MusicRadar Verdict
Ampeg remains the ace of bass, but the GVT5-110 doesn't do quite enough to lead the five-watt field.
Pros
- +
You'll have no problem ripping a killer tone straight from this box…
Cons
- -
…but you may want more of them than you can get.
MusicRadar's got your back Our team of expert musicians and producers spends hours testing products to help you choose the best music-making gear for you. Find out more about how we test.
Ampeg will forever be renowned as the bowel-quaking lord of the low-end, but the US builder has fingered the guitar pie convincingly with the GVT range and rams a useful five-watt grunt into this smallest member.
Next to the likes of Blackstar's HT-5R, it feels a little heavy, pricey and minimalist: you've only got a Master Volume, plus a Bass and Treble Baxandall EQ, although a bone is thrown to punters in shared accommodation by switchable 5/2.5-watt power modes. Round the back, you'll find the usual speaker out, but no effects loop, headphone socket or other deal-sweetening sundries.
"Past half-volume you're rewarded with a characterful, responsive bite, as well as the low-end you'd hope from the home of seismic tone. Dial-"
It's easy to crank a killer tone from this combo. The fusion of 12AX7 and 6V6GT valves can't go far wrong, and once you get past half-volume you're rewarded with a characterful, responsive bite, as well as the low-end you'd hope from the home of seismic tone.
Dial-spinners, though, may find the stripped ethos makes the amp limited; to state the obvious, the tone isn't exactly tweakable. Ampeg makes much of the Baxandall EQ (circuitry that means the frequency bands don't tread on each other's toes), but the benefits are undercut a little by the lack of a Mid dial.
The smaller speaker also doesn't shake the room as convincingly as a 12-incher, and the low power setting just doesn't have quite enough oomph.
Streaming, live performance, and direct-to-fan sales are on the rise: How to make money from music in 2025
“I was doing a gig, I dropped the pick, and I was drunk. I was afraid if I bent over to pick it up, I'd fall. So I played the rest of the show without the pick and started to really like it’”: What Jeff Beck told his friend Joe Perry
“I don't know how to do this. You would think I do, but it's not one of these things you ever know how to do”: Why Paul McCartney’s intuition-led attitude to songwriting is worth taking onboard
