Speaking as someone on the shallow side of 40, you're all right both those sites are terrible, it's not just you

No top hat = no deal

As someone above mentioned, we've had a reprieve from the last two oppressively hot summers so it's been a nice break. I'm a winter baby so July is typically a bad month for me so this has been lovely. Temperature has stayed around 22-26, humidity has been manageable. I could take this every year

I may be wrong but it sounds like an issue with the amp if it's eating up tubes that quickly, regardless of brand.

2014 has been pretty awesome so far. Although it was last year I had my second child in October, so that's been the main focus. I also got off the couch after 3 and a half years of being a stay at home dad and walked into just about the best job I could possibly imagine given my layoff, so all consi...

The High range is straight attenuator and preserves the tone as much as an attenuator can. The Low range I never used because it completely 'cut the balls' off the sound of the amp, but you could get it down to extremely low volumes. I found if I wanted super quiet I'd just use the high range on ful...

I had one, thought it was great and would absolutely buy it again. To answer your questions: It does not work in steps like a Power Brake or THD, it has a rheostat (not a pot) so you can turn the dial up and down. Now, a rheostat is not like a pot, it's a bit cumbersome and doesn't adjust the volume...

Wow this is awesome, next time I make a trip to Europe I'm finding a way to fit this in!

Having plugged my VM into a few different cabs I can say that the 425 cabs are home base for that amp. You may find something you end up liking better, but you certainly won't think your VM sounds bad through that cabinet, it's balanced just right and to my ear seems to get the best out of that amp....

I saw Kiss last summer (maybe the summer before, I can't remember) and they were great, you can say what you want about Tommy and Eric but they're better musicians than Ace and Peter, band sounded incredibly tight, show was exactly what you'd expect. Being a child of the 90's I'd suggest NIN/Soundga...

Beautiful place! Congrats!

As far as books go, I found this book to be quite informative and easy to understand:

Amazon: Guitar Amp Handbook

Happy Father's Day to everyone, my family celebrated by flying out on my birthday (yesterday the 14th) to the British Virgin Islands leaving me all by my lonesome! They're going to my brother in law's wedding, I can't go because I just started a new job. But I have been celebrating the empty house, ...

I was three when this came out and it's the first song I can remember having a profound impact on me. At that time it was everywhere, radio non-stop, commercials, etc. so it was probably the first song that was truly drilled into me by media. I've got a lot of favorite songs but this one, I don't kn...

UPDATE: it is actually a Chinese V30, *but* it's one of the early ones that has the "Ipswitch, England" stickers on back with no "made in" sticker on the side. So I guess this was when they were trying to fool people into thinking they were made in England when they weren't. It sounds awesome, that'...