Epiphone Galaxie 25

the galaxie 25 is a small single-channel combo tube amp, with reverb and a single 12" celestion. accordingly, there aren't tons of features -- but instead the question is how good are the features? the amp is rated 25 watts RMS. the circuit drives the EL84 power tube pair very hard, and probably is close to 25 watts... but who knows? the 12ax7 preamp + tube-driven reverb are nice idea, and capable of sounding pretty good if dialed in just right. the EQ (high/mid/low) works well, and tweaking is absolutely necessary to get a usable tone out of the amp. NOT versatile on its own, but responds quite well to pedals. the cabinet's built like a tank. the electronics are cheap and delicate. I sometimes wish it had a second gain channel or a boost... but that's just not what this vintage-inspired amp is about. I'd prefer a tube rectifier, as well. Overall, features are a good value. if it were a $1200 amp I'd be disappointed; for less than $300 the features are very good. note that I changed all tubes and re-biased a few times before I found a sweet spot & tube set that sounds good and nearly eliminates the infamous galaxie hum.

sounds like an old-school tube amp, for the most part. the solid-state rectifier gives you a slightly more modern sound, say compared to a 1950's amp. the galaxie 25 has its own voice: it's very clean, but not in a fendery way. sounds big, clear, loves to be pushed hard. cranked to 10, preferably with a signal boost like the boss EQ pedal mentioned by a guy below, the tone breaks up nicely, & very sensitive to how you play. great sound for blues, classic rock or alt-country rock. the amp responds well to both single coil and humbucker pickups, but my favorite guitar w/ the galaxie is a 70's MIJ les paul copy with 70's gibson patent # pickups.

I've had no trouble. it's been played A LOT over the last year around my home, but only gigged a handful of times. it has CHEAP, fragile electronics, so I'd be wary about counting on it for frequent gigs or much traveling to gigs. the hum can be a big problem, but I think in most cases it's a problem with the 'setup' (tubes, bias) and not so much the amp itself.

harmony central reviews are about as close as you'll come to customer support for this product.

I've been playing for 13 years, mostly various sub-genres of rock and country. my smaller amp is a tweed fender champ, my larger amp is a fender '59 bassman RI. I've got a half-dozen guitars, mostly 70's and 80's MIJ copies of famous US guitars. also some old Harmony and Kay beasts as well. I love the old off-brand 'vintage' stuff. over the last few years I've rotated through several small and mid-sized tube combo amps, vintage and newer.

tone is largely about how you play, and I get a kick out of trying to get the best possible tone using equipment usually rejected outright by the folks who really sweat the details. it's all about seeing if you can make a cheap guitar and a galaxie 25 with a couple $15 danelectro pedals sound like a million bucks. makes the guy with a $4000 rig look quite the sucker. it can be done, but you gotta work at it.

the galaxie 25 is not a GREAT product, not even a GOOD product, but it's a perfectly usable mid-sized tube amp. it looks cool, in my estimation. it's not as good as most of the competitive amps, but almost, and it's available for around 1/2 the price. still, the amp has its own character. since buying the thing, I've played far more hours on the galaxie than any of my other "better" amps. I'd recommend it, but buy it for what it is: a cheap, simple, fun one-trick pony. if you need fender tone, or vox, or whatever, save your money. you CAN sound really good playing the galaxie, but getting that perfect sound using this amp may be a project. I wouldn't buy it again, but have enjoyed owning it.

Unknown year. Probably '04. All Sovtek tubes.
No frills :) Input, Volume, T,M,B,Rev,Standy & Power. Single channel. That's it.

I was looking for one w/ FX loop, but only if the loop is hard-bypass. I'm so sick of noisy loops. I've never found one quiet enough, so I think I'm done with them. I'm think it has enough juice for what I need. I'll get into that later.

My buddy has a DR Z. Maz 18 and I've been a fan of single channel amps ever since. I'm only giving the Galaxie 25 a 9 because I still want an amp w/ a flawless FX loop. Other than that, it's exactly what I wanted.

Mutt Strat, Hamer Tele, Parker Fly Classic. It's what I've been looking for. Suits my style. I'm a stickler for NO breakup whatsoever (unless I want it to) on a clean channel. This factor alone was what made me pass on the Peavey Classic 30. I really dig that amp, but I wanted "punchy Fender" clean, and the Peavey was too growly on the clean channel. That's not bad. I still recommend it. But I want CLEAN tubes under the $500 range. I know, I'm not asking for much right? :) I'm just really into dynamics...

Of course this is no Dr.Z., but it's still LOUD enough for what I need. I tried it out @ Musicians Friend Clearance outlet in KC. I thought it sounded great, but it lacked the "oomph" I wanted (for example, eq and volume just seemed to not move much in shape or color.) Sounded really cool turned up to 6 or 7, but I knew this wasn't the full capacity of the amp. I had this feeling that since it's a crappy Epiphone, it just needed some simple mods and I'd get what I wanted out of it. I was right! And, I didn't even have to open it up. I got home and still couldn't manipulate eq or volume well, so I added a Boss 7 band eq and voila! Holy Moses. This amp loves the signal when it's a little hotter. Next I slapped in my Boss DS-1 and after five minutes I had both clean and dirty sounds I was looking for. What's really cool is the DS-1 gain is only between 1 + 10 percent. That's it. The 12AX7's in the amp must just love the 3rd and 5th harmonics the DS-1 is producing. That's all it needs for an outstanding overdrive or distortion sound, depending on gain from the DS-1.

I experienced almost no humming from the amp. A little 60Hz is normal. I can definitely live with it. Introducing Boss pedals didn't degrade signal (enough to notice at least) My Zoom 505 delay did throw in some crappy "digital fuzz" as my notes decayed. I took it out and things were perfect again.

I'm giving it an 8, but if it weren't for my EQ pedal, it would be a 4! Watch this guys! The potential is there, but it may take some work.

Still new. Looks VERY solid. It was only $169.00, so I'm not gonna freak if tubes go bad. Heck, I might replace 'em anyway to see what happens.

If it weren't for Harmony-Central, there would be no support for this product. I hate Epiphone, and subsequently Gibson for mass producing all this crap and never taking any pride in it. No user manual at their website. In my opinion Gibson only makes a small handful of products anymore that are worth anything. I'm sure my combination of good Sovtek tubes was a fluke. I'm still not so sure my EL84s are both firing 100%. Regardless, I'm giving the credit to God for this amp because it came along at the right time and the right price and it's just what I needed.

I'll give it an 8 1/2. I like it a lot. It's far better than I could have expected for $169.00 (I don't mean to rub it in...) It was a return to MF w/ no visible damage. I think I got lucky. The tag said, "no gain." Well that made sense to me since it's a single channel amp. Sure enough, it was just fine. It was the only one there, and the only one I've ever physically seen.

Listed below, single channel w/ reverb, T/M/B, vol. Simple amp with spring reverb. You'll need a pedal for real overdrive & sustain.

Use it with humbuckers & P-90's, sounds great with both. Absoultely NO NOISE Problems, no hum. Good sounding little amp, clean & punchy. sounds like a ballsy Blues Jr. to me. Goes from very clean to bluesy break up, no hi gain or big sustain. I use a pedal for lead tones. Loud enough for most jam & band situations. Great back up amp.

Bought it used with no tubes in it. Cost me $53 for tubes, and I have to say I like it. Seem solidly built, and the tubes are well protected so should be OK.

Hope I never need to know.

I would have to give it a 9 because it does exactly what it is supposed to. It's a basic, one channel tube amp, works well with pedals and sounds good at all volumes. Good sounding little amp that has better tone than any solid state amp out there.

Follow up on my 7/10/2004 review. I did the DC heater mod and the floating center tap mod detailed in the 12/22/2004 anonymous review. The hum problem with these amps is documented throughout these reviews. Better tubes help reduce the hum problem, but that alone is not enough.

You buy this amp either to play it clean to get a good clean sound as your foundation upon which to add your effects. The trebly shrill folks complain of can be ameliorated with a combination of proper bias, good speaker and the right V1 tube.

The B+ on mine was 368. I had an old set of RCA EL84s from 1960 installed. They biased nicely at 17.5MAs. (53% at idle). These sound nice once the tubes warm up.

I found that the dark sound of NOS GE 5751 tubes perfect for this amp. I can take the treble up to 6 or 7 without getting too shrill.

I also decided that I'd help out my little 25 watt amp by moving air. So I stuck a 16 0hm Jensen C12N in the amp. I always run in parallel with an Avatar 16 ohm cab loaded with one Reverend Alltone 1250 and one Eminence Legend 122 alnico. The combination of three speakers that sound nice clean makes for some beautiful clean tones.

The hum was reduced 90% by having a tech do the DC heater mod and adding the floating center tap detailed in the 12/22/2004 review below. The amp isn't as quiet as a church mouse, but it is now very usable and delivers a very nice, chimey clean.

Owned it almost a year. I could always count on it to give me a steady, annoying hum. It never has failed me either in working or humming.

The level of hum these amps produce is over-bearing. Read the reviews here on Harmony Central. The problem is not an isolated one. It is documented on just about every review posted here. To its credit, Epiphone is good about responding to e-mails and answering telephone calls. But musician's pay for amps that work. Epiphone fails to step up to the plate and fix the hum problem PROPERLY under warranty. I understand that would result in some $ outlays on their part, and no company wants to do that, but it is their obligation. Let's face it: the amp should work properly right out of the box. Had I not purchased the amp cheap, I would not have bothered with the mods. The bottom line is that Epiphone has been good about e-mailing me an owner's manual within 24 hours and answering telephone calls, but they fail to step up to the plate where it matters most - in authorizing those repairs that are necessary to give their customer(s) a usable amp.

6 stock. 9 as modified.

Would not buy another, but would instead put my money into an amp that is better designed.

What else do you need from an amp? This amp has volume, treble, mid, bass, and reverb. nuff said.

I've used this amp with a variety of strats, a gibson LP gary moore, and a epiphone emperor regent.

Since I work at a music store, I had the ability to test three of these amps. The first two had the bad hum problem due to the crappy output transformer problem that many have written about. The third one was actually fixed by epiphone themselves. This cancelled out the hum problem.

I find this amp (even with new tubes) to be a very "brittle" amp with emphasis on the treble side. There is hardly ANY warmth to this amp whatsoever. In fact, the output of this amp is very nasally with any kind of guitar. The volume is very touchy, and there is a noticable difference in volume between 1 and 2 (almost double), and there isnt much change after that. Poor chinese construction.

I have had this amp past 6 and still have had no breakup.

But just to give you and example of brittle this amp is: I have bass on 8, mids on 5, and treble on 2, and its STILL too trebly. No warmth whatsoever.

I have had this amp for about 6 months and have used it in about a dozen gigs and practices. It still works. However, the chassis gets EXTREMELY hot (much more hot than even my handwired 68 twin) after only an hour of use. I cant picture the cheap component lasting for a long time of repeated use (but thats only my speculation)

This amp is meant to be an affordable answer to a vintage-style tube amp...it succeeds in this area. Honestly, the look of it was a factor in my purchase of it. I like the size and weight. So far, it has worked every time I used it. But it has a very punchy, powerfully trebly and nasal sound that lacks any type of warmth that you would expect from a blues amp. I beleive that jazz players might like the amazingly clean sound it produces, but it does not suit my tastes. The fact that the speaker of choice (a celestion 70-80) is known for its bottom-end does not help this claim. But I hae never had good luck with gear, either. Maybe I just got a dud :-)

I picked up this amp in an Ebay auction for a mere $195. I didn't want to pay much more than that because I'd read a lot about problems people have had with them, especially really bad hum, so I knew I was going to have to put some money into having it fixed up. Below I will detail exactly what my amp tech. did to the amp to resolve the issues with it. All ratings are based on how it sounds post being fixed by a very experienced amp builder and repairer. I paid him $200 so the total cost for me was $395 - only about $45 above what you would pay if you bought one new from a catalog.

This is a very basic amp - it only has a single channel so it's hardly feature-rich.

I use both a Strat and an Epiphone Dot. By manipulating the guitar's tone and volume controls and those of the amp. I can get a good range of sounds from SRV-style strat twang through to mellow jazz box. The amp. was terribly noisy when I first got it but is now extremely quiet thanks to the work done on it. The amp. is plenty loud enough to play with a drummer (assuming you play blues and jazz as I do). Amazingly loud really for only 25 watts. Don't expect to get much in the way of distortion unless you use a pedal with it. It sounds great with pedals - I'm using a Digitech Screamin' Blues and a Crybaby. The overall sound is very punchy, very "tubey" for want of a better expression.

The guy who fixed it for me assures me that it will be reliable but I haven't had it long enough to find out. It seems very solid in terms of the physical construction.

It was used when I bought it so probably out of warranty (not sure when it was made) based on age and defintely out of warranty given what I have had done to it - so I wouldn't expect to be able to get any support for it from Epiphone.

So here is the low down on what was done to it by the amp. tech:
- Added a ground switch
- Rewired the power transformer
- Moved the output transformer (too close to other components)
- Moved reverb transformer (same)
- Made tubes D.C.
- Remade ground plane
- Grounded reverb
- Shortened all wire harnesses
I'm no expert so I can't comment on the technicalities of what was done but it sounds great now. He put the bad hum down to poor design and claimed that changing the tubes would have had minimal effect on the noise problems - the tubes that it came with are still in there and they sound just fine.
I'm very happy with the way it sounds now and have achieved my objective of getting myself a simple, solid, great sounding, portable tube amp. for an investment of only $395. If you buy one of these stock be prepared to have it worked on - it's well worth it.
Oh yeah, I have been playing for about 24 years and for the last 5 or 6 years my main amp has been a Line 6 Flextone (which I'm keeping as a backup). The Flextone is very versatile but the Galaxie beats it hands down for real tube warmth.

This is a follow-up to a review I made for this amp a year ago. All of the numeric ratings stay the same as last time, wanted to share some of the amp's history since the first review I submitted.

I had previously mentioned that the noise floor of this amp was improved by using better tubes than those provided by the mfgr. True, but I was still a bit irritated by the remaining noise. Being a Hi-Fi nut, S/N ratio is important to me. I finally opened the unit up, split the heater wiring up after the 6BQ5 outputs and inserted a well-filtered FW bridge circuit to supply the input, reverb driver, reverb recovery and phase inverter stages. The original filament circuit was not referenced to chassis ground, so I created a floating "center tap" for the heater winding with a pair of 100 ohm resistors tied to chassis ground from each side of the pwr trannie's 6V winding. Once this was complete, I discovered why the amp like to "eat" output tubes. A quick check of B+ voltage to the output plates revealed a whopping 360V, way higher than any common 6BQ5 is rated for. I reset the bias for each grid to -17V and installed my last matched pair of Amperex 7189A {6BQ5's on steroids} tubes, and buttoned it up. After the surgery the amp still rates a 8-9 in the tone department but is as quiet as a church mouse. Please, for those of you out there that are not familiar with working with tube equipment, remember that this amp packs more than enough voltage and current to inflict a lethal shock. I previously mentioned I am a tech, and would recommend any changes be made to this amp by someone familiar with working with high-voltage gear.

Other than smoking output tubes, this amp has been fine. after witnessing the internal construction of this amp firsthand, I would not say it's great, but in this day and age, about as good as can be expected for the price. Now that I have leaned up the bias and installed output tubes that can handle the level of B+ voltage in this amp, it should be as reliable as any tube amp. Time will tell...

I don't think the warranty would be in effect after the "elective surgery" I have done to the amp. Being a tech, I don't care, if it craps out I'll trouble-shoot it myself. Too darn bad that Epiphone didn't see the importance of including DC pre-amp heater supplies and decent quality tubes. The amp is a "diamond-in-the-rough", but could have been a real star for their amp line with a bit more careful design. With the inclusion of the DC supplied heater circuit, I can probably go back to Sovtek 12AX7's and not suffer the earlier hum problems... Nah, I don't think so...

I hope this follow-up review and suggestion help out my fellow owners of this potentially fine little amp.

2003 or earlier
Features have been covered below play country,blues and southern rock so features are enough to cover fests and clubs I play. We mic everything it cuts through fine with competing stage volumes of other players would like a master volume control.

Primarily use a nashville tele with tex mex pups and a powerbridge. this amp suits my music style fine nice sparkle. when it first arrived it had the HUM mentioned by all reviewers below. Took it to an authorised service center who replaced a pre-amp tube and hum improved but returned to a lesser degree played with a variety of tubes as others have suggested and settled on a GT12AX7M V-1 a JJ 12AT7 V2 a EH12AY7 V-3 and a EH 12AX7 V-4 and stock power tubes HUM is diminished to a usable level The amp has a great chime nice reverb and when putting a boss Blues driver in front a nice overdrive sound

It seems solidly built more so than my Blues Jr. Carry replacement tubes and fuses. No breakdowns in a year of sporadic use

Epihone / gibson quickly replied to E-mails service center was east to find, quick, thourough and the repair was fully covered by 1 year warranty

Been playing for 18 years semi-professionally have ownes other solid state hybrids and tubes amps and thus far this amp is my favorite. nothing compares to all TUBE sound for my styles of music. I believe it is an exceptional value after tweeking

adequate features ,, controll panel recessed in back making accident changes by rubbing up againt the front impossibe which as ya know is plus on the fly giggin. This is an 04, no channel switching or loop. It does have an external speaker jack and if you don't mind running down the output tubes, pluging in another speaker to your liking puts a nice drag and distortion is possible at lower volumes. This amp is used on the go and at home. I have a con-cork-tion of tubes planted in the amp... more on that below

I have written quite a few reviews for this great review site and usually make a disclaimer at the beginning.. besides having lost quite a few brain cells in the 60's my disclaimer is that early blues, delta and other wise is my criteria for an amplifier and what I try to replicate is old early sounds when electricity was really just used to be heard over the din of the crowd at the juke joints and the distortion wasn't something that was wanted it just happened when the amps were turned up when amps 1st hit the market.. with that said, it didn't take icons like Muddy Waters, Tampa Red, Robert Nighthawk and a long long list of other greats long to realize "hmmm, dis here distortion fills up dem quiet spots when I be playin' alone" I don't think anybody actually said that verbatum but its no lie that it was something that was used because thats what happened when you turned the amp up louder the peeps yakkin in the joints.

The guitars that are guitar I never would part with are the export versions are the American version.. I go to a store get a guitar off the wall .. hold it, feel the action and plug it in without looking at the fine print to find out which country it was made.. My three work house electrics are an Epiphine 57 re-issue with soap bar pups, an Epiphone single cut away hollow with humbuckers and a 1970's re-issue Strat import, each and every guitar mentioned is a great match for this amp. I am surprised by the nice "bounce" it has, a nice touch response not expected, the reverb seems ok to me, only use reverb to emulate players like Junior Kimbrough or players that over-do the reverb purposefully. It does have the dreaded noise spoken by other fine reviewers below but in my case a change of tubes cleared up 90% of the unwanted noise. I have never own a tube amp that had no noise, I'm sure somebody reading has and I say.. I am very happy with your fortune, but at the age of 54 and playing for 40 years with all tube amps from you name to this here Epi, there's always some kinda wierd stuff going on sometimes seemingly for no reason at all, sometimes I think my house is under attack but it turns out to be the amplifier purging itself of gas or flatulations never to happen again, or maybe it will. While I'm on the noise deal, (this is the 3rd time this has happened) I saw this amp sittin around at a local music store for sometime and got kinda dusty which iss usually a sign that it aint being tried out because somethings wrong with it, marked with a ridiculous low price.. you buy it at there cost and they have it fixed for zip.. and 3 times this happened, I bring the amp home knowing somethings going to be wrong, turn it on hear horrible noise, shut it down, change the reverb tube and the amp is happy and so ain't I. I'm not telling anybody that this would be there experience but I paid just a little over $100.00's for it and fixed it with another tube which 9 times out of ten is the problem.. another problem can be extranious signals come from parts unknown around your area, use to have a leaky transformer in front of my house and about 3 or 4 times week it would reak havok on anything I owned whether it be a radio or amplifier. The utility company told me the noise had nothing to do with there equiptment, cut to the chase, a bad car wreck knock down the pole which was replace along with new transformer.. no more noise 3 or 4 times a week.

Ok, back to how it sounds.. for my guitar and the early electric tunes that I try and emulate the sounds of it is a BIG FAT 10.. on the other hand at one time a few years back I got into flat picking (I usually only use a thumb pick if that) and I had a Heritage hollow single cutaway with nice hums and with a Fender Twin the sound was so beautiful it was un-earthy I'm talking beautiful, for T-Bone Walker type sounds or for neck pu for Jazz and a fantastic bell like tone on with the bridge pu when I rolled off a bit of high fre

when I brought it home to it was the pits, but it was the reliability of the tube and not the amp that caused the mischief. If you get into the back of it, obvously its not an old ORANGE amp or whatever, although I wouldn't try it I think it could take a few topples, and if the tubes don't leak it would be not much different the a higher end amp. When I brought it home it was -3 but with not a problem to speack in almost a year its a 10 so far

have not a clue

Lots of great young palyer coming along with short money but BIG talent, just make sure you know what you want and take your guitar with you and although its a pain in the ass go from place to place and hear what the deal is, and a good place to get a feel is here at Harmony Central which more often then not these players give a great indication of there personal experiences which can point you in the right direct and saves much time in narrowing down or enlightning to different amps, there are amny amps here reviewed that I enjoy reading about that I never knew were out there cuz "they ain't in here" ..Rating is based on any price tag under $300.00 and with decent tubes.

Purchased brand new a few weeks ago. Featurues are covered in the other reviews here, so I won't repeat. Definitely wish there was volume and gain instead of just a master volume. I do not care for today's modeling amps that look like the console of the Space shuttle. This amp has good, basic features that allow you a reasonable degree of flexibility.

I typically use this with "power strat" type guitars (like my S/S/H Parker Nite Fly or my S/S/H Charvel) or with semi-hollow body guitars. This is a nice little amp for clean and/or bluesy playing styles.

But it is noisy. You MUST use top quality tubes. It will not forgive if you use second rate pre-amp tubes. The stock pre-amp tubes sounded O.K. - better than say a solid state amp. But the hum they gave off was too much. As others have noted, it will hum like crazy. The stock SOVTEK pre-amp tubes are second rate. I replaced all of the stock pre-amp tubes and noticed a significant reduction in the humming, but I could not eliminate the hum.

I experimented with tons of different tubes. In V1, the new Groove Tubes 12AX7M was the winner. The JJ ECC83S came in second and the JAN Philips 12AX7WA came in third. The Groove Tubes 12AX7M had a rouder tonal quality. The JJ and the Philips had more bite. I also tried Ei 12AX7s, SOVTEK 12AX7, EH 12AX7, Shuguang 12AX7, NOS JAN GE 5751, NOS JAN Philips 5751 and others.

I didn't think twice about putting a JAN Philips 12AT7 in V2, the reverb driver. These tubes are notoriously excellent for that specific job.

V3 is a very interesting story. I noticed that the majority of the hum I was getting came from this tube slot. I tried all of the 12AX7 types mentioned above here, but I also tried Sylvania 12AY7, GE 6072A (military 12AY7), some 12AU7 types and others. The problem with V3 is that too low gain in this tube will compromise the amp's full tonal qualities. This was noticeable immediately even with a 5751, but became more obvious as I tried lesser gain tubes. And because most of the hum was related to this position, any tube that was not top quality stuck out like a sore thumb immediately because it would increase hum. After hours of testing, the JJ ECC 83S that came in second in V1 found a home in V3.

V4 - the phase inverter. An interesting thing was happening here. 12AX7 tubes were giving me a darker tone. As I experimented with 5751s and 12AT7s I noticed that I was getting a slightly brighter tone, which I preferred. I wound up using an NOS GE JAN 5751 here, which happens to be the tube I prefer using for PI duty in most of my clean amps.

In the end: v1 - Groove Tubes 12AX7M, V2 - JAN Philips 12AT7WC, V3 - JJ ECC 83S and V4 - NOS JAN GE 5751.



The Celestion Seventy/80 stock speaker did not sound bad. It has a nice chimey quality that goes well with this amp, but it also has bright, "clank" that gets exaggerated with this amp. I experimented with several other speakers including an Eminence Legend 122 alnico, an Eminence Legend Vl2, Celestion Blue Alnico and others. The winner to my ears was the Reverend Alltone 1250.

The tube changes and the speaker change made a nice difference. I'll be working on the power tubes next.

6 rating stock. 8 with the improvements.

Can't tell yet. Too soon.

E-mailed Gibson about some warranty questions and requesting an owner's manual. They e-mailed me back the next day. No repairs to date, and I hope I don't need any. My experience to date warrants high marks in this category.

I've been a mediocre player since junior high school...for over twenty years. A good sounding amp is an essential part of covering up my playing. Seriously, I've accumulated tons of amps and guitars over the years, but I have always had a real preference - maybe even an affinity - for cheap, low wattage tubes amps that sound good. This amp fits that bill. I don't think it sounds as good as my Hot Rod Deluxes or my Crate VC 50 heads, but it definitely holds its own when it gets called on.