A Ac30 with 1 speaker?

Just for perspective, the Beatles played their first tour of the US with AC-30s.

 

There's nothing stupid about that. They are great amps. I think that the intial question about staying clean at practice volume was what elicited so much response.

 

Not to a man that keeps a Twin in his living room.

 

Actually, I've only cranked my Twin up to that point once since I had it. I usually play it clean and with a 12AY7 up front it does pretty well at home-friendly volumes.

My playing does that.

 

OK, I'll give it my best shot and I promise, no kidding around on my part.

The sound coming out of an amp and the way we perceive that sound are very complex. Sound, all sound, strikes us differently at different volumes. Our ears respond differently at louder volumes. This was learned by two researchers at Bell Labs back int the 1930s. They were named Fletcher and Munson and the results of their studies are known as the Fletcher-Munson curves.

No matter what kind of amp you have it will not sound the same to your ear at low volume as it does at high volume because of the Fletcher-Munson Curves. You can, however, simulate the effect of high volume to some extent by using a compressor which (sort of) fools the ear into thinking it is hearing the compressed nature of a loud sound.

The other factor is the response of the amp. At very low volumes an amp distorts very little, there is virtually no distortion at all. This can sound harsh and unpleasant and, because we are on the low-volume side of the Fletcher-Munson Curves, we tend to hear the details and that makes it sound even worse to us.

The volume of an amp is not in direct relation to its size. A 45 watt amp is very close in volume to an 85 watt amp. In order for an amp to seem twice as loud we need 10 times as much power. (This is also related to research done in the development of telephones.) Even a 22 watt Deluxe Reverb is a pretty powerful amp, not that much less loud than a Twin Reverb. IF you want natural distortion at home even a 1 watt amp can get blaringly loud.

On the other hand, a lower gain tube at the front of the pre-amp can tame even a large amp and make it less touchy at low volumes. I routinely use a Twin Reverb at home, play it at low, living-room comfortable volumes, and it sounds fine, but I had to put a 12AY7 tube in the first pre-amp stage before I could use it that way. This is a cheap and easy mod that anyone can do, all it takes is someone experienced to tell you which tube to replace and I'm glad to help in that department. It's the first mod I do to most amps. Better yet, unless you want distortion this modification will help the amp stay cleaner at high volumes as well.

Refresh my memory, what amp do you use for gigs?

 

Visit my web site (link in my signature) and click into the Misc Topics area. There's a page about Blues Jr mods that may be of interest to you.

Two of my favorite mods are covered in the last 4 paragraphs and require almost zero technical training. I put a 12AY7 in tube 1 and a 12AT7 in tube 3. I also changed the reverb tank which requires a stubby #2 Phillips screwrdriver and about 5 minutes time. Just those two things will improve the Blues Jr, increase clean headroom and make it more living room friendly.