It has been many years since these amps hit the scene here. I recently bought a dusty one, I think it has seen enough work back when they were sold at those special prices to be considered "used" and "run in". I immediately got over the honeymoon thing and put on a lot of time in a few days, plugging every guitar into it, plugging in extension speakers. I remain impressed. At my bedroom volume, I really cannot say the stock Tube Ten speaker needs upgrading. Chasing up the volume, maybe, but I rarely play there. I really like the gain/master volume thing. It opens up two routes to nice "tone", at both bedroom and loud level - I can do pre-amp as well as power amp overdrive (distortion to my ears), get nice fat clean tones, and that unique tube amp magic where the guitar just starts to buzz. The amp works well with all my guitars. Truly versatile. I enjoy it a lot.
Now, I want a hand-wired one. Preferably with the knobs on front, not top. With valves standing up, not hanging down. Doing all this will of course alter the cabinet dimensions. I suspect some of the amp's magic is due in part to this cabinet design. Huge open back, small speaker crammed into small space. The hand-wired amp need not be an exact replica, I would like to have a full tone stack, which will probably destroy some of the current magic. Valve rectification. Standby switch.
I am starting to call this amp my "fix all" amp. Amazing little thing. Is it perfect? No, but what is?
