[skeksis]

thx for the thoughtful responses. yep, side-by-side, the 12-15w PR with 1x10" good speaker (C10N type) has a fair bit more clean headroom than the 20-25w Airline with 2x12" inefficient alnicos. it defies common sense when they're side-by-side... but that's it. WARMTH :-) yeah, I think that's what I'm looking for.

the intonation/tuning on my old guitar isn't bad, but that's in the context of an uncompensated saddle and a bigsby on 24" scale neck... I have to tweak the tuning a hair to get good results, but when things are a smidge off, it really jumps out with the PR

SO, a tweed-leaning circuit creeping up into >30w territory is probably closer to getting me there. wonder if I could get my hands on a tweed pro or super kit? or clone? I'm a little partial to 10's, but not for any reason I can explain. hmmm...