The 6 Best Guitar Amplifier heads (2023 reviews)

The peavey guitar amplifier head should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. This 20W mini head has the same monstrous tone that the larger model has. It's saturated, hairy, and has an incredibly chewy midrange. The addition of this overdrive pedal effectively gives you a fourth channel. 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 wattage can be set to 20, 5, or 1 watt, it’s pre gain can be set to your desired distortion level and the post gain can be turned down for great sound at bedroom levels that will not hurt your ears.

It can hang really well in the mix.

Why We Like This:

Has pre amp tubes and sounds fat with somewhar loose low end
Served well as a great starter tube amp
New and hot release

Best For Rock: PRS guitars Guitar Amplifier Head

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The prs guitars guitar amplifier head is specially designed for your daily usage and has all useful features. It makes sweet sounds. It can handle a single 8 ohm cabinet on one output for an 8 ohm load, or 2 8 ohm cabinets combined for a 4 ohm total load. It's definitely powerful (apparently 25 watts on full power, and 11 watts on half power) and well-made.

This amp has two great sound channels and is capable of way more volume than the 15 watt name would indicate. If it bugs you and you would like to go to a traditional leather strap, there’s a great how-to video available showing the mod, as well as others showing the tube substitutions.

Why We Like This:

Great tone, build quality and value
Cleans up nicely with the guitar volume
Well built, heavy gauge steel construction
A skimpy, unpadded, non-waterproof deal that is not road-worthy in the least

Best Amp: Vox Guitar Amplifier Head

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Not everyone likes to purchase head for their daily usage, but the vox guitar amplifier head would be an anomoly. The Master Section features Master Volume and Tone Cut controls. The AC30ch utilizes 12ax7 tubes in the preamp and el84 tubes in the power amp. In the master section, there's the distinctive vox tone cut and master volume that allow you to obtain a variety of sounds ranging from the extraordinarily sparkling vox clean tone to a powerful, raw overdrive. The amp also takes pedals very well on the normal channel.

It reduces wattage while retaining tone. The top boost channel on its own with the built in reverb has a nice creamy overdrive that is pleasing. It provides treble and bass tone controls. The reverb sounds great as well.

Why We Like This:

Good brand reputation
Good investment for long term

Best For In room Use: Other Guitar Amplifier 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 other guitar amplifier head is exactly that - it's a simple head that hits all the right notes. If you want that aggressive Fortin grind in your high gain amp, this one has it. It does get plenty loud. The high gain sounds still sound “clear. It is great as these little guys are they can be temperamental. The clean channel is beautiful and articulate, although it might not stay sparkly clean at higher volume levels. It's a pretty versatile head. The sound is good and musical. It would be fun to try out different tube types and brands in this amp.

Why We Like This:

Great high gain low wattage amp, killer tone
20 watts with a volume boost that frightens little kids
Brutal with down and tremolo picking riffs while preserving the definition beautifully
Gain for days and lots of sound shaping abilities with the tone switch

Best For Metal: Other Amp 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 other amp head is exactly that - it's a simple head that hits all the right notes. This amp is the head for the guy who has a titanium skull, acid for blood and thinks/dreams in Meshuggah-like syncopation. It comes close to matching satan level of intricate gain management options. This amp head comes equipped with high and low frequency gain controls, full eq, tone control, global tube boost, presence / depth power amp voicing, a discrete instrument level loop, heavy duty metal front and rear grills, and an included foot switch.

This amp can go from a modern, glassy and sharp tone, to saturated death meal, to thrash, to articulate progressive metal and everything in between. It’s very responsive. The three gain controls allow you to shape your own unique gain tone, and the sweep control allows you to further dial in your gain, especially with extended range guitars. It is used for the base sound of this head are the vintage 30's by celestian and the gt75 also by celestian. This amp is versatile, brutal, loud and amazing.

Why We Like This:

Sound is amazing without even a overdrive pedal
Heavy duty metal front/ rear grills, corners, footswitch included
Good brand reputation

Best flexible Little Amp: Orange Guitar Amplifier Head

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Next on the list, we've got yet another head that manages to win our hearts. It's the orange guitar amplifier head and it's widely considered as one of the best convenient head you can buy. This amp provides the frusciante fuzz without needing a dozen pedals. The tone and cut are very classic rock sounding on lower settings, and can be driven into modern crunch/metal tone. It doesn't take dirt pedals well due to low headroom, and only has one channel. The tones from this amp are amazing.

The amp has limited low end frequency ( by design) at less than ear bleeding volumes so no chuga chuga is possible at bedroom volume for metal players. It is great as a bedroom amp, or even a practice/recording amp. The FX loop is a nice feature and works really well.

Why We Like This:

Amazing tone for metal, rock, punk, stoner metal
Good investment for long term