[LGOberean]

Again, I appreciate all the info.

wildschwein, thanks for that informative post, and the pics. I thought about the Studio Pro, but I just wasn't sure about going with a single channel.

91xlntS-3, I am tending towards finding something older at this point. As I said earlier, I won't rule out an MIC, but I'm tending toward MIA.

Thursday I was at the local GC for the kickoff of their holiday sales promotion. I was disappointed to find out that they do not carry the TransTube series. (I wonder, is this true of all GCs, or just the one here?) So since I was there, I played Teles (an AV52RI and an MIA Std) through a ValveKing 112 Combo and then through a Vypyr 30.

The VK sounded pretty good, warm and clean. But I'm just not sure about committing to the maintenance of a tube amp. I'm looking for maintenance free, worry-free reliability, and from what I'm reading that's just not tube. (Correct me if I'm wrong, guys, and point me in the right direction.) So as of now I'm looking for warm and clean in SS circuitry, and I keep hearing that Peavey is the way to go.

The Vypyr just didn't do it for me. This amp struck me as an amp suited for metal/thrash/I-never-use-the-clean-channel style, but that just isn't me at all. I probably wouldn't use most of the amp models it has, likewise the effects. For the most part, I found them unusable.

Thanks for the tip about the Express. I've read more about the Bandit and the Envoy, haven't seen much on the Express, but a 12" speaker and 65 watts sounds good to me. I'll have to check that out.