Here is a picture of the same 20 year old '62 reissue strat as before, leaning against a 1951 Fender Deluxe amp. The amplifier has a 14-watt output, with 6V6 power tubes and a tube rectifier. There's one 10-inch Jensen speaker; it, the rectifier tube and octals are all original. The power tubes are Sovteks, and a handful of caps and resistors have been changed. Sorry, but the original parts aren't "magic" in some way, and the ones changed out really needed it.

This little amp does it all, from a bright sound to a surprisingly low tone (surprising because you don't normally associate 10" speakers with much bottom end), from a clean sound to a totally saturated tube tone. The darker, jazz-blues sound of this guitar really works great with this amp, and I often use just a hint of delay to give the sound a touch of depth (no reverb on half-century old amps!).

Where the Twin Reverb I have is tonally compressed and brighter, somewhat of an opposite of the tweed pictured above, this beast is the power alternative to both. This is a 50-watt Marshall Superlead, sitting atop a closed-back 4 by 12" cabinet.

Marshall 50-watt superlead

This amp is a reissue, which is a little strange for me with Marshalls. First of all, I usually like the tone of the 100 watters more than the 50s, although the volume can be a little much. There's really only about 3 decibels difference between the two, but it's in a range of volume that 3 dB makes a real difference in wear and tear on the ears. Then the reissues are pretty good, but they can take some work to really sound like (or as good as) the old ones. This one has some mods, and I'm running 6CA7 tubes instead of EL-34s. I like the more rounded sound of the EL-34s, but there's plenty of upper or lower end (depending on which channel you use) with these tubes, and lots more gain.

On the older Superleads, I'd jump the channels usually, and get the bright channel and normal channel sounds plus all the gain. On this amp with these tubes, I just use the normal channel usually, the bright is too bright and jumping the channels has so much gain it's ridiculous. I use the second input of the second channel, and with the volume on 7 I've got the same sound and as much gain as a '69-'74 era Superlead channel jumping with both volumes on 8.