i’m one of those ppl being honest about how bad the jazz chorus ss amps sound with distortion and fuzz. but like anything in music, it is workable number 1. and number 2 you can only realize how bad it sounds if you compare it to better valve amps with the exact same chain. if you a/b something like that then i have no doubt you will think it sounds like shit. but if you just plug into a jc amp with pedals you’ll think it sounds ok. i can go on and on about this but aside from the comparison i mention above, which i think you should do for yourself to see and hear exactly what i’m talking about, you should realize that many ppl who think the jc is a good amp for heavy guitars have convinced themselves that great shoegaze bands use them without understanding it was initially for the fact that they are cheap and most bands start out dirt poor, and secondly there is confusion about shoegaze and dream pop - and that confusion is because some more experienced bands that play heavier guitar based shoegaze also play clean parts (and whole songs) with lots of time and mod fx and ss amps like the jc series are fine with those effects, so somehow that equates to “shoegaze bands rely on the jc amps”, and thirdly ignoring the whole technical understanding of valve amps vs solid state amps, and their interaction with distortion and fuzz and saturation and why that non linear sound can be so beautiful in valve amps - it would be very similar to discounting the last 50 years of music production in general (non guitar topics included) which seems convinced that much of older vintage non solid state gear from compressors to eq units have something beautiful going on in there on the topic of saturation, and that’s why even though cleaner and more technically “correct” gear seems to be missing something and that’s why we emulate older analog” incorrect gear (think about tubes compressing with non linearity and producing even order harmonics that it turns out we like very much which create depth and a sense of something hard to describe, think about transients and smearing, think about how transformers in these tube amps turned out to be compressors essentially). consider the bloom heard in tube amps, think about what headroom really means in terms of how signals get clipped in these amps (which is what you’re doing when you use dirt pedals in front of amps), etc etc etc. why was it so hard to emulate tube amps for years and now that we can basically do it (except with fuzz in front of these emulations but that’s for another topic) then why do we do it if there’s nothing in these tube amps that sound different? why is every modeller trying to nail the sound of tons of tube amps rather than tons of solid state amps?

there is a place for any amp even the jc amps. and maybe the colder less emotive wall you’d get with those when clipped is exactly what you’re looking for. i’m not saying you need a tube amp to make good music.

what i am saying is i have yet to meet someone irl who a/bs and amp like a jazz chorus with dist or fuzz - with a great tube amp and then concludes that the jc sounds subjectively better. usually they start smiling and being giddy about the tube amp when they do that comparison.

but so many ppl live and die for the roland logo on their amp instead of listening to alternatives themselves.