Which amp should you use with an Ibanez guitar?

Answer 1

Wow, where does one begin? The options are vast, depending on your budget, musical tastes and availability to demo in your area. I generally find some Guitars tend to match certain amps better than others, sometimes unexpectedly. You can read reviews to "weed out" the bad choices before you begin, but then it really comes down to demo-ing a few of the better ones.

Best thing would be to visit some local music stores with your guitar and just try them out, to find the kind of sound(s) you're trying to achieve. Also, just to complicate things further, some amps have better onboard distortion while others respond better to your stompboxes, so better take that along with you as well. :-)

If you are a beginner, have someone experienced come with you, otherwise at least do your homework beforehand on the models the store has in stock and have the store rep explain some of the features and play while you listen carefully. Note, you may want to make sure you hear an amp at a decent volume, nearly all amps sound good turned down, but some can have serious tone degradations/hisses etc when turned up.

There are a number of smaller practice amps on the market today packed with features such as amp modelling & built-in effects. I was quite impressed with the tone of the new Roland Cubes (Roland is also the maker of Boss pedals), and for some high gain action in a solid state amp, check out the Ibanez "Toneblaster" series amps. Of course, tube amps will cost more, but the quality of tone (especially overdriven) is better and they're generally much louder per watt as opposed to their solid state counterparts, and cut though better in a gigging situation. Then again, if you play metal and just want high saturated distortion, a good, powerful solid-state may be the way to go. All the best, good luck in your search.