The 10 Best 20 Watt Tube heads (2023 reviews)

We consider a 20 watt tube head to be a worthy investment in the long run. We are here to help you choose the right one for your needs from all the best available products in market today.

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Our Top Picks:

Best Overall: Buy: Orange 20 Watt Tube Head READ REVIEW

Best For medium sized area: Buy: Joyo American Watt Head READ REVIEW

Best For home recording: Buy: Peavey Tube Amp READ REVIEW

Best For Orange Micro Dark: Buy: Noobecr 20 Watt Tube Head READ REVIEW

Best Vintage style: Buy: Marshall 20 Watt Tube Head READ REVIEW

Best For practice: Buy: Marshall Watt combo READ REVIEW

Best Amp: Buy: Bugera totally sweet Amp READ REVIEW

Best practice Amp: Buy: Bugera 20 Watt Tube Head READ REVIEW

Best Little Amp: Buy: Peavey 20 Watt Tube Head READ REVIEW

Best For learning songs: Buy: Joyo 20 Watt Tube Head READ REVIEW

Best Overall: Orange 20 Watt Tube Head

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The orange 20 watt tube head is capable of outshining several other head featured in this list in overall features. These are extremely versatile and sound fantastic, they are a perfect practice combination especially if you put a multi-effect in front of them such as a Boss GT or Boss GT. It can go from clean to pretty dirty but if you really want to get nasty you will need a nice hot humbucker and a distortion pedal. The tone knob gives you plenty of control and with a EQ pedal it gets even better. It can do really sweet, thick British cleans, fantastic Classic Rock crunch, and it can even reach into Classic Metal and Hair Metal territory.

It is loud enough to play over drums with ease. The sound is clear and can get incredibly loud without breaking up.

• Works great at gigs, especially when you're lugging gear up/down flights of stairs
• Nice, light weight, powerful enough for small indoor venues
• Great for pink floyd, led zeppelin, cream, deep purple, black sabbath sound
• Warm, alive, with tons of character

Best For medium sized area: Joyo American Watt Head

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The joyo american watt head gives the top-tier head a run for their money by offering flagship specs at a much more affordable price. This amp isn't as tonally sophisticated as the "MB" amp it is inspired by, but it's still absolutely capable in both the stage and studio. It features the same tone as the classic zombie which is built on the iconic tone of an american 150 watt head. The clean channel is great and takes pedals really well.

The Bluetooth works great, and headphones w/cab simulation sounds great too. The discreet controls for each channel on this XL version are a must for anyone planning to use the amp in a performance situation.

• Great tube hybrid amp for a small area
• Huge tone from a pocket-sized amp
• Sounds great through 12in celestion seventy 80s, karana speakers, and alpha 8a

Best For home recording: Peavey Tube Amp

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The peavey tube amp should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. It is hands down the best mini-head for classic rock. It has a USB and Mic output to connect to PA system at large arenas/mixers/Pc for playing and recording easily. The Mini Head has a lot of advantages such as multiple formats for output including a direct TRS cable to a cabinet, USB, XLR Blanced Output, and a 1/8 headphone jack w/ speaker defeat. The addition of this overdrive pedal effectively gives you a fourth channel.

The sound will improve greatly and the amp will be pretty quiet. It is for your jazz, blues, and classic rock, the rhythm channel is where you'll live.

• Sounnds claner and tighter, has lots of gain and seperate eq for the channels
• Has pre amp tubes and sounds fat with somewhar loose low end
• Plenty of volume on tap and good for bedroom practice too
• Minimum hardware requirements may be needed for use with recording software

Best For Orange Micro Dark: Noobecr 20 Watt Tube Head

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The noobecr 20 watt tube head has killer features for the price point. It’s perfect for the living room when you just want to grab a guitar and relax on the couch. The Micro Terror is more than worth the money and should be in every little shredder stable. The buffered effects loop lets you insert your fx pedal into a loop between a preamp and power amp without sacrificing your original tone. The included power supply in the orange amps micro dark bundle is a standard 120v plug.

The Micro Dark's headphone output is equipped with cabsim circuitry, which mimics the sound of a miked orange 4x12" cabinet faithfully. It cleans to savage high gain by adjusting the shape and gain controls. These oxygen-free copper wires feature 24 awg conductors and 90% shielding coverage.

• Interconnect different effects pedals with the 2-pack of blucoil pedal patch cables
• Awesome for playing heavy metal in a bedroom rig
• You can achieve a more pronounced brighter tone by pushing the gain level

Best Vintage style: Marshall 20 Watt Tube Head

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We know from years of feedback from readers, customers and amazon sellers, what most people want in a convenient and appropriate head. The marshall 20 watt tube head is exactly that - it's a simple head that hits all the right notes. If you want plexi tone without melting your face off, this is your amp. This makes the guitar's volume pots sound like sand paper with the slightest turn. It does switch to five watts and does sound decent, but full power is godlyke. If you don't turn it up, the bright cap takes control of the total sound. This is a vintage style amp so there is no headphone jack at all.

• Good investment for long term
• One of the new comers and featured product

Best For practice: Marshall Watt combo

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The marshall watt combo is capable of outshining several other head featured in this list in overall features for the price point. The origin is intended to be a Marshall flavored pedal platform. It keeps your guitar's character, and your picking detail even cranked. It tames the treble, gives a little more bottom end, and tightens things up just enough. There's preamp distortion and there's power amp distortion. It can be used with a variety of cabinet combinations.

The tone and responsiveness are incredible. There is not a ton of onboard gain in this amp.

• Has 5 power stages with separate tube sets for each power stage
• Has a real shimmering “british” sound even through the jensen black back
• All tube, very responsive, early marshall tone
• Great for dirty blues and classic rock

Best Amp: Bugera totally sweet Amp

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We know from years of feedback from readers, customers and amazon sellers, what most people want in a convenient and appropriate head. The bugera totally sweet amp is exactly that - it's a simple head that hits all the right notes. This versatile tone-machine will easily earn its place as your go-to amp. It is a blues/classic rock machine. Adjustable via the dedicated control on the front panel, you can achieve any sound you desire, from a subtle touch. It will give you better tone, less noise and will outlast most new production tubes.

The boost switch is a locking switch. The amp will work with 4, 8, or 16 ohms, so it should be fine with your speaker cabinets as long as the ohms match up. This amp will easily achieve srv sound. It is easy to dial in a range of appealing clean tones.

• Very nice crunchy tone so far with a decent amount of variation
• Great tone and enough punch to push a 4x12 cab
• Allowing your focus to remain on your performance
• Broad range of possibilities for sounds you can get

Best practice Amp: Bugera 20 Watt Tube Head

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Best part: bugera 20 watt tube head costs comparatively low and it is available to ship in 24 hours. The Bugera G20 is capable of a wide range of tones. It is for those occasions, the g20 has you covered with an incredible speaker-emulated headphone output that gives you the vibe and sound of your choice, a 1 x 12 or 4 x 12 cabinet. The G20 infinium cranks out the most beautiful 20 watts of class-a, tube-fueled tone, giving you everything from sweet and sassy to maximum tube saturation. It includes the pedal to add to that takes pedals quite well.

The overdrive channel has a 3 EQ section and the morph knob as well. The rear-panel line input allows you to jam along with your favorite backing tracks. You can set it up on the clean channel and use a distortion pedal and get decent sounds. The overdrive channel has a single tone knob for adjustment, along with the morph knob to fine tune things. It’s all up to you with a flick of a single switch.

• Very nice and smooth knobs and a great tube sound
• Great sound and plenty of volume
• 20 watts can be very loud

Best Little Amp: Peavey 20 Watt Tube Head

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Not everyone likes to purchase head for their regular usage, but the peavey 20 watt tube head would be an anomoly. It gives a wonderful range of tonality. Plugging in the included footswitch gives you the ability to attenuate the volume for rhythm and then turn the attenuation off to access the full 20 watts. It's light and has the option to go from 20 watts, to 5, to. It comes with the gain channel you now have pre and post controls to dial in how much gain you want, and it can all the way up to near heavy metal sounds, and this is where the amp gets loudest.

It's very versatile and for a smaller gig with a silent stage setup, the direct out is pretty nice. They're crammed into a tight space, are hard to reach, and hit the cabinet when attempting replacement.

• Very good sounding and flexible amp
• Very versatile and surprisingly great little amp, but
• Very quiet amp with great tone

Best For learning songs: Joyo 20 Watt Tube Head

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The joyo 20 watt tube head is the best convenient head on the market today. Because of the high gain structure of this amp a noise gate is a good idea to make your heavy chords nice and tight. It easily connects with your bluetooth enabled device to play music through the bantamp. It comes with a single 12ax7 tube in the preamp and uses a solid state power amp. It cleans up very nicely when you roll off the volume knob. It has a nice chunky tone with good note definition.

The fx loop enables you to put your time based effects or modulation effects behind the drive section and keep the effects sharp and prevent them from sounding too muddy. The amp also has a clean channel that can take pedals really well, which makes it flexible and a great little companion for many situations where your "big" head is too much.

• 20 watt amplifier with single 12ax7 preamp
• One of the new comers and featured product