I'm about to jump into the wide world of tube amps after years of playing through a pathfinder 15, and the NT15h and Blackheart BH15 both end up nicely within my price range and volume tolerance. I love the chimey vox sound and was all set to grab the night train, but when I tried it out in the store I was surprised by how similar it sounded to the pathfinder from cleans into light OD. I guess I was expecting to be blown away by the differences and wasn't. I don't tend to play on higher gain settings, so I'm debating about whether the sound quality merits the price difference.

I'm not able to try out the Blackheart, but I stumbled across this youtube video New Orleans Guitar Company Model 8 with Blackheart Handsome Devil.wmv - YouTube and rather enjoy those glassy sounding cleans, which, along with the price, put it into contention.

I'd be playing with my reverend roundhouse rt and a vintage utah 1x12 speaker cabinet. Particularly interested in hearing about reliability, since I'll likely be gigging (mic'ed) with whichever one I decide on.

I like the Blackheart stuff. They're generally cheap, reliable, and sound good with only minor tweaks. I'm using the bh15h with a 2x10 cabinet and it has plenty of headroom for a decent sized club gig.

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Thanks for the response! Any particular tweaks you recommend? It looks like I can pick one up used for $275. Any problems with noisiness? Any rebuttals from happy vox users?

I've had the 5w head and combo, the 15w head, and the 100w head. All of them benefited from these two:
1. Change the tubes.
2. The AC supply wires lay loosely across the PCB, which tends to create some hum. Use some zipties to bundle them and secure them towards the edge of the board for an appreciable noise reduction. You can also reroute them as described here, but I found that simply tying them off away from the board was sufficient.

Other than that, there are tons of mods available. Some can be pricey and involve replacing components, others are simple, such as removing the tone stack.

Either way, I like this amp and will probably continue using it for a while.

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I'm just two people short of a threesome.