Where are your income taxes going?

I have a 62 ac30, current ac30hw2, matchless hc30 and a vox ac4hw1 (for knocking around the house). I mostly have the new ac30 so i can baby the valuable old one. The new one gets close and has a few of its own tricks. The matchless is ac30ish but has the tight, punchy response of a marshall. Its its own thing really though it can do convincing ac30 and plexi impressions when set right. Its gainier and the power section has a more hifi response. You have heard hc30s allover the radio, particularly in country music since the 90s.

I have owned various marshalls (including a couple nice superleads and a seeet 50 watt vertical input 800) and a laney gh50l. A suproand other vintage cheapies. Tweed fenders and gibsons. And ofcourse lots of blackface fenders. I always come back to vox and fender. But i was forced to sell my bandmaster and miss having an old fender head to get my 6L6 tone on... The tremolux is the most restrained wattage 6l6 black fender at about 30 watts.a bandmaster is 35 to 40, a bassman 45 plus. Those few watts change the sweet spot for ideal clean tone by a few critical dB. The bandmaster and tremolux share a small output tranformer that eats some power and tightens the bass and mids compared to the black bassman or huge 80watt twin and showman. The tremolux is further toned down by a tube rectifier that limits the transient response due tovoltage sag giving a pleasing compression when set above 3. Bad for you as a bassist,but thats why fender made the bassman for bass OR guitar. For me it might be ideal as a deluxe reverb doesn't have enough headroom for me at 22 watts and tje bandmaster is a little loud for a lot of applications. I find the bassman to be boomy with some guitars i own and they are a crapshoot as people used to mod them in the 70s and they often are not completely originaleven when they look it.

If I were to open a recording studio and I had the funds for 5 guitar amps, I would buy

Marshall Super Lead

VOX AC30

Peavey 6505+

Diesel VH4

Kemper - Anything else I needed, I would just download. I can see people wanting a Krankenstein, Roland, Mesa, etc.

I would do a similar basic list but i would get a 50 watt plexi to save myself attenuating too much. Superleads are impractical studio amps. I tracked a whole record with a trio of them and a couple showmans. They kick out so much spl it is hard to capture the tone without attenuating because they need to be isolated in a booth when tracking as a band. A pushed super)ead and 100 logo 4x12 need a big room to 'bloom'. If you think you aren't going to record entirely as layers of overdubs on every session the supers are way extra. 50 watt marshalls are balls out loud by any standard but still a whisker more manageable and have a smoother sound that lends itself better to close micing when you need to isolate them.

I would also buy a 60s fender super or pro reverb and tweed deluxe or small tweed gibson for a commercial facility. Maybe a slo100 or evh5150iii for high gain over the 6505. Maybe a herbert over a vh4. Or an engl model.

But i am not opening a studio. Been there, done that. It sucks. I buy gear for my own needs and amusement these days.

Seems like a pretty versatile rig for a non specific studip. Why the 6505 over the 5150?

I love Glenn Fricker's setup for metal;

5150 - An all around pretty great high output, high gain amp 5150 (Bias mids mod) - The same thing with the option for an awesome mid section, that seems to sound pretty great, though I've never played one, or heard one in the flesh. Dual rec - Classic pretty good metal amp, perfect for that Metallica, thrashy gainy sound Triple Rec - Revv generator - Fairly new on the block, but sounds great. A true modern classic Marshally plexi thing?

He also has some very interesting mic placement, a good rack of wonderful lovliness which I can't rememeber, and some top preamps, and pedals, which helps the huge sound needed.

the triple rec and 5150 are in so many ways the exact same amp... seriously, look at a schematic, if you take aaway all the bells and whistles that revoice the preamp and just go with all the odern settings, go with solid state rectifier mode and don't use raw mode the triple rec IS a 5150 with independent tonestacks across 3 channels.... the 5150II is even closer with the independent channels... both are poor man's Soldano Slo100s

so the field has narrowed... vintage 70s MIJ ES339-style guitar in road worn cosmetic condition (the dealer who has offered it o me is consigning it, so he took pics and gave it back to the owner so he can only tell me what he remembers about it when it was in the shop being added to his site inventory and that weirds me out)...

OR an 80s Gibson LP jr reissue modified for a humbucker and badly oversprayed with black bicycle paint (It looks kinda cool, but I am sure the bike paint is not good for the tone....I can get this unfortunate junior for a pittance and fix her up as I have time... which may be never, so I am not sure I want a restoration project of this magnitude, there is a good chance that as I try to remove the black spray paint I will take the heritage cherry lacquer off too, hrrrm... otherwise this is a hella nice I with the wrap bridge, double cut, big neck, just killer BONES)...

OR 70s traynor PA head that is only a few components away from Pete Townshend's signature 70s Hiwatt heads. The traynor is very tempting as I love Hiwatts but can't afford one, and I especially love The Who's Hiwatt sound. At a conservative 50 watt rating its a bit loud for me, but I want the cleanness. The handwiring, 4 independent channels and massive old Hammond transformers and choke make this worth the $375 buy in. Its also an easy mod platform if I wanna bring it to exact hiwatt specs. Its just a few cap and resistor values. An hours worth of soldering and a whopping 5 bucks in parts. ..

OR I can go with 40 watts of tasty, old fender clean and buy GC's 65 Bandmaster head for $500. Its mint, works well and is a great, classic fender head from arguably their finest era.

My friend with the tremolux is not yet ready to sell... oh well.

I do not actually NEED any of this stuff. Or any stuff at all, but GAS is strong. I haven't gotten a new toy in a while, and not a big ticket toy since summer of '15. I am trying to keep my costs around 600 bucks so I am only spending FOUND money, hence why the options are fixer uppers and such.... also, if I can get the seller to budge on the junior I can maybe get the amp and a fixer upper Gibson without spending much or even ANY of my actual income or savings. If I go with the vintage semi-hollow or Fender amp I cannot buy two items in good conscience as I will go way over budget.

Thoughts?

bought the traynor, packed and shipped... negotiated the dude down low enough that I might buy a guitar too