Samick SS-10

First of all, before I get into all this, let me say a few things. If you are looking for something that is going to make you sound like Angus Young or Joe Perry, this amp ain't gonna do it. I will rate it for what it is intended to be, a little bitty practice amp with a 6.5 inch speaker. According to Samick this amp is the same thing as a Vantage VG10, also a Samick, but made in Korea. This amp was made in China and I don't know when. It is rated at 13 watts (RMS) with 18 watt peak according to the owner's sheet. It has a 6.5 inch speaker (80HM), the controls are the input, the level, which is actually the gain control, the push button overdrive, the master volume, treble, middle and bass 3 band eq, an output jack for phones and then the power switch. Has an open back cab. For a small practice amp, especially for the bedroom sitting by the bed with a good single coil guitar, it is very versatile. It does quite well for the music that I play which is country, country rock, classic rock and some blues. It is a single channel amp, so there is not channel switching, however it does have the push button overdrive. I can hook up my ZOOM 505II pedal to it though and it improves the sound greatly, except the little 6.5 inch speaker can't handle a hell of a lot of volume. I kind of wish it had a reverb, but I have not seen many 10 watt amps with reverbs. It stays in the bedroom, I actually bought if for my wife to use with her strat copy, but she really is only interested in piano, so I use it most of the time. For the bedroom, it has plenty of power and is plenty loud enough to get your neighbors knocking on your door after 10PM. I cannot max this thing out, although the Vantage VG 10, which this thing is supposed to be identical to gets max ratings. I can only give this a 7 being fair and critical.

I use three guitars. I use three guitars, a 1970 Fender Telecaster that has been modified with a duncan invador at the bridge and a strat pickup at the neck. I also use a Rockstar Telecaster Copy with two single coils and an SX SST57 Vintage Strat Copy, which is actually better than a real strat. With my pedal I also use a Rock Star Acoustic Electric Guitar and a Fernando Acoustic Electric Guitar. As long as I am playing country, blues or classic rock, this amp does very well. It does NOT handle the humbucker on my telecaster well, so metalheads, look for something else, this ain't your amp. My style of mysic is listed above (don't know why ya'll ask that twice on here). The amp is surprisingly quiet for a small solid state amp, even the single coils on my guitars don't hum much. The amp is very versatile as far as country, alternative country, southern rock, classic rock and blues are concerned. It is NOT I repeat NOT a heavy metal amp. The distortion just doesn't get there for that kind of noise. I do not consider heavy metal to be music, I consider it to be noise, so the fact that this is not a metal amp doesd not bother me at all. You have to turn the gain up to be able to play the amp, and if you don't want distortion, just don't push the overdrive button. Once you turn the master volume past level 5, it does distort, but it is one of those cool Keith Richards or Steve Earle type distortions, so it isn't bad at all. The distortion is ok for classic rock and some of the new country stuff that people are playing with distortion. Even does well at grundge stuff like Nirvana or Pearl Jam and does well for punk because you can make it quite trebly. Does good for something like Green Day. Is decent for old aerosmith or old AC/DC because of the crunch. However the distortion is NOT what I would call brutal. You are not going to get the Iron Maiden, Megatdeath, Metallica or even Black Sabbath sound out of this amp. I don't believe it was intended to to that. All in all for a mere 2,000 Filipine Pesos which is about $35, this amp does fucking ok for me and does everything I need it to do. I will give it a 9. Sounds good, but it ain't awesome.

I would say it is dependable. I am an american living in the Philippines, I like my beer and sometimes do stupid stuff when I've had too many beers, like kick an amp or guitar (hell it is just plastic and wood and I am not materialistic). I've dropped this thing more times than I can count. It fell down my stairs and I had it in a tricycle with me when someone ran into the side of us. Nothing more than a few scuff marks and still works fine so it is built like a fucking tank. Would I use it on a gig without a backup? First of all, this is a 10 watt amp, not a gig amp. Warm up backstage (but they don't have a backstage here in the Philippines) and use it in your bedroom, but don't gig with it. No one would gig with any amp without a backup. The big bands have aleady learned all that. I use three amps to gig with. Nothing to break since this is a solid state amp.

I got this at lumanog music store who I have been dealing with the whole 15 years I have lived in the Philippines (yep - came here, got hitched and never left except for my yearly trip back home to see Mom. You see, it is quite easy to live off a military retirement pension here in the Phillipines). Lumanog is great, they always stand behind their stuff and after they know you, they will give you stuff on credit. Great people.

I have been playing guitar since before I was walking. My dad was a bluegrass musician. I am 54 years old now, so you can do the math. I've got this amp for the bedroom, I keep a VOX Pathfinder 15R in my music room (which is great!!!) and I also keep a Marshall MG15RCD which is also great in the living room. I have this thing about having a guitar and amp in every room, so that if a melody pops into my head, I can try it before I forget it. I keep this amp with my Rockstar Tele copy (fine guitar) in the bedroom, I keep my Fender Tele that is modified with the neck humbucker and my Marshall MG15RCD in the living room and I keep my VOX Pathfinder 15R and my SX Strat copy in the music room. Hey - don't laugh about these SX's, they are awesome guitars. I ordered this one, it came, I liked it so much that I kept it and GAVE my Fender Standard (MIM) Strat away to a friend. Why? It looked, played and sounded better than the real Fender, very vintage Fender sound comes from it and the VOX Amp really brings that out. I don't like Fender amps, they are all noisy as hell and ain't worth a fuck. I do gig, three nites a week and I use three amps to gig with because my band plays a very big variety, everything from Creed and Nickelback to Celine Dion (I know, that sucks, but it brings in a few pesos and my wife and her sister are in the band so we gotta keep them happy with this soft rock shit too). For gigging, I use a Peavey Bandit 2x12 which is 100 watts if we are doing pure, no nonsense rock and roll. If we are doing metal I use a Carlsbro GLX 100 Amp. For all the other stuff, I use my VOX AC30 (which is my very favorite amp in the world). Also in my music room, I have three Gibson acoustics, and the two electric acoustics I mentioned above. I compared it to the Marshall 10 watter, which I liked, but the clean channel was so weak you couldn't hear it. I chose this one because I don't really need that Marshall type distortion that often but I do need a clean channel with good volume. This amp does not shake the earth around you, but it can be loud enough to get the job done. I wish it had a reverb so I didn't have to hook a pedal to it everytime I play. Nothing else to share, I think I can fairly rate this as an 8 all together.