Postby ClubAndCountry » 10 Oct 2009, 02:39
I used one for a few years in the early 90s. It's an extremely loud, 'present' 15W! Not very vintage-voiced, it does sound more like a small JCM800 Master Volume or a bit like a Jubilee, but without as much gain. Exceptional build quality like all the 800s, but they do apparently have a tendency to blow power transformers - I've never seen fail one personally, and I ran mine with EL34s for a while (before I knew that this was a risk!), so I think they must have had just a few bad ones rather than them all being under-spec. There are proper replacements available.
I tried it with some more vintage speakers including a G12M-25 and a G12H-30, but actually I thought it sounded best with the stock Vintage 30 - it was more chunky as well as quite cutting. This amp was the very first to ever use the V30 by the way - the earliest version of this speaker, with a vent in the magnet (like the G12-65 and G12-80) and they do sound slightly different from the later ones. (If you buy an amp with the 'original' speaker, make sure it's one of these and not a later replacement.)
The EL34 mod did make it much more 'Marshally', as well as even louder, but I would have to not recommend it based on the reports of transformers failing - the filament current draw of an EL34 is almost four times that of a 6V6.
They're also quite rare, only about 500 were ever made. Martin Barre of Jethro Tull apparently used four of them in his rig!