I Just Got a $200 TUBE Amp... And It's AMAZING!!

Pros: it’s an affordable tube amp Cons: it’s an affordable tube amp Final Verdict: it’s an affordable tube amp

I am in the UK. I said a couple of weeks ago that I had bought one of these and would post back. I am an amp-tech type who has been building, repairing and modifying stuff for decades. Here's the full review:- The amp made it's 8,000 mile journey in 14 days and arrived intact at a total cost of $351.58 which is circa £266 - that is all-in, shipping, import duty, VAT and everything. I knew as soon as I unboxed it that one of the smaller, input valves was dead on arrival - it had a very visible white stain in the crown of the glass. This was a valve faulty at manufacture which has had a leaking envelope. [ edit : on closer inspection later, there is a hairline crack in the glass on the pins, so it probably is damage from a shock in transit] There is no voltage-selector switch and the unit is set up for USA mains circa 115V. A small indicator is painted on the back which has two lines, each with a tick-box "100 to 120Va.c." or "220 to 240Va.c." The former was ticked. You will therefore DEFINITELY need a step-down transformer (known as an auto-transformer) to use this amp in the UK. It steps our 240V down to the 110V that this amp runs on as supplied. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU CONNECT THE AMP (as supplied) DIRECT TO THE UK MAINS WITHOUT THE APPROPRIATE AUTO-TRANSFORMER. You will definitely kill the amp and possibly yourself. (Any auto-transformer that puts out 110 to 120 volts and is rated at anything above 50 watts will do) Alternatively and much better, the amp can easily be made to run on UK mains by any EXPERIENCED TECH - see the paragraphs at the end of this post. Having got the 110V power-supply problem sorted out I powered-up and immediately confirmed that the gassy valve was indeed dead. I replaced it with a handy spare and we were in business. I can't tell you anything about sound that you didn't learn from the above video which persuaded me to buy it in the first place. It does have "that sound" Sparkly highs when clean, warm and creamy when pushed a little and quite a decent roar when wound up. For a domestic situation and a bit of home-practice, when turned up this amp is fooking LOUD even on the 1W setting. I haven't had time to try it on full 15W setting properly, just a couple of quick riffs and kerrangs as a test, but I think he's right in saying it would handle your normal drum-kit. IMO use at full volume could definitely get you evicted pretty quickly :-) So the sound out-of-the-box was good enough. It was definitely absolutely valves and as such adequate and lives up to expectations. Even as it is delivered, it's a great sounding amp at a very low price indeed. But I needed one replacement valve anyway and the defective one had shaken my faith a little about the others so since for me this whole buy-a-valve-amp thing was a "let's get this sorted once and for all" I thought I may as well have done with it and get a complete set. Nothing too fancy and expensive, just decent valves. So I ordered some JJ's from Hot Rox - a matched pair of EL84 output valves, a pair of tested input ECC83's and a selected/balanced ECC83 for the phase-splitter ....... there's less point in having matched output valves unless they are also driven equally. I chose the medium-hot selected EL84 output valves for "normal" amounts of tone. You can choose "cooler" which run cleaner or "hotter" which start to distort at a lower volume. Putting them in has changed the sound. Basically the cleans are much the same, it's as dirty as it was before when driven but the sound is a little warmer and more creamy. Most notably, when on heavy dirt, with the new valves I could kerrang a chord and also pick on other notes whilst it was ringing and the other notes came through clear and bright, whereas before with the old valves it was all a bit more mushy. Nice, but a little mushy and indistinct, so room for improvement. With postage and the small charge for testing and matching the new tubes cost £63. I think that I am not a fan of the speaker. It is one of the later Celestions, from the times when clean tones often drenched in chorus had become popular. The speaker doesn't sound awful and many will be perfectly happy with it - it's just not much to my ideal taste. Personally, I got my first Greenbacks when I was seventeen and for the next 50 years did not use anything else. Each disappointing experiment with other speakers just left me more convinced that Greenbacks are the answer - but I'm a rock-orientated Strat-playing hippy from the late 60's so my notion of a good speaker might be different to someone else's. I do have a spare pair of G12H Greenbacks in my loft so one of them will be going into this amp ASAP and I'm near certain that it will then be staying. One of these Seventy80 speakers new is circa £54. There is a REASON why a G12H Greenback new is £129! ;-) The reverb tank is not an Accutronics, but it is decent and has a metal shell. It is very rigidly mounted to the base of the combo and I will be re-mounting that onto some flexible fittings. The current mounting must inevitably feed more vibration back from the speaker to the springs so I expect rubber mounts to slightly decrease the reverb-time at higher volumes and improve any handling noise from moving the amp whilst it is on. The internal wiring etc is neatly done. I'm never overjoyed to see tiny surface-mount components but the amp seems well designed and assembled and there is no reason to think there is anything inadequate or likely to cause a future problem. The transformers are on the small side but I have no reason to think them not up to the job. There is no smoothing choke though the power supply seems adequately smoothed and there is no hum problem. The small transformers and absence of a smoothing choke mean that the chassis itself can be lighter whilst still fine for the job. Between that and the case construction material, overall weight is 25.4 lbs (11.5 kilos) The case is indeed made of a compressed paper board type material. As I said in another post, this does not concern me personally as I will only use the amp in my home studio or infrequent jam-session. If I was a gigging musician, I would probably invest in a flight-case. If I construct a better amp-case, it's a lot of work and it will still get battered by touring. With a flight-case instead, the amp will still look spotless in years to come. The actual wire inside the mains lead is perfectly adequate for it's job but is a lot thinner than you might think as that outer skin contains three wires and three thick pieces of string as you'll learn if you adapt it to 240v and snip off the American plug. String inside a mains cable is no bad thing and actually a sign of attention to detail as it strengthens the overall cable. The best solution though would be to fit a Euro socket like most amps have. The poster was a little unsure about the covering material. I see no particular problem with it myself. It's a white rexine and whilst probably not up to Fender and Marshall standard, it appears reasonably resilient. OVERALL CONCLUSION I think that at current prices this is an absolute bargain. It sounds good straight out of the box and there are simple things that anyone can do to improve it further in the valve and speaker swap. Setting up for operation on UK mains voltage 240V ========================================= As implied by the above panel inscription, the power transformer is actually capable of being wired for 240V as used in the UK. There are two separate input windings on the transformer, each of 110V. As supplied, they are wired in parallel across the supply voltage. All that is need for 240V operation is that they be wired in series by snipping off/unsoldering two 2 inch loops of wire from the transformer terminals completely, then soldering a little bridging loop to connect the two centre terminals. THIS IS MAINS VOLTAGE - DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS UNLESS YOU 100% KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING! I am a qualified tech. WRONG CONNECTION MAY KILL YOU OR DESTROY THE AMPLIFIER. - doing any mod will also negate the guarantee, but shipping 8,000 miles for a repair was never going to be sensible anyway. I mention it only to say how simple it is for an experienced amp-tech. The snipping and soldering is a 5 minute job so if a person were to remove the amp from the chassis themselves, remove the valves (not needed) and take it to a competent person, the charge for actually doing the job should be minimal. - it takes FAR longer to just get the amp chassis in and out of the cabinet than to do the job itself. There is also a small glass fuse mounted on the circuit board near the on/off switch. For 110V operation (as supplied) this is a 500mA slow-blow fuse (has a T engraved on it) For 240V operation this should be replaced with a 250mA slow-blow ........ or better yet, solder a link across the internal fuse holder and fit a panel-mount on the rear panel. - whilst you are there and fiddling with the mains input, fit a euro connector.

"Let's pull er oat" Canadian noises

This exact amp is also sold under Thomann's Harley Benton brand, "Harley Benton TUBE15 Celestion".

It's a real shame that learning guitar isn't as popular as it once was, because the guitarist-on-a-budget seems to have many more good sounding options now than ever before.

Darrel, I can't thank you enough for all the demonstration and comparison you've made. It educate me to know more about gears. Cheers!

I’ve had one of these about a month now and it keeps getting better as the speaker breaks in. The 70/80s get a bad rap, they’re a little harsh at first and need about 40 hours to really break in but they’re good sounding speakers once they are. They’re shipping now with JJ tubes and a better reverb tank which makes it a even better deal.

Your gear demos are off the chart Love it...yes someone actually plays chords and riffs...

The quest to find affordable gear that sounds great/works well continues! Today I think I've found a keeper! Part 1 - Amp Walkthrough Part 2 - Tone Demo 7:46 Part 3 - Good vs Bad 13:24 Enjoy!

I love the way you understand your camera and use a monitor to see what the viewer is seeing in real time. Very professional. And the answer to any of your questions to the viewer in this video regarding the making of more videos of this amp is...: YES please sir! Also one of the hottest DBG 1 minute solos evar!!!

Thanks a million for turning folks on to this kind of stuff. I'm just getting started at age 56. Bought this amp and I'm delighted with the sound compared to other starter amps. I'm a 'what makes this tick' guy and got a spring reverb for it as the stock one is a bit weak in my sample. Right now I'm working with a no-name guitar I bought YEARS ago for my daughter. Just took delivery of a kit so I can build my own Strat and upgrade as needed. Gonna be fun learning all the how-it-works stuff as well as making noise.

I think the amp sounds fantastic. The Celestion 80 is used in many stock cabs. A creditable speaker, further verified by this demo.

i really like your videos. really well made and always interesting to watch. And yesss, try replacing the tubes with good quality tubes. i wanna hear how it sounds great video

The Tube Test is up! I added a new set of tubes to this amp and tested it up against the stock ones! Check out the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEylCAlxnfY

I love how open and honest Darrell tells what things are and do, compared to being brand bias. Thanks D. We all understand that there are better products out there, but there are also affordable options available. Proof is in the video.

Been enjoying mine for 10 months. Does everything I wanted in a cheap practice amp. Effects loop, power can be reduced for bedroom use, real tubes, great speaker. No regrets.

Darrell knocks it out of the park again, with another great review of gear we can actually afford that sounds great. This is the kinda stuff we want and need, Darrell. Sure, we love to drool over the high-end stuff, keep it coming. But discoveries like the Indio guitar and the Stage Right amp, are the things we are gonna be able to afford, and now we can go ahead and buy without taking massive risks on buying a lemon and then having to shell out again to get something that sounds decent. 2 requests though; could you do a review of the Blackstar 5HT tube combo? And how about a giveaway comp for a cheap guitar like the Indio that you have taken out of the box and sorted by setting up well and maybe replaced the very worst of the parts (like maybe the tuners, nut, or bridge)? That would be awesome in extremis. I don't know if you have a 'daytime job' as well as your youtube and Patreon stuff, but I love the idea that you may be making a living out of doing the stuff you love. That is Awesome with a capital 'A', and something I think all your followers would love to be able to do as well. FYI; Before discovering your channel, changing strings and setting pickup heights was my limit. Thanks to your guidance, I now have 3 guitars in various stages of disassembly, upgrading and re-assembly and experimentation. Getting amazing results, super-satisfying, and I just want to keep doing it. You took my fear away that I might break or screw something up. And showed me that I did not need to buy lots of expensive specialist kit. Just a notched straight-edge, some radius gauges, several radius sanding blocks, and a fret rocker. More super budget kit reviews, 'how to' hot rod demos, and that Blackstar 5HT review, please, Darrell. Oh, and we would love to see/hear if upgrading the tubes in the Stage Right is worth doing.

thanks DBG for doing all the hard work for us. Appreciate the info and reviews you do.

Thanks for the review! Most of all, stay well Darrell.

waiting for this to ship from GC now, thanks for the great recordings, i watched countless demos of this and this was the one that sold me on the tone, really lets you hear the full spectrum of sound.