Harley Benton TUBE15 Head

Excellent quality price ratio. Let's see how it stands the test of time, but at first glance, after about a month of testing, it seems worth at least double the price, both in terms of sound and quality. It has more headroom than I expected, though it can only handle clean tones with 'delicate' drummers and flexibility (from clean to crunch, decent pedal platform, and good poweramp), it gives its best when used at home, on those evenings when you want to enjoy the sound of tubes without it costing an arm and a leg.... Of course, everything should be considered relative to the price, not as an absolute value. Pleasantly surprised.

Shortly after seeing a review about a Harley Benton cabinet and hearing the good things about it, this Tube15 head appeared in my social media and I took a look. The price point with shipping was too good to pass up and I ordered one and had it shipped to California, USA. I decided while waiting for it to arrive, that I would rewire the power transformer to run on our 120v electricity. I knew it would void the warranty, but never planned to send it back, since I can take care of any issues. It was a simple operation to change the transformer wiring from serial to parallel and switch the internal fuse to match. After a couple of tests to make sure the transformer was working, I plugged the tubes back in, plugged one of my guitars in and started to play around with the knobs. It’s a very solid tube amp! I’m quite impressed.

There is a lot of hype behind “hand wired” amps, but in reality, as long as the PCB(s) is good quality - which it seemed upon opening the amp up to rewire the transformer there really isn’t much of a difference on how the amp will sound. I’ve built a hand wired amp and compared the two.

I really like that this amp has a tank reverb and effects send/return. The reverb is a little tame, but I’m not complaining, since it is a real spring tank. The 1 watt attenuator is a bonus as well. I probably won’t have much use for it, but I like that the option is built in. The case is solidly built and looks good. The metal grill in the back is heavy duty and should take any accidental hits without issue and protect the tubes. Speaking of the tubes, despite being no name Chinese tubes, they seem to be good quality and the fact they survived shipping from Germany to the US speak for themselves. I will eventually replace them with higher quality tubes, but for now, they work!

A good buy in my eyes - I looked around and I could not find a new 15w tube amp here in the US that comes even close in price, even when including shipping. I think I may also have the first of these amps in the US (converted to run on our power grid)! My only really small complaint is the chrome/mirror finish of the face plate and black font. It becomes next to or impossible to read from certain angles.

~ A very happy US customer