spacecadet wrote:I think I've realized that I probably am just a Marshall person going back to when I was younger and had that old tube combo amp, but I can't afford one of their professional amps, and that's mostly what they do...I think I've decided that ideally what I'm looking for is a two channel amp, clean and overdrive, with spring reverb. The Haze 40 seems to come closest at this price (the main downside being the digital reverb), and it sounds like a Marshall.
That opens up a lot more affordable choices than trying to do Fender or Vox sounds on a budget.
Don't overlook some of the newer 'not-so-big-name' amps, like all the recent lower-to-mid-wattage Blackstars and Egnaters and Traynors and the like that are all over the place now. I picked a Blackstar up for $250 on Craigslist last fall on a whim just because it was cheap, and it actually turned out to be quite nice, particularly after changing out the tubes. Even the reverb's surprisingly usable, if you can live without the 'ccccrassssshhhhh' mechanical-chaos part of the spring reverb sound.
I also see Marshal-esque things like 5150/6260/JSX combos for pretty affordable prices used on CL and elsewhere. The key is to save up some money, research and come up with a list of acceptable models, and then be ready to jump fast when a deal comes up.
'Excellent! A little more practice will make you a regular whale. Now, if I may trouble you to unlace my back and front plates two holes more, I'll try that fascinating bend that you say is so easy. Won't Painted Jaguar be surprised!' ~ Rudyard Kipling