Recommends a product

I tap danced around this machine for about a year until I finally got it in Muziker for a great price, which kind of decided the choice instead of the more powerful Ampeg V4 and I don't regret it. According to other reviewers, it is sonically at least comparable, maybe even more interesting, and most importantly lighter, more portable and can be operated only via DI, without a box... Sonically I can compare it with the transistor Ampeg PF-500, which really tries to simulate the tube sound, although it is good at it, but the tube PF-50T is just much more lively. Anyway, the final sound depends terribly on the cabinet used. I have it installed in a fliptop version of the PF-115HE cabinet (although the cabinet is an older type and I had to adapt it a bit inside to fit the amp in, with the newer 115HE or 210HE there won't be this problem). With this cabinet it is very good sonically, the limitation of this setup is in the cabinet, not in the amp. It says that the 210HE has a sound closer to the legendary B15, which this P-50T doesn't try to emulate completely (that's what the Heritage series is for) and today's 15' speakers with extra tweeter can already hold more frequency ranges than the 15' from the 60's, I still think the 15' speaker stylistically fits this machine better. I also have a second Ampeg PF-115LF - HE and LF complement each other very well sonically, LF goes much deeper and fills the space better, but sometimes that is rather a detriment, so in smaller rooms the 115HE alone is much better, more transparent, clearer, more concrete. With the 115LF, I recommend using it with a high pass filter in a smaller space, or knobs to take away bass and add low mids, otherwise it's too muddled all the way down. The two boxes together provide a bit more headroom and volume, where the 115HE alone would probably fart, but since this amp sends the same power to one box as it does to two, there's not as much difference in the volume of two versus one box as there is with transistors, which usually send only slightly over half as much power to one box. So with two boxes it would be more for outdoor or much bigger rooms, where you will go through a PA - and for monitoring only one box would be enough. I guess this amp would be great just alone in a PA and with in-ear monitoring, you have a clean tube sound, you can send a clean preEQ signal to the sound engineer and a second post tranformer signal and the sound engineer can mix them, but I haven't tried it in practice like this. As for volume, which was the biggest concern, the tube 50W output I would say would be equivalent to almost 500W transistor, no need to worry about that. The portability and weight of the amp itself is funny compared to much heavier tube machines BUT... Fliptop mounting is definitely cool, however it only serves to save space, and awesome protection of the amp, but when you have it on wheels and drive on bumpy pavement, I guess the tubes don't like it much anymore. And you've got this thing that weighs up to 30 kilos, so you don't really want to carry it either. If you leave the zesak alone, it's really light for a tube, but because it's a weird shape, it's harder to find a suitable, disproportionately larger case for it, and then you lose the space saving advantage. The way I do it is that when the surface is smooth I ride on wheels, when it's not I take the amp out of the case, carry it separately with the lid on and then carry the case open separately, it mustn't rain... If I use the amp separately a lot then fliptop mounting doesn't make sense and then I'd recommend finding some other 15" case of full construction, without the risk of the lid farting at higher volume. What can I add- it doesn't have many competitors- only some tube preamp into a transistor tailpiece, or a tube/transistor hybrid.

Pluses: Low weight Vintage Fliptop design Can be operated without a speaker Two different DI outputs Tube sound Integrated biasing

Cons: Complicated shape for finding a suitable transport case, unless mounted in a box Fliptop mounting is cool, but has a lot of disadvantages Simple austere, no added crap like headphone output or AUX input etc... I consider it more of an advantage