TUBE15 Celestion : A very nice surprise

I was ready to pull the trigger on a asian made, brand name dual channel 20W tube amp (that i previously owned once) for twice the money and switched at the last moment for this one. I gambled.. and (so far) I won. I find the Celestion 80 speaker in this amp way better than I found it to be in other budget amps and I cannot say yet why.. might be the tubes (mine came with TAD power tubes and chinese preamp tubes - later ones I changed with JJ's) or the amp itself but the speaker doesn't have the harshness and the piercing highs I used to hear in other amps. The amp looks great and doesn't have any estetic flaws (has similar build quality with other bigger brand asian made amps). The 1W setting is very usable at a livingroom level and you can get decent distorted tone but you'll have to make some noise for it - nothing beats headphones for a very quiet practice. The 15W mode on the other hand is awsome for giging or band practice and will compete with an acoustic drum set just fine. The tone with the knobs at noon is decent using a stratocaster, but a bit faded (no high sparkle) and lacks a bit of presence, but you can dial up to a certain point your tone using the knobs. For further tone dial options I recommend an eq pedal last in the fx loop section witch will eliminate any need of speaker upgrade - again, I cannot belive i am prasing a speaker that I have replaced 2-3 times before in other amps. With the gain turned past 12 o'clock and Volume about the same, the amp has a very natural fat and creamy distorsion on the strat bridge pickup that can satisfy all classic rock and blues fans out there. The reverb is organic and true to its nature and even though one migh ask for a deeper setting I never found the need to turn it past 12 o'clock.

This amp has amazing value and I recommend it to people who need good giging tone and dynamics on a decent pedal platform that you can use both home and on stage. The fact that you get amazing tone by only pluggind the guitar and dial its knobs is proof that this amp deservers some consideration.