Yep, I'm from SRV country. If your serious about getting an amp then save and get what you want. A tube amp will produce the tones you'll want. Solid state amps can sound clean and add some distortion up front with pre-drive etc. Or you can add a pedal. But, when you start to crank out the tones the solid state amps have a nasty habit of clipping rather badly, and sharply, at distortion level volumes while most tube amps, with the output transformer and speakers, create a more compressed and smother overdrive sound before breaking up. Pre-amp distortion (gain, or drive) and output stage distortion are different animals and you can only attain good control over this with a tube amp. Some Master Volume tube amps control the signal before the output tubes, others after. This and other types of controls are what tube amps are all about. Better control of your tone. Start with a low power tube amp like a Peavy Windsor combo (you can switch the output tube without re-biasing). It is rated at 15 watts but you can change the power output and complete tone by switching tubes. Mine works great. Remember, what you hear, volume, is measured in decibels (db) and is not linear. So the sound level of 100 watt amp v. 50 watt is only 3 db. The sound of a normal conversation.
Regards All.
