Best clean guitar amps

Having your entire rig “at your feet” is a growing trend among guitar players, especially those that do a lot of traveling. Renting or relying on third party backline can be a nightmare for a number of reasons, so it’s become not only useful, but somewhat necessary, to be able to get “your sound” with your pedal chain alone.

Building your rig this way provides a blank canvas for painting any tone. Here are five of the best clean guitar amps.

Best solid-state clean guitar amp: Roland Jazz Chorus Line

The crisp cleans and deep stereo chorus off the JC line are well-known. Due to the build focus on clean sounds, these are the perfect clean guitar amps.

They’re loud, but available in a variety of wattages to cater to how much volume you need to pump.

Stereo I/O and effects loop lets you integrate even the most complex pedal chains. After all, it is legendary in genres like shoegaze and indie. And they love their pedals!

Best high-end clean guitar amp: Supro 1968RK

If you’re looking for a high end tube amp with a retro aesthetic and crystal clear clean sounds this is it. It’s a convenient 25W, 1×12 combo that comes with Celestion speakers, and effects loop, and can power an external cabinet.

Supro has really restored themselves to their former glory. With amps that sounds this good it’s no wonder why.

Best clean tube guitar amp: Fender ’65 Deluxe Reverb

Fender clean sounds are second to none. And most of their amps have a reputation of working really well as one of the best clean guitar amps of all time. The Deluxe is certainly one of these amps.

Perfect for a variety of styles, it has 22W pumping through a 2×10 and provides plenty of clean headroom for your pedalboard. There isn’t an effects loop, so everything has to go into the front end.

Classic onboard spring reverb and vibrato mean you might even be able to lose a couple of pedals.

Best half stack clean guitar amp: Marshall Astoria

The Astoria is not your typical Marshall. It has an up-front clean tone that runs on KT66 power tubes. It’s a 1×12 combo with Creamback speaker. It has solid headroom and no trouble staying clean.

There are a few controls for fine tuning. Body adds some lows and low-midrange back in, and the Edge control works much like the familiar Presence. An effects loop adds further pedal integration options if you want to place them between the preamp and power amp.

Even for a Marshall it’s not cheap. But if you’re looking for Marshall quality and a great marriage for your pedals at the same time there might not be a better option.

Best combo clean guitar amp: Vox AC Series

The AC Series is the perfect example of a vintage amplifier that provides enough modern headroom to work with pretty much any pedal, proving it to be one of the best clean guitar amps.

The AC circuit is fantastic at cleaning up. Keeping the preamp gain fairly low and cranking the output provides that beautiful glassy breakup that works great with various gain pedals.

Best modeling clean guitar amp: BOSS Katana Gen 3

BOSS is best known for their guitar pedals, but their Katana amp series has gained some serious respect. The newest is the Gen 3, and it offers some significant improvements over previous generations.

The biggest is the “Pushed” voice, which lets you access an edge-of-breakup voice like pushing a tube amp into saturation. Tube Logic technology has been redesigned, and there might not be a solid-state amp that can sound more like a valve.

BOSS also upgraded the BOSS Tone Studio editor UI with new tools. It’s never been easy to use and quickly create and alter sounds. Power Control is an attenuator that scales the output, great for home recording and practicing in areas with sound restriction.

Six onboard amp choices give you access to a variety of tones, and each has a variation. This gives you 12 in total. It takes guitar pedals very well, but five onboard effects let you just plug right in.

It comes in different versions to fit your needs – 50W 1×12, 100W 1×12, 100W 2×12. There are even head and cab options. All can be power scaled.

Best small format clean guitar amp: Orange Pedal Baby

Designed for the guitarist that gets all of their tone from what’s on the floor in front of them, this 100W Class A/B power amp can crank! Only three knobs are present, volume, bass, and treble controls.

The EQ is intentionally neutral. At 12 o’clock it defaults to transparent, so the equalization of your sound is totally dependent on your pedal settings.

When powering an external cabinet it provides the full 100W at 8 Ohms. As far as outputs, it has 8 Ohm and 16 Ohm connections. You can run it with two 16 Ohm cabs, but the output will be reduced to 70W.

Pedal Baby needs guitar pedals to function, and it’s built for players that would rather spend the effort lugging around a large pedal chain than a heavy amp.

Best clean practice guitar amp: Positive Grid Spark MINI 10W

Practice amps come in a lot of forms, but they’re well known for great clean sounds. Most just offer simple controls in a small package that’s perfect for what they’re made to do. The stereo Spark MINI 10W is not one of those amps.

It’s only 10 watts, but it’s what’s under the hood that counts. It runs on Positive Grid’s BIAS tone engine to offer over 10,000 tones that include amp and effects models. The ToneCloud features a library of presets that’s always expanding through Spark MINI users around the globe.

There are a number of practice tools including bass and drum backing tracks that adapt to your playing through AI. The app helps you learn songs faster by displaying chords in real-time while you play. You can loop sections and slow down the tempo to make sure you nail each part perfectly.

At $229 it’s on the pricier side for a practice amp. But it’s clean, powerful, portable, and a great platform for pedals.

What to look for in clean guitar amps

What Makes a Good Pedal Amp?

A few factors go into making an amp that is a solid, clean platform for your pedals. A healthy amount of headroom on tap is a must. Gain pedals especially work well in a high headroom scenario.

With smaller, underpowered amps they can get overly compressed and sound thin. Some pedals sound better going into a driven, or slightly dirty, amp. The Fuzz Face is a perfect example. Wattage is also a consideration Usually 60W and upward seems to be a consensus starting point.

The last feature a lot of pedal gurus look for in an amp is an effects loop. This lets you insert pedals (like reverbs and delays) between the preamp and power amp sections for maximum clarity and efficiency.

You can get pretty experimental with it, but at its fundamental it allows you to choose which effects come after the gain from the preamp.

Gain staging is critical when getting all of your juice from your pedals. High headroom amps don’t have the same saturation point that others do. If you like to push your preamp, these amps might not be the best choice.

Tube or solid-state?

You have three main types of amplifiers to choose from: tube, modeling/digital, and solid-state. So, which provides the best platform for your robust pedal chain?

It’s really up to you. Solid-state and modeling amps can sound anemic and lacking “mojo” to some. I have an old Vox Pathfinder 15R that sounds amazing with pedals (not humbuckers, though…) There is also the Roland JC line, which is one of the reigning top choices for pedal aficionados.

Headroom and wattage

High wattage amps generally offer more clean headroom. This means they stay clean at higher volumes before breaking into distortion. If you need crystal-clear tones at loud volumes look for amps with at least 30-50 watts.

Tube amps generally need more wattage than solid-state amps to maintain a clean signal at high volumes.

FAQ

What is a clean guitar amp?

Clean guitar amps are designed to produce a clear, undistorted tone, allowing the natural sound of the guitar to come through. These amps are often favored for jazz, country, blues, and pedal-heavy setups.

Are solid state amps better for clean tone?

There are some misconceptions that solid-state amps are best for a clean tone. Models like the Roland Jazz Chorus is known for it’s amazing clean sounds, but the right tube amps can be just as good.

Do speaker size and type affect clean tone?

Yes. Larger speakers like 12-inch models tend to have fuller bass response. Smaller speakers like 10-inch models can sound tighter and more mid-focused. Speaker choice also affects overall warmth and clarity.