I finally got to crank it today.
1st this is a really seriously loud amp, even at 1/2 power it would be loud enough for most situations and I even think my 50watt HRM would struggle to keep up with it on 1/2 power. Full power would drown out most drummers I know, but then again most drummers I know are old farts like me.
I found the clean channel a bit bright with Strats but good for Les Pauls and with both guitars I prefer the tube rectifier tone over the solid state.
The Gain channel is an understatement, even with gain 8 o'clock there is plenty there.
My amp still needs burning in, it sounds very in your face. My HRM was like that when it was new, so it needs a few hours under it's belt for everything to settle down.
Also I think I have a dodgy solder joint I have to track down. I was getting a few distorted after tones on both the channels.
But apart from that I am pretty impressed with it, a good amp for rock
Very similar to my experience. I actually thought the clean channel was a little dark at first with cheap Chinese 12AX7's I was using for testing. I now have new stock Svetlanas in all the pre-amp positions and it's much brighter on both channels, and a touch less gainy. You can always roll back the Brilliance a bit to darken the amp overall, and then use the Edge to give the bite back to the gain channel if necessary.
Just a killer amp.