob. The reverb is perfectly adequate without being outstanding. The distortion is not to my taste and I don't use it, it sounds a little too brittle and sterile to my ear. I think it might fit in with a more techno/industrial style as it has a mechanical feel (if that makes sense) rather than an analogue smooth tone which I prefer. I use this amp for home practice and in rehearsals with a very loud drummer and it keeps up easily, I have never had the volume past 4. There is an effects loop (stereo return), headphone (cabinet voiced) socket, each of the effects (distortion/chorus/reverb) can be footswitched. High and low input sockets, stereo line outs. Bass, Mid, Treble and High Treble tone controls are very effective. I can shape my sound easily and find I have to back off the High treble or the strat tone can take your head off.

Fender MIM Fat strat(H/S/S) unmodified, works very well with this amp. This is a great simple amp with few bells an whistles which is why I like it. I have tried a few more "feature packed" amps with effects/amp sims etc built in and personally found I spent more time fiddling with the controls than playing. I do not find it noisy at all even with the strat selector in positions 2 and 4. The tone remains true when you turn it up- no break up.

I have had this amp for around 6 months and it has been regularly lugged about in my car. It has never caused any problems and seems very solid and robust, it has detachable casters which are a bonus as it is reasonably heavy- it is a one handed amp-just. I did buy a cover for it which I think should be supplied by Roland.

Roland had forgotten to include the casters when I bought it, one phone call sorted it and they were very helpful. 1 year warranty.

I have been playing, on and off, for 25 years and after a lull have recently started playing with a band again which is great fun. I use a Boss GT8 straight into the amp for the effects only, I don't use the amp sim part. I have experimented with the GT8 going into the stereo return and using the amp sims and it worked a treat, so I would recommend the amp for amp modellers also (I think Roland use the JC range amps to demonstrate the GT8 so no surprise there really). I just like the clean sound of the amp though and prefer the simplicity of just using the effects on the GT8. Get a stomp box for distortion/overdrive rather than the onboard one and this is a great amp.

80W, solid state, loud and clear, 2 10 inch speakers, spring reverb and beautiful chorus effects, mild overdrive capability.

I play an American Strat (SSS) and a Mexican Tele w/ upgraded SD pickups and vintage Fender bridge. I adore the sound and tone from this amp. Because the clean is so pure and clear every adjustment on your guitar is reflected in the sound through the amp. The built in distortion is mild, but it sounds great distorted with the right pedal in front. The built in reverb is not overly strong, it's restrained and very linear from 1-10, and the built in chorus is legendary for good reason. It's extremely loud and I don't think the clean ever distorts on this thing. It hums a bit, but so does every other amp in my house.

Haven't had it long, but it's solid state and built by Roland USA, so I'm relatively confident.

Been trying to register it through the Roland website but have yet to receive the verification e-mail they claim they sent. I'll call and see if I get better results.

I've been playing just over 10 months, after meaning to take up guitar for at least 10 years. I have much more talent at gear knowledge than I do at actually playing guitar. I love this amp, especially at the price I paid. I traded in a very nice Vox AD50VT (great amp) to get my very own Jazz Chorus and have no regrets. I've been looking at solely tube amps for the last 3-4 months and nothing under $1200-$1300 dollars even came close to the sound quality of this Jazz Chorus. I would buy another without hesitation. The built in distortion won't do high gain, but I think most amps sound best with an overdrive or distortion pedal anyways. Only thing I really miss is the vibrato/tremolo effect you get on the JC-120, but no complaints at this price.

90's JC-90
Use as slave and/or acoustic guitar amp.
Only use the chorus, for dual amplification and spatial effects.
Made my first album exclusively with a JC-120 (Hard progressive rock)
the engineer freaked!
Headphone jack?....Huh? No extra fatures required for my proclivity.
Distortion is WORTHLESS, reverb is "decent" but different. Salesman warned me beforehand though, warned me about the 120 also. That's not why I bought it. Read up!

I use this amp in conjunction with a Laney VC-30 1x12(Open back) class "A'" tube amp with a separate 1x12 Laney (closed back cab) slaved into the JC-90. The dichotomy of the two separate 12's and the stereo 10's on the Roland create great spatial effect, onstage or in studio. Still use a Roland GP-8 for effects, Roland products meld with other Roland products quite well, quite well. Tube saturation from the Laney's combined with the wonderous clarity of the Rolands essentially tri-amped with only parametric equalization give me what I would consider a very professional sound, with tonal capabilities that could not be acheived by either amp alone.

I use a "Vaughn" Strat, Nashville Tele with a Parsons B-Bender, and a Les Pul Studio.

Add your compression after the power amp signal, "Star Ground" your Strat(Very Important!) Ground and solder the cavity of your Tele and leave your Les Paul alone. That should reduce noise and hiss much more effectivly than "noiseless pickups" without sacrificing tone.

Roland Chorus and clarity is just that,ephemral, a thing of beauty.. Nothing else sounds like it, but that's all you get. Perfect for jazz and/or acoustic, slave a decent tube amp for some cojones, kick in your effects for kickin it.

I'm not certain about the JC-90, but several times I took a 25 foot walk with a 20 foot guitar cord, my JC-120 was none the worse for wear.

As I have stated in previous reviews, find a good local tech!
Make him one of your best friends. A doctor of sorts.
Hell, by the time you pay shipping to the manufacturer, wait for shipping back without even hearing it, a decent amp tech will already have you back in business.

Even if it's a two hour drive to get there, it's worth it.

Aha, the math quiz....playing since I was 12, now 47.
I would replace if lost or stolen, a JC-90 or a JC-120 is always good to have around, they make everything sound pretty, unlike a class-A tube which is unforgiving. But oooh, the combination and ability to switch between the two for around a thousand dollars...PRICELESS.

Pretty simplistic, volume knob and EQ with distortion, reverb, and chorus. For the most part I don't use the effects as the sound is great without them. Hi-treble adjustment is useful especially when playing in dark sounding rooms.

Clean sound is great: punchy and round with very solid and clean sustain. Many people have bashed the reverb but I think it sounds fine. 3 spring reverb tank sounds natural and not overly loud or poingy. The chorus sounds great, better than any i've played with before, but it tends to overly exaggerate the treble range, so eq may need adjustment. The distortion is lifeless, but can be useful if never turned above 1.5. Unlike the chorus, the distortion empasizes midrange a bit much and high notes sound clean unless on high gain settings. I use it at home and at practices, sounds great with effects, and I have yet to need to go above 2 on volume.

Only had it for a few weeks, but built solidly and seems dependable. The hiss isnt terrible and its on and off depending on other electrical gadgets nearby.

I've been playing for 6 or 7 years, I use both Les Paul and Strat type guitars, both sound great through this amp. Strats are clear and punchy (bass at 10), and les pauls have a very good crunchy bite whether clean or distorted. I like its simplistic controls and sound: amps with the letters DSP in the title never live up to expectations in my opinion. Doesn't offer dozens of gimmick effects, but sounds marvelous clean, with chorus, or with any good outboard effect.

Please see my last 2 or 3 posts to bring your self up to speed regarding this product. There are dozens of other reviews about the features.

In spite of it all, I still like the sound and tone of a JC.

Ok...here's where I'm at with this amp...No more warranty nonsense. The amp goes back to my favorite local amp tech again who has it for awhile but in the end...he fixes it! He replaces the left amp muting FET and plays with the speaker wiring and voila!; I'm back in business. The amp works fine. No loud noises upon power up, no more blown sounding left-sided speaker. Amp functions like it did out of the box. I do not see using it for much band gigging anymore. It will now be designated to the occasional solo guitar cocktail hour or practice session, recording session or acoustic/electric gig. In the end Roland did not come through for me at all. Screw them and their lousy warranty repair centers! Do not spend the money on this amp if you are looking to use this on a regular gigging basis with a band. It's better for the home or studio. Thank you Dave at Dave's Sound Repair, Whippany NJ. You are the best!! Roland should authorize you for their warranty work and you alone!!

OK...no more Roland bashing and in all fairness I've never had a problem with Boss gear and I've used some of it for 25 years. Maybe the key is to stick with the older JC 120's and 77's. I will not ever buy another Roland amp big or small. I'm sorry but they've lost my business. I will rate this a 4 as one Roland warranty repair center tried to fix this amp, but in the end I think they just did not want to put the time and effort into it. Apparently, Roland doesn't pay them for more than a small amount of labor so they either fix it in an hour or not at all which is what I think happened here. A 3 to them for at least trying.

Read all the reviews and decide for yourself but in the end you can do alot better with other amps and companies. I spent $550.00 for the amp, $30.00 for a cover and $60.00 for switches. It cost me $100.00 for a new reverb tank installed and $90.00 for the latest repair. It also ran me a few bucks to replace the one pop-out caster that fell out after a gig and got lost. The amp is not even 3 years old and most of its time has been spent in the shop after it's first year. Do the math...you could buy 2 amps from another company or even a real nice tube amp!!!

2005
Love the styling. I wish it had less weight.

4 Hiss terrible I sent the first one back, and the second one (Brand New) hiss's worse than the first and I even took it across the street to my neightbors and it hissed..so it ain't nothing to do with my wiring. Ran 3 guitars through it and still terrible.

Nope give it a 4

N/A but American Musical Supply company is great working with me. Can't say enough about this company, these people are jam up.

Been playing 40+ years, fenders(Mustang,Strat(both) Scheter,Wilson Brothers, Gretch..Fender Tremolux,Twin Reberb, Tech 21 TM-60, Vox AD 50, you name it I played it..this thing has a good sound but who can live with the hiss.

I only wanted to write about the sound quality.there are plenty of other reviews on features,reliability,etc.If you want to use this amp for anything other than clean sound I would suggest you buy something else.I agree with other reviews that rolnd should just forget about the distortion feature completely,it's worthless.I was amazed at how many players wrote all this stuff about using this amp for zztop sounds,Blues sounds,or any other gain type styles.Anyone with any experience at all should know better than to try and use this amp for anything like that.It just was not designed for that stuff.IT IS A JAZZ AMP,AND I DON't MEAN FUSION JAZZ,I MEAN TRADITIONAL JAZZ(Jim Hall,Joe Pass,Freddie Green)Don't pay any attention to reviews which were obviously written by rockers and headbangers.Now to the sound.For clean jazz the tone is superb.It really brings out the tone differences from one box to the next.If you have a box that sounds lousy,it will sound twice as lousy through this amp.If you have a decent quality instrument and play chord/melody style as I do,you won't be disappointed.The amp's equalization controls(Hi-treble,treble,mid,bass)allow for great tone shaping and lots of versatility.The stock speakers are decent,but I think an upgrade to something a little more high-end may be worth the buck's which I plan to find out soon.I traded a poloytone for this amp,and although polytone also makes a great sounding clean amp,they are not as versatile as the roland.The chorus is in stereo and pretty much tops any accessory pedal chorus I have ever heard,if that is you thing.(Not mine but I do on occasion use the chorus if the audience is not to discriminating or full of purists.)The 80 watts of power gives enough headroom to keep down the feedback in most situations,although I have had to add 1/12 speaker cabinet for extremely large rooms.All in all the JC-90 is a great amp for CLEAN JAZZ.I heard this amp once described as nuetral and have found that to be a pretty accurate description.I'll close out by saying(again)if you have a lousy toned guitar it will sound really lousy through this amp,but if you have a decent instrument you will probably be pleased with this amp.Also,let's face it,we jazzers in general don't have a great number of choices for amps and boxes anyway.

N/A

See below

See my previous posting from January, 2005. Ok... it took one repairman 5 weeks and he never even looked at the amp. I finally found an authorized Roland repair center and it took them approx 3 months to indicate that my problem is unique to my amp. Apparently, Roland alleges that they have never heard of this problem and they want me to ship it to them at my expense to take a look-see. C'mom guys...if this is under warranty then you pay for the shipping!!!! On the other hand, the repair shop feels that this problem will not get worse and should not effect(blow-up)the amp. Apparently, what is happening is that when I power up, the amp sends a small voltage surge to the speakers causing a static-like noise that lasts around 10 seconds. Forget the fact that the amp worked fine for over 2 years before this started. I really feel like Roland won't stand behind this problem. If this is due to manufacturer defect, then I should be entitled to a free repair or a replacement. It's not my fault I live 3,000 miles from where they are!! They had no problem taking my money when I bought it in the first place. Anyway, after getting the amp back it sat in my garage for 3 months and recently I needed it for a small gig. When I powered up, it still made the noise but otherwise worked fine. I can't help it but I still like the sound of this amp. I did bring a back-up amp which is something I have never done in 25 years of gigging(thanks to Peavey amps). I still think this is the beginning of the end of this amp but I guess time and further gigging will tell. I was going to sell it but I'd rather not stick someone else with my problem.

Boo...hiss...lousy as always. You stink Roland. The customer service rep couldn't have been nastier when I tried to find a valid service center that was within 50 miles of my home. By the way, you need to "police" your alleged repair centers as one of them would not return my phone calls for 3 weeks before you finally advised me about calling another one. What good is a warranty when you're gonna clip me for shipping and your factory repair shop will hold onto the amp for months and then tell me that you could'nt find anything wrong with it. Time is money!! I already paid over $650.00 for this amp w/a after-market cover and one FS 1 switch. No problem making the sale; every problem backing it up. BUYER BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!

8 for sound.
7 for features.
4 for reliability. (The noise problem plus I replaced the reverb tank that died. That was $100.00!!)
1 for Roland treating its' customers' badly.