Wattage ratings can be misleading, I'll presume this is a Class A amplifier, and 22 watts Class A is actually pretty powerful...as Greg said, and I can well imagine, the headroom is high and probably gets some nice warm organic breakup as the volume goes up. On a side note, Fender just started putting out huge 300 watt tube heads again...I'm a fan of big rocking stick sounds, and I can imagine about 4 of these 22 watters on the melody and one of the 300 watters on the bass side being a pretty huge and bold sound, if you dig that sorta thing.

So far it puts out plenty of sound and seems to have a huge reservoir of headroom.

Getting some great distortion sounds out of the SE-70, and enjoying turning off the speaker simulator and just hearing the analog distortion processor into the amp.

Greg,
just ordered a BlackStar Club 40, all tube.... thanks for the inspiration!

You can thank Alex Nahas. Hearing him with Bright Brown last spring really convinced me to go that route, and Giancarlo with MAtchsticks.

I'm really getting into the tremolo sound, hence the Fender choice....

Ahhh crap, this talk might lead me to a purchase...My current rig is majorly unwieldy, but I really like the big sound. I've been thinking of putting together a smaller rig with similar characteristics to my big rig, 'cause my playing skills are getting to the level where I'd like to maybe attempt some gigging. A smaller tubey Fender sounds pretty tempting...I'd probably use my Line 6 on the bass side, it's actually a pretty tweakable and cost friendly amp, and it's definitely got some portability.

I used to use a Marshall Super Bass and a 4x12 for bass side and a 50 watt head and 2x12 for Melody. Crazy to transport and ungodly loud. Got Mesas with master volumes and everything is much better as far as volume control and overall sound quality. I went with the Mesa Roadster and ditched all my distortions and fuzz boxes too (4 channel amp) I run a flanger and an echo in the fx loop and call it Enough.

I'm pretty keen on the LoneStars, I watched a video of Andy Timmons playing through a bunch of Mesa stuff, and the LoneStar in particular sounded pretty righteous. I was a bit averse to Mesa for the longest time, because I'd always associtated it with Nu-Metal, but dammit if they don't make some pretty decent gear. I've had to send my M9 carbine in for repair twice though, but they turn it around real quick and are great to deal with.

I can clone any guitar amp sound I want with my Mesa Roadster.

Just following up, this video was recorded with both Stick sides running through the amp, and a mic placed in front. Since the lowest bass note is a G above guitar low E I thought it was safe to do so. No reverb, just the straight sound in the room.

The pickup in question is a Stickup.



This video was also recorded using the amp on the melody side:



again no reverb.

In both cases the StepABout, with the eq bypassed, was used so that I could also record a direct signal as a safety for mixing. In the 3rd video, there's some bleed from the amp into the headset mic as well.

I didn't really notice any discernable difference in the tone between plugging straight into the amp and putting the StepABout in between, with no eq. I think the clarity and quietness of the preamp shows up more in full-range monitoring situations.

Last night I played the loudest gig to date, with the UpTet. The amp held it's own, and by the end of the night I could tell it was cranking out pretty much all it had. I could still hear it very distinctly, and having the bass side go through my SWR/Bag Eng rig separately made each sound distinctive and clear, even with loud drums, percussion, flute and trumpet to contend with.