Guitarist Tone Lounge: Laney Lionheart Amps

In this episode Guitarist's Neville Marten and Richard Barrett look at two amps from Laney's Lionheart range.

[brianpateman]

Laney are an excellent company. I repair amps from time to time and Laney service is second to none. They even send out manuals for obsolete kit within minutes of an e-mail request. What's not to love about that?

[andresilva]

Love it when there's an amp that no one is shouting about and it does the job as good as anyone else. Dumble can suck it.

[Morte_Deus]

I bought my first Laney off of Reverb after watching this, i can't wait until it gets here. It''s a 2008 Lionhart L5. Incredible playing guys please keep it up.

[SirVicc]

Love Laney. They have a soft fuzz sound to their breakup that still has a classic rock sound.

[dougsmith]

I have been extremely pleased with my wee Lionheart! It is (by miles and miles) the least epic and powerful amplifier I own...I am primarily a bassist and, I am fully loaded with my Mesa Boogie, Ampeg and, Eden amplification and 2x15, 4x10 and, 8x10 cabinets/monstrosities that I've rocked for decades with my 71 Pre bass...but, I picked up the Lionheart as part of a package deal with a Gibson Les Paul Jr from a kid who was gonna be a father and, who needed to get sorted for rent and diapers asap.

I can't even describe how much I love this little gem. I have used it in the recording studio in place of my engineer/guitarist friend's Vox AC 15 and AC 30 (and, alongside them) with fantastic results.

Maybe because I am definitely NOT a guitar gearhead or, even a marginally half decent guitar player I am likely not the best person to be advising people who ARE great players who are hugely informed about this stuff...but, I really give the guitar and amplifier a ferocious workout when I play as I am going to coax all kinds of mutant shards of musical shrapnel and pretty much throttle the guitar and abuse the amp.

I have always been pleased with what the wee Laney has to offer up. I think it is a wonderful little studio beast.

And, then there's that Tony Iommi guy...he seems to think that the Laney's are ok

[craigthomson]

I have the head and 2x12 cab version shown here. I do not get any noticeable hum even with single coils. The amp did come with a footswitch allowing one to select Drive and Reverb. Great to see that Laney Lionheart amps and speakers are back to being manufactured in the UK.

[rum_bongo]

I still have two l20s from the original British range. I have the discontinued 4x10 and the head + 2 2x12s. Killer simple amps that pair well with my guitars and fender amps

[rveurope]

The LT5 112 is one fantastic amp, it does everything and excels with low output vintage instuments, adding a 10 inch Jensen Cab and does all Fenderisch stuff, adding a 12 " Greenback Heritage cab it can do Marshall stuff, add a TS 9 or a DS 1 and a conpressor its a blues weapon, add a Nux Plexi tone and you are in superlead territory, add a Steelslinger and it does Blackmore, or add a delay and digi reverb and a Electric Mistress and you are Gilmourish, channel 2 more gain and a booster and you are Toni Iommi " isch", light and compact🤘

[rfpho]

I’ve got an old uk made VC15 which seems very similar and is a great little 1x10.
good to see these being uk made again.

[fistchips]

I had two Laney combos that I bought back in the mid to late 80’s. They were both the pro-tube AOR series amps. A 30 and a 50 watt. Great sounding amps!!

[mrdino]

These amps sound great, even on YT. They especially shine when you two are playing together. Very naturally musical without any frills.

[cary]

Stick a clean boost pedal in front of the Drive channel and you will be sent into Black Sabbath mode in a hurry. That's my favorite. I keep the Drive and Drive Volume on 5 and using your guitar's volume knob gives you a myriad of ranges from clean, through Tom Petty "edge of breakup" to full on AC/DC crunch. Hit the boost pedal from there to melt faces or peel paint off the walls. I have an o.g. UK made model from the original 2007 40th anniversary run. The old ones like mine have a real spring reverb tank in the head. The 2x12 cab from the early runs has UK made Celestion Greenbacks and the build quality is unreal. It's the nicest, best looking, best sounding cab I've ever owned or even seen.

[soundknight]

These are old school now. They were great back in the early 2000s too. I still want one.

[grendelbear]

Great video, thanks Gents! Neville - I've long thought the Lionhearts deserve more attention. Any chance you could talk to Dan and Mick over at TPS to see if they might take a look at what these Laney's bring to the table and compare them to their high end boutique contemporaries?

[humbuckercafe]

Such a great conversation and playing 🎸 I’ve been playing Laney LC-30 few years back and these are indeed a great amps. Thanks!

[goran]

Amazing amps, I had the old made in England combo, the only thing bad about it was the handle made out of some sort of crumbly artificial leather, lol, and it seems they changed that. They work great with a harmonica too.

[expresidentfortune]

big thumbs up for those SE R1 mics too!

[brandonmessmer]

Great demo and amazing sounds, thank you! Do you find there is any risk of the amp sliding off of the tilt-back cab with the head sitting on top?

[purpleplexi]

I have the 5 watt head. Took it to quite a large jam and it was almost loud enough so I'll probably get the 20watt too. It's a great amp. The thing that shocked me was I finally engaged the bright switch and everything didn't go nasty and spikey like some amps it just added the perfect amount of upper mid detail which was totally musical. Love it.

[stevec.]

I still have a 10 year old L20T-112. It's a keeper.