Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I auditioned, in my home, all five Fender Rumble combos listed in the title. I needed two amps -- the first, for home practice and maybe some stage or church playing, needs to sound great at all volume levels. The second, travel amp is for jamming with my acoustic friends. This one needs decent sound out of the smallest possible box, and good full tone at low volume, because acoustic musicians (including me) look with suspicion on amplifiers. I settled on the 100 and the 25, but if I could afford only one amp, it would be the 40. Here’s the rundown: 200 – Jaw-dropping sound and volume, but WAY too much amp for home use. It’s “only” 140 watts to the speaker, but even at low power it was rattling my brain cage. The huge 15" speaker sounds mushy at lowest, "household" volume, and this is not the case with the other amps. I'm guessing that this is a great stage amp for a medium/large venue, but it's not for your house. 100 – Awesome sound, still much more amp than I need in my home, but I get a beautiful tone out of it, and it sounds great at low volume. Has the same controls as the 200 and the 40: gain, adjustable overdrive, and four tone controls (bass, low-mid, high-mid, and treble). Three filter buttons – I like “bright” and “vintage” together. “Contour” is a scooped tone that I don’t care for, and I don’t use the overdrive much (although I bought the foot switch, just for fun). This amp’s a keeper. 40 – Nice big full sound. At low and medium volume, it's indistinguishable from the 100, and I could easily have settled on this for my primary amp. The controls are the same as the 100 and 200. 25 – Great sound out of a small box, but definitely a step down from the 40. No gain control, three tone controls (bass/mid/treble) instead of four, and the only filters are contour and a non-adjustable overdrive, neither of which I like. But I get a nice warm sound with the tone controls, and (very importantly) the low-B on my 5-string sounds fine. This little amp can really rumble! I’m keeping this one, for my acoustic jams. 15 – Just not good enough, and it’s the only disappointment in the lineup. The tone is small and thin, it cracks and pops at higher volume, and it can’t handle the low-B string at all. If you need a really tiny box, and only play at very low volume, this would be OK, but spend the extra twenty bucks and get the 25. Two stars for the Rumble 15. All the others get five stars, and every one of them is a great amp at a great price. The 200 may be the exception to this – it’s $150 more than the 100, but it only delivers 40 more watts to the speaker. That speaker, however, is a 15-inch, compared to the 12-inch on the 100, so maybe it’s worth it to you. The bang-for-the-buck award definitely goes to the 25 – great sound for a hundred bucks and a small box! I’m a very happy camper with the 100 and the 25. For practice, jamming, and small venues, though, you really don’t need more than the 40. A word of advice: only buy an amp, or any instrument, if you can try it out and return it. I would have been stuck with the 200, except for my music store's excellent return policy. I tried five amps and returned three, and my only cost was $18 to ship the Rumble 15 back to Amazon.