Well I finally decided on - and bought - a new amp.

For a while despite the "cheap and cheerful" nature of this purchase - to get it passed the wifey - I did toy with going for something more expensive such as the new 20W Blackstar.

I also toyed with getting a custom build. But the builder I approached didn't seem interested in fitting a feature pictured in nearly every photo on his bloody website, or that interested in my custom at all. You'd think folks would be more friendly when they would be making over £400 wouldn't you?

So spurned by the rude custom amp bloke I returned to the idea of cheap and cheerful. And a larger retail company was much more polite and even price matched for me. So I've taken the controversial move of buying a Bugera V22.

...

The Bugera Vintage 22 watt guitar amplifier. It's an all-tube design, running three 12AX7 valves in the pre-amp section and two EL84 valves in the power amp. There are two channels, two inputs, onboard digital reverb and an effects loop.

24 hours in I'm completely thrilled with the amp. The tone is gorgeous. I love how the drive channel feels like the natural continuation of the clean channel rather than something totally different. It's a beautiful organic amp that belies its low price or the reputation of the parent company behind it. In fact I'm so impressed with it that I'm surprised to say I'm considering selling my HT-5 already - even though the plan was to keep two amps.

One of the things I'm also thrilled about is how good a "bedroom" amp it is given the wattage. The sturdy and very smooth pots make it very easy to dial in perfectly reasonable, but gorgeous sounds, at neighbour friendly volumes. I was concerned it might be one of those amps that just can't be quiet. But I've found it easier to dial in quieter tones than the HT-5 - which lacks sensitivity in the pots at the lower end of the scale. And the sustain even at lower volumes is very impressive. There's a pentode/triode switch which halves the power - but also is useful for changing the sound of the amp - there's more compression when running the amp at half power.

Even the reverb sounds pretty good at low levels and the amp feels rock solid. By all accounts I've read online it seems the early problems with this range is pretty much sorted by now - I guess time will tell for my amp. But so far I'm completely loving it.

I've experimented briefly with effects before the pre-amp and in the loop with my Line6 M13 Stompbox Modeller. The results are very impressive indeed - this amp loves pedals - dirt pedals especially sound much better than on the Blackstar HT-5. Going straight into the Bugera's clean channel the heavy dirt had a real tube grind to it that was very natural. Meanwhile more restrained effects sounded very good and the M13's delays play nicely with the V22's onboard reverb. The effects loop works well - much better than on the HT-5; that amp's effects loop is oddly implemented and can sound bad when switching channels.

All in all I'm very impressed with the Bugera V22 so far.