TUBE15 Celestion : More than Enough

Forget the sound samples this amp sounds much better when you are actually in the room with it. Fantastic amount of features on this amp that you might expect on an amp costs 3 or 4 times the price. Even many of those amps haven't got as many features and extras ( think Fender or Vox). This amp sounds great and will do anything right up to a Classic Rock tone. For me the most useful features are the ability to run a pre-amp pedal into the Fx loop section and the ability to run it into another speaker Cabinet. Also having ability to run other effects into the Fx loop is a real bonus.

Using the amp directly I find that the Tone Control is another very useful feature and it really makes a difference, giving this amp great flexibility of sound above and over what you get from the 3 band Eq. I tend to use this between 1 o clock and 3 O clock to brighten up the amp. The Gain really comes alive past 2 O clock mark and still increases all the way to max. Past 3 O clock you get into Classic Rock territory. However even at the 1 watt setting this is still a loud amp. To overcome this problem I run mine out to cheap 1 x10 cabinet via a Harley Benton PA-100 Power Attenuator to bring it down to a range of bedroom practice levels. It really works so other people in house can easily watch TV without being disturbed etc. Using the 15 w setting you could easily do a small venue.

My only criticism would be the speaker. It's ok but I find the bass a bit boomy and it lacks a bit of detail in the mids. For the price it's ok. For a beginner it's also great. But this is where the compromise is being made in it's manufacture and what keeps it below the £350 mark. However I fed this into a cheap 1x10 cabinet ( cost about £60) that was well broke in and all these problems fell away which indicates the amplifier itself is an absolute gem. Maybe if I took the time to break the amp's own speaker in I may have a different impression. To conclude I am well satisfied with the amp and it's a no brainer at the current price. Because of the fx loop you can really get creative with this amp if you know what you are doing. You can get stuff to make it sound like a Marshall or a Vox for example and because it's all tube it sounds so much better than digital modelling ever could, even those units costing 4 times as much.