turn on suggestions
Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type.
New Emoticons Have Arrived!!!
Overall Rating: When i bought this amp I'd been playing for about five years; eight years on and I still find it to be useful. One of my better buys - it's outlasted any other amp I've owned and for pure "fun factor", only my Smokey can match it. At ...
Features: Ok, this is a basic little practice amplifier, approx 9.8 watts RMS, one small speaker, closed back, vol, treble and bass pots with a push button to swtich between "gain" and "clean". Input socket for instrument and output to headphones. Mine is slightly different than all the others I've seen of late in that it has the classic Fender-style silver grill cloth, and is labelled as a "Sidekick" rather than "SP-10". When i purchased this amp, i had the option of either that or the regular, black-grillcloth SP-10. Both were the same amp, save cosmetic differences. I preferred this as it has something of the classic Fender look about it.
Features wise, it would have been nice to have some reverb, though on an amp this size i don't really miss it. also, it would have been useful to have separate controls for the overdrive channel, given that the gain is\set, and that channel is much louder than the clean. Still, in its market, it is very well featured. When i bought this new back in early 1997, it was the only amp of that size and in its price bracket that had the two-channel option at all.
I love its dimunitive size. The last small amp that i had owned a couple of years prior to purchasing this was one of the original "Park Son of Marshall" range - a G10R (which i sold when I bought a Fender Performer 1000 amp and later regretted when i realised thatr the big Fender wasn't always quiet enough for every occasion!). The Park although offered more control over the sound (two gain knobs, etc), but it was also a much bigger box. The purpose for which i retain the Squier nowadays puts a high value on the small factor.
Closed back cabinet - I know some folks feel the sound can be removed by removing the back panel; I prefer to keep mine on as I believe it helps protect the speaker / innards from damage, and as i carry this amp around a lot, that's important to me.
Features wise, it would have been nice to have some reverb, though on an amp this size i don't really miss it. also, it would have been useful to have separate controls for the overdrive channel, given that the gain is\set, and that channel is much louder than the clean. Still, in its market, it is very well featured. When i bought this new back in early 1997, it was the only amp of that size and in its price bracket that had the two-channel option at all.
I love its dimunitive size. The last small amp that i had owned a couple of years prior to purchasing this was one of the original "Park Son of Marshall" range - a G10R (which i sold when I bought a Fender Performer 1000 amp and later regretted when i realised thatr the big Fender wasn't always quiet enough for every occasion!). The Park although offered more control over the sound (two gain knobs, etc), but it was also a much bigger box. The purpose for which i retain the Squier nowadays puts a high value on the small factor.
Closed back cabinet - I know some folks feel the sound can be removed by removing the back panel; I prefer to keep mine on as I believe it helps protect the speaker / innards from damage, and as i carry this amp around a lot, that's important to me.
Sound Quality: I've used this with all my guitars at one time and another (you should have HEARD that thing HOWL when i plugged in an Ovation deep bowl copy and switched in the overdrive on 11!).... Epi LP Std, US Std Strat, another Strat copy, and a Westone Thunder 1A. It works pretty well with them all - certainly the sound quality is on a par with anything else of a similar spec. The clean tones are by far the strongest. They could be improved with a touch of reverb, and no doubt a bigger speaker, but then the advantages of the small box start to get lost. I am in the process of buying a Vox Valvtronix amp (an AD120VT) that I will be able to take right down to 2 x 1watt for use at home, but the Squier is an ideal little amp to throw in a suitcase when I'm travelling out of town to stay with a friend I jam with for a weekend. That's when the small size really comes into its own, given that I don't drive so the less i have to carry on the train the better. one of my electrics plus this in the suitcase is much handier than the acoustic and hardcase.
The overdirve channel, well.... best described as "crappy punk sound". Which is what i like.
) Some folks reading the reviews below seem to have very unrealistic expectations of a 40 quid SS practice amp. It was never going to be anything other than a buzzaw sound, whether youl ike that sound is another matter. I like it for blues as well as an early Undertones type punk sound. Better tones on the OD can be found by experimenting with the tone - backing off on the bass stops it disappearing too far into mud (humbuckers kelp too), while the volume knob generally has a sweet spot or two if you have the patience. The only thing that really is a bit of a pain is the sudden jump up in volume when you go from clean to OD. I intend in the very near future to pick up a Bad monkey pedal, which i think will yield some very good results with this.
In the last instance, you have to remember this is a cheap and cheerful practice amp. It's great as a go-anywhere practice tool which can keep up with someone else's small practice amp for volume, easily portable (I even played a mini-gig with it once as a "member" of a spoof-rock band as part of a comedy show I was involved in writing and performing at Uni...!). It's no Blackface Bassman, or even Blues Junior, but in it's class and price bracket, it's hard to beat. It's a vastly superior sound to the much trumpeted Pignose, for example - and when I bought mine it was half the price, and much better featured than the single-knob combined vol/fuzz pignose.
High rating here based on comparison across its price bracket and similarly featured amps.
The overdirve channel, well.... best described as "crappy punk sound". Which is what i like.
) Some folks reading the reviews below seem to have very unrealistic expectations of a 40 quid SS practice amp. It was never going to be anything other than a buzzaw sound, whether youl ike that sound is another matter. I like it for blues as well as an early Undertones type punk sound. Better tones on the OD can be found by experimenting with the tone - backing off on the bass stops it disappearing too far into mud (humbuckers kelp too), while the volume knob generally has a sweet spot or two if you have the patience. The only thing that really is a bit of a pain is the sudden jump up in volume when you go from clean to OD. I intend in the very near future to pick up a Bad monkey pedal, which i think will yield some very good results with this. In the last instance, you have to remember this is a cheap and cheerful practice amp. It's great as a go-anywhere practice tool which can keep up with someone else's small practice amp for volume, easily portable (I even played a mini-gig with it once as a "member" of a spoof-rock band as part of a comedy show I was involved in writing and performing at Uni...!). It's no Blackface Bassman, or even Blues Junior, but in it's class and price bracket, it's hard to beat. It's a vastly superior sound to the much trumpeted Pignose, for example - and when I bought mine it was half the price, and much better featured than the single-knob combined vol/fuzz pignose.
High rating here based on comparison across its price bracket and similarly featured amps.
Reliability/Durability: I've had this amp eight years now, and never been let down. Solid as a rock, and in as new condition (I look after my stuff, but this amp has never been babied). A lot of this reliability is down i believe to the solid build. The build quality in terms of basic construction (sound issues aside) is as good as any high end Fender I've seen, and a nice touch is that it has the same chrome finish metal corner protectors as other Fenders. Personally, i always found the plactic variant that Marshall (both as were on my Park ,and the high end Marhsalls I've seen too) and others use to be somewhat cheap both in feel and appearance.
Customer Support: I've never dealt with Fender / Squier over this amp, though they have been helpful with other enquiries in the past.
Price: 39.00 GBP
Help Desk