FireBelly Amplifier Company PR1512

All tube, combo amp, Built with TLC

Eminence red, white and blue 12" 125w speaker

Hand wired, 3/4" fingered plywood and the skin is flawless. The grille is classic black face and even has that sparkle.

very good after the sell personal attention.

A TRUE GEM.
I found this amp through an extensive search looking for an amp with a specific sound. The sound of this amp takes me there.

I'm always looking back at statements made in advertisements of things I buy and compare the product for myself to these statements. In this case take these statements:

"The most recorded amp in history"
The sound quality, words cannot describe. If they could we would all be listening to lectures on the radio instead of music. The sound bites don't really do this amp justice.
If a Princeton reverb sounds as good as the PR1512, there is no doubt this is true.
Have you ever went to a recording studio and listened to a player and said "why can't I get that sound quality, it must be magic" Mystery solved, your ears will be stunned. Mine were.

"Natural breakup and compression at reasonable volume levels"
With this amp I hit the perfect low and in that moment just before I hit the high I say to myself its not going to get there but, it does and I'm just in awe. It will do this up and down the volume dial + master volume dial to make those tubes hum warm fuzzies.
The low end is just incredible.

If you are a lead guitar player put on some 11's or 12's and your bass player will struggle to match your tones

Amp was made by Firebelly, a new amp company, in 2008. It has one channel and looks like a 1965 black face PR (Princton Reverb) with an added Master Volume control. It has volume, bass, treb, reverb, intensity and speed for the tremelo. Output is rated at 15 watts with 2-6V6's and its an all tube amp with an Eminence Red, White and Blues 12" speaker. This amp has workable head room and compresses nicely at reasonable volume levels. I can see using this amp for practice, recording and small size gigs. I don't know if it will be loud enough with an aggressive drummer. I play traditional rock, blues, some lead and mainly rhythm. This amp is unusually quiet, very punchy with a tight bass and the clean, glassy highs you would expect from a vintage black face era amp. Its as good as the original 1960's circuit.

With high output humbuckers, this amp really comes alive. Single pickups were almost as punchy but there was a little more hum at higher volume. The amp compresses really nice when you turn it up to the 5-6 range. The reverb and tremelo were what you would expect from a black face PR amp. Reverb was full and you don't have to go much past 3-4. I like the addition of the Master volume control and was able to compress and overdrive at room level volume -- cool feature! With the Master all the way up, the amp had clean glassy headroom until about 5 on the volume control. Then the compression starts and you get that full, ballsy sustain. The compression was really good, but I'd recommend a pedal if you want more of a metal sound out of this amp. I liked the thick bag that covered the reverb tank.

Have only had this amp a short time. I was told that the builder has been constructing amps for about 35 years. The amp came with a 1-year guarantee. The cabinet feels solid and I didn't detect any rattle. The reverb tank was inside a padded bag and screwed down to the base of the cab. Only time will tell, but this amp feels like it was solidly built.

Talked about the circuit design with the owner of the Firebelly company on a number of occasions. He responded quickly to my email and made several suggestions on how to get the tone I was looking for. He was very knowledgable about all the amps he's building and I got the answers to my questions. So far customer support has been very helpful.

I've been playing for the past 30 years. I've had a Marshall solid state 100 watt and Soldano SLO100 with cab. If this amp were lost, I would have it replaced with another Firebelly amp. Though, I'd probably get one of their 30 watt or higher models. This amp sounds as good as any original black face amp and is as good or better than the original PRBF (pre-CBS). I think 15 watts is almost not loud enough for gigging, but I purposely wanted an amp that wasn't too loud or I would have purchased another model from Firebelly.