So I'm looking for a "practice" amp that has that fender crystal clean sound like beck and EJ and have some balls to do classic~heavy rock (<80's music) crunch under half grand.
TIA

A Blues Junior might suit you. It has the typical Fender clean tone, although its drive might leave a little to be desired.
Alternatively you could try a Marshall Class 5, which probably doesn't have fenderish cleans, but it gets great reviews anyway.

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Rated "M" for meaty.

Fender's Frontman 212R will do all that with the greatest of ease and more!

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2012 Lefty American Standard Jazz
2017 Lefty American Professional Precision
2018 Rumble Studio 40 Combo
2016 Rumble 200 Combo
One day they shall name a GREAT city after me, and they shall call it LINNINGRAD

Frontman's are solid state...a Blues Junior or a Hot Rod Deluxe will outperform the frontman, there are plenty of preowned Blues Juniors and HRD's on the market for under $500.

You won't get that clear tone from anything but a tube amp, especially when cranked....
I would stay away from the solid state...

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"C'est parti mon Kiki "

For practice I like the Vox AC4TV. I picked up a used one for $170.. simple and toneful.

Peavey Valveking 112.

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Gary

Look into Marshall and Vox Hybrid amps,although they are partially solid state,they have 12 ax7 tubes which really give them very tubelike sound and performance-especially the Vox Valvetronix,which have the tube in the power amps.The models of the Fender amps in the Vox AD series are extremely true to the originals as well the built-in effects are just deadly.

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'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

VHT Special 6 and the Marshall Class 5 come to mind. The VHT is hand wired too and takes effects really well.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

Look at Hughes and Kettner. I found a used 20th ann. model and just love it.

The first question I always have whenever this comes up is, "What exactly constitutes a practice amp anyway?" The tiny 5 watt Champ has been used in studios and even on some stages for decades. It's clearly not a practice amp simply by virtue of its size or power .. so being small doesn't make it for practice. If the answer is about nothing more than price then by all means get a cheaper amp. Personally I'd go with a S/S Frontman amp over any of the Blues/HR amps any day of the week. They sound almost as good when played clean as the OP requested and they don't have nearly as many reliability issues. However if it's about volume due to bedroom/apartment/etc. issues then I suggest no amp at all but rather some kind of headphone device because even a 5 watt amp will be too loud. I say get a real amp for actual play and some kind of headphone device for quiet time.

Now ... if the term practice amp actually refers to the amp then by all means get one of those Blues/HR models. They've been practicing to be amps for years now. Somebody high-five me on that one!!



Oops!! Here comes the posse!! Better skedaddle!

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Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Beemer, So you're a Trailer Park Boys Fan? Funny stuff.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

cheap practice tube amp....fender pro jr.(if the fender sound is what you want). for solid state fender mustang series. if you want a hybrid try a vox ac30vr or ac15vr. for the money all are worth it.

I've got the discontinued AC4TVmini. Paid $80 for it new, and it's a ton of fun. Sure, the 6.5" speaker limits it a bit, but it goes anywhere and has an output jack to hook it up to an external cab.

Don't really need a tube power supply on a 4w tube amp, so it's all good.

Ignore the tube snobs. There are a lot of good SS amps out there.

There's good tube amps and bad tube amps and there's good SS amps and bad SS amps. Anybody that offers a blanket statement that "tubes sound better than SS" doesn't know what they're talking about.

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In my opinion Leo Fender had essentially perfected the guitar amplifier by 1964.

Your signature, "In my opinion Leo Fender had essentially perfected the guitar amplifier by 1964.", clearly implies that tubes are better than solid state.

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Bill