Monoprice/Stage-Right/Harley Benton 15 watt tube amp

Today my Christmas present arrived. It's back in the box now, but I had to take a look at it to makes sure everything was working,right?

In the US this amp is sold by "Monoprice" and is branded "Stage Right" (model 611815). It seems to be sold in some places as the Harley Benton "Tube15" amp, for example by Thomann.

Most of the reviews have been good. It seems to be a re-cabbed version of the Laney Super Cub 12, which have also gotten decent reviews. There are some differences. The Laney has a proprietary speaker and a digital reverb. The Stage Right has a small spring reverb and a Celestion Seventy-80 12" speaker.

One of the biggest surprises was that, unlike many of the reviews which indicate that it has unbranded tubes, mine came equipped with JJ tubes. Three 12AX7's and 2 EL84s. Rectifier is sold state, so no tube for that.

One cool feature is a switch that drops the power output from 15 Watts to 1 Watt. Good for my garage.

Won't be able to really test it until after Santa officially presents it. I wanted something primarily for home use that would be loud enough to keep up with my son's drums and would not break the bank. Looks like it should fit the bill.

Curious if anyone else has had experience with these? They seem like a lot of amp for the money.

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Originally Posted by fender3x

Curious if anyone else has had experience with these? They seem like a lot of amp for the money.

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Did santa let you know what the price was?
You do realise that santa is fictitious?

cheers, Mark.

Cool! Look forward to pics/sound demo

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Originally Posted by king casey

Did santa let you know what the price was?
You do realise that santa is fictitious?

cheers, Mark.

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Ficticious?! My wife told me it was from Santa. I guess you are saying I should not dispute the $250 charge on our joint visa card?

https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_...hoCxXAQAvD_BwE

Pics here. There are lots of sound demos on Youtube. Probably better than what you'll get from me... Mine will have to wait until after Christmas when I am officially allowed to take it out of the box.

I’m curious about that amp having a 3 band EQ plus an additional Tone control.
I’ve not seen that before on any amp.

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Originally Posted by fender3x

I guess you are saying I should not dispute the $250 charge on our joint visa card?

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So that's $341.73 aus without factoring in the postage.
Not much less than another Boss Katana 50.

cheers, Mark.

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Originally Posted by McCreed

I’m curious about that amp having a 3 band EQ plus an additional Tone control.
I’ve not seen that before on any amp.

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I have. I have one on my Laney Ironheart. It’s a simpler form of the Blackstar ISF control. This is more of a tone ‘tilt’ control, so central is neutral, to the right is more treble and less bass, to the left is more bass and less treble. It's gentler and less peaky than the normal 3-band tone controls. You can treat it in two ways. One is to use it in conjunction with the EQ to help get just the sound you want, or if you gig a lot in different venues, you can leave your basic EQ settings as you prefer, and you use this control to adjust for the sound of the room e.g. if it’s bright sounding with lots of hard surfaces then turn it to the left, and for a dull room with lots of soft surfaces and drapes/curtains/carpets, turn it to the right.

Or whatever. It’s just another control to help get the sound you want.

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Originally Posted by king casey

So that's $341.73 aus without factoring in the postage.
Not much less than another Boss Katana 50.

cheers, Mark.

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They only do 110v power, so no good for AUS market anyway.

What's the cost of the Harley Benton version? https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_ben..._celestion.htm

AU$348 + shipping it looks to me.

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

What's the cost of the Harley Benton version? https://www.thomann.de/gb/harley_ben..._celestion.htm

AU$348 + shipping it looks to me.

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I'm getting $379.82 would not be keen to see what shipping would add on.

cheers, Mark.

Thanks for explanation on the "extra" tone control Simon.

I wonder if it's a Laney thing? I've had very little experience with their amps. Very much a Fender guy.

I doubt it's a Laney clone. Clones tend not to vary by so much from the original, and the Laney Cub 12 doesn't have that tone control at all.

I forgot that my Two Rock amp also has a similar tone knob - called 'contour'.

So I've currently got three electric guitar amps (out of seven) with that feature.

Did I mention I live in cave????

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Originally Posted by McCreed

Did I mention I live in cave????

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Maybe there is more than one Laney 12. I have read that the amp I just got is a clone of the Laney 12r with a few differences, which does have a tone control. Laney had digital reverb, a different speaker and the chassis is mounted so that the controls are on top rather than on the face. On the Stage Right/HB there is a switch to go from 15w to 1w. The Laney replaces the switch with two jacks, one for 15w and the other for 1w. I have also seen defences to them being built by the same plant in China.

I am getting all this from reading. I have never actually seen a Laney 12r. I live in a cave too.

Attachment 38159

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I looked at a head version (as it was easier to see the knobs), but which turns out to be a super cub 12 and that's why it's very different. Should have looked at the combo!

Yes, the same. The clone will have a solid-state reverb drive section, so quite easy to replace the Laney's reverb chip (though I'd have thought a reverb tank probably cost more than a reverb chip).

The Laney says it has an HH driver (the Ironheart combo also had one and it's not a bad speaker at all) but the Laney website pic shows a Celestion Rocket 50 speaker in it (probably a picture of a prototype) and the HH will certainly be better than that one. In fact it's probably a fair bit better than the Celestion Seventy 80 in the clone. The Rocket and the Seventy 80 are both about the same price in the UK, but form the low-cost end of Celestion speakers. Functional and decent without being outstanding.

I don't really have a standard of comparison in my garage, but the interwebs mostly agree with Simon on the quality of the seventy-80. Not a bad speaker, but not the best around. There are a few people who seem to think that they are great once they are broken in. One guy I found thinks they will always suck. Most seem to think it's not bad, but also not great.

That said, this is the only new valve amp that I have seen in the US for under $250 in the 10-20 Watt range. Really the closest in quality and price is the Laney at about $425...which must be a good price because they seem to be sold out most places. For the difference in price I could replace the Seventy-80 with most of the guitar speakers in either the Celestion or Eminence lines. I could replace it with an Eminence Cannabis Rex or Red Coat and have enough left over to buy a better reverb tank with the difference. If I put in a Celestion Creamback I might not have enough left over for the reverb tank...

...but this is getting ahead of myself.

This is from the amp's user manual:

Attachment 38162

re: the Seventy 80's, I used to have a Canadian-made tube amp (Traynor YCV-40T) that came stock with 2 -10" 70/80. I thought they sounded great (at least in this application). At one point I contacted Traynor about their speaker choice and got a personal email back from their R&D guy (who's name was Guy btw :)) saying that they had trialled lots of speakers for this model, some way more expensive, but the 70/80's just sounded best with that amp.

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...but this is getting ahead of myself.

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It's called "forward thinking" now...

I have a vague memory of Traynor bass heads. Way too pricey for me back then. I grew up in Washington State, so every once in a while Traynor or Yorkville gear would make its way down. Nice stuff by reputation.

Let's hope the speaker in my little amp was as carefully matched ;-)

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Meanwhile, back on the Monoprice amp... The "Black Friday"* price just kicked in. For US buyers this means you can now get the amp for $212 with free shipping. I should have waited a couple of days, but these are so often sold out, I did not think they'd come down in price and was afraid they might actually go up.

Too soon old, too late smart, as a buddy used to say...


*Big pre-Christmas shopping day the week of the US Thanksgiving holiday.

I tried a friends Harley Benton yesterday and was blown away, I'm thinking of losing the old AC30TB in favour of one or maybe two of these. Quite outstanding IMHO, could easily be the market leader

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Originally Posted by impala59

I tried a friends Harley Benton yesterday and was blown away, I'm thinking of losing the old AC30TB in favour of one or maybe two of these. Quite outstanding IMHO, could easily be the market leader

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I am impressed that you liked it that well. You'd need at least two to keep up with your Vox. It's the market leader in the 15W tube amp under $300. Of course it's the only one in that class...

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Just heard a Vox AV15 analog valve amp, at £159 (under $200 US) nice sound, but yet to try one myself it seems that the prices are moving in the right direction though😀

The AV15 is a hybrid amp. It has a single 12AX7, half is used in the preamp and half in the power amp circuit. Otherwise it’s all solid state. Thought it might use one of Korg’s ‘mini tubes’, based on a florescent display, but it’s a good old 12AX7, so is easy to replace if necessary. Which is not to say that it can’t sound nice, but it’s nothing like the Harley Benton.

From what I can see there are a bunch of amps from Vox that use either an 12AX7 or a "nutube" in the preamp. I *think* these all have class D power amps with a tube in the pre-amp. Since modern Vox is Korg, I am guessing they use some sort of digital modeling technology. I am always a little suspicious when a company uses the term "analog." In this case it seems to mean the the preamp signal is analog, but here may be some digital effects tech on board as well.

The Harley Benton/Stage Right is a fairly simple design. There are a couple of transistors in the reverb circuit, but all the gain/power in the preamp and amp sections seem to be from tubes. That said, a true 1960's tube amp (or even a modern one like a Blues Jr.) would have a tube to power the reverb. I suspect that the tube vs solid state may have a small effect on the sound of the reverb, but am also guessing it's not a lot, since there are pretty good reverbs in pedals. Traditionally there would also be a tube rectifier. I don't see how a solid state vs tube rectifier could make a difference in sound, but that could be because of how little I know about virtually everything electronic. Others may have a better take on this. Laney seems to have eliminated them in it's current tube designs which may be why the HB doesn't have one.

What's a little puzzling to me is why there aren't more relatively cheap tube amps. The tube set used by in the SR/HB/Laney is the same as a Blues Jr. which, and can be had for around $50 on the internet. I get why boutique hand wired amp using these tubes is expensive. But I don't quite get why an amp with a printed circuit board would need to be all that costly. After sinking about $100 in a speaker and tubes...it seems like the rest of the cost can't be much more than $50-75 in a factory context.

Diode rectification is far more efficient than a tube rectifier and responds to changes in current draw far quicker. So the attack on loud notes causes ‘sag’ with a tube rectifier that doesn’t occur with diodes. You can simulate sag with resistors in a diode rectifier circuit but most amps don’t bother. Weber make solid state rectifiers that fit in tube bases that allow a lot of ‘sag’ but are more reliable. So there is an affect on the sound, but mainly on the big transients.

Thanks for that Simon, thought it was too good to be true!

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Originally Posted by fender3x

What's a little puzzling to me is why there aren't more relatively cheap tube amps. The tube set used by in the SR/HB/Laney is the same as a Blues Jr. which, and can be had for around $50 on the internet. I get why boutique hand wired amp using these tubes is expensive. But I don't quite get why an amp with a printed circuit board would need to be all that costly. After sinking about $100 in a speaker and tubes...it seems like the rest of the cost can't be much more than $50-75 in a factory context.

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Factory prices are always going to be a small fraction of whatever you'd pay for them retail, even from a web supplier. But there will always be those markups at each stage, which means even small cost differences can make a big difference to the retail price. There are other costly items in valve amp you haven't mentioned, like input and output transformers and normally a small choke or two. Transformers are expensive and can each cost as much as, or more than, a speaker, especially in larger amps. The chassis is normally more involved than on a transistor amp, with lots more holes to cut. The valves need to be tested (at least a basic one to check they work) and inserting them is a manual job, that can't be duplicated by a pick and place machine like PCB components can. You also need large, high voltage rated capacitors, and those cost more than the ones you need for the switched mode power supply solid state amps. So there are a lot of small things that add up to a much more costly amp.

So I'd not ask why there aren't more cheap valve amps, but how they make that particular amp and sell it for so little? No idea what components they've used, but you can bet they will be of the lowest quality they can get away with. No idea what valves, but the typical low-price Chinese valves are never as good as the Russian or eastern European valve makes. Some of this may not make a difference when new, but in 5 years or so, things may not be so rosy with the amp. Using someone else's PCB design saves them time and money which doesn't have to be recouped, and a couple of large outlets like Thomann and Stage Right taking most of the factory output of the amp save sales, marketing and distribution costs. Again, all items that are added in to the cost price per unit and then have those markups added.

I had forgotten about the big caps and transformers.

At this stage I can only say note the quality on what I have seen. So... The handle looks good ;-) It has a low end Celestion speaker, JJ Tubes with retainers to hold them in and a MOD reverb tank. Construction looks reasonably good. Better than what I was expecting. There are a couple of reviews on youtube of folks that have taken them apart, without highlighting any damning flaws. Of course, I have no idea about what's inside the case other than what I have seen on youtube, and I understand about half of that. There were some reviewers that did not like the reverb tank, but they no longer ship with the one that got the complaints. I haven't heard complaints about the MOD.

That sounds pretty good. MOD are normally considered good replacements for Accutronics, though I've only had experience of Belton replacements, which also worked well.

I have no idea about the finer details of what goes into making an amp like that. Sounds like they've probably gone very cheap to start with, and then had to go a bit more expensive on the items that really count.

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Originally Posted by Simon Barden

Sounds like they've probably gone very cheap to start with, and then had to go a bit more expensive on the items that really count.

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That's my guess too. I guess I'll know in time.


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