I really like the clean sound on a Fender twin reverb.. but I hated the fact that it won't distort no matter what, even if you turn it to intolerable volume. I guess you could use a twin reverb and a pedal...

Even a 30 watt amp has quite a bit of clean headroom and can be heard on stage. 100 watt tube head isn't really all that, its only 3 db louder than a 50 watt head, but then its probably better if you're one of those types who plays cleans all the time.

You could also get a Fender twin reverb, I heard those got tons of clean headroom.

How do I add an effect loop to the plexi? is it as simple as taking the signal to power amp and turn them into a jack?

I really need a 4x12 but I can't afford one right now... now using a crap homemade 1x10...

I have the 1987 clone and I wonder what other tubes that fits in the socket works with this amp? other than EL34 of course...

Given all these metal stars using mesa boogies why not have a mesa boogie dual rec clone?

I would get the headshell or cabs locally... shipping for heavy item like this will be a LOT. I made my own headshell by joining pieces of pre-made shelf from a local hardware store. It doesn't look proper but it does its job nicely.

Hi, I got a Plexi clone from ceriatone a few months ago. With any amp you can always ask Nik to install a master volume which will help in getting the right tube saturation without excessive volume, improving the versatility of the amp by a LOT. There are 50 watt version of the JCM800 as well, and 100/50 watt isn't really much different in terms of volume, in fact a 60 watt amp is as loud as a 100 watt amp. The only difference with a 100 watt amp is bigger power supply, more tubes (therefore more maintainence issues) with probably 3db volume gain.

The plexi 50 sounds like any hard rock sound when overdriven (Think guns n roses, Helloween, or any other classic metal) but to get the really hard distorted sound modern death metal is known for you will probably want to use a pedal. I think most bands (like as in professional) that does death metal doesn't even use tube amp but uses TONS of effects or perhaps a pedal in front of a Mesa Boogie or something.

My advise is go with any 50 watt amp (probably Marshall type) and ask Nik to install a master volume (get the external bias too, it makes biasing easy without killing yourself). With the master volume the control will go where the pilot light normally goes and you just control the amount of gain with the "volume" control and dial in the amount of volume needed with the master volume. Keep in mind that it won't sound the same as no master volume (as in master turned all the way up) but it will sound better than your normal volume on .5 just to get it to not wake anyone up.