Positive: TONE, TONE, TONE, TONE! A huge variety of tones are offered from the tubes loaded into the ba115hpt. The 15" speaker rly brings out the warmth of the tubes. I find huge, bittersweet, dark and atmospheric tone from this baby. But great slapping and general rock tones come with ease too. The volume and master controls are the deciding factor to how vintage your sound will be. The horn control helps control how soft or harsh you want your sound to be. And the on-board tuner and mute switch save lots of time and prevent annoying others.

Negative: Volume. The amp gets plenty practice loud, but not rly gigging loud. Its uasable for smaller gigs, but def not anything more than a large coffe shop. Comfortably porting this amp is a slight problem; its rather heavy and slightly off-balance. Though my remedy to this is placing the heavy side against my chest and using the handles on the side.

I bought this amp for $800. A few weeks later, $300 dollars came off the standard price tag. Worth my money, but for the sale prices a great steal. I would highly recomend this amp for recording.

Positives: Great tone with the tubes, great features (headphones out, cd in jack, tuner), portable, removable casters are great, good looking, easy to repair, ease of dialing in the sound you want.

Negatives: knobs break off because they are exposed and if you plan on moving it around to gigs, this may be an issue when it gets tossed around with other equipment. Depending on the size of your band/venue, it can be hard to crank the volume, after about a dozen gigs with the volume around 8 it definitly starts to show its age, meaning lots of buzzing that I can't seem to clear up, the earlier review about the cell phone interference is completly correct (it goes crazy with buzzing in the vicinity of cell phones), not easy to "upgrade".

If you're looking for a studio amp, or something to practice with, this is your deal...but if you're seriously looking to gig, go with a separate head and cab, you it will be easier and cheaper in the long run to upgrade.

I think that it is important to remember to use your equipment for what it is intended for. With that said, this is a great little combo amp! It is not a 600 watt stack... It is not necessarily intended to be a standalone unit for giggins. Don't get me wrong: 220 watts is plenty of power for a small/medium sized gig. However, if you crank the gain and the volume to 11 in order to be heard over the guitars, you will blow this amp, just like any other amp. There's an XLR out, so you can either run through the house PA or have your guitar players turn down. :)

As far as this amp goes, you get decent power and great tone. It's Ampeg, so you get Ampeg quality. For me, I've had good experiences with Ampeg amps. I just ordered this one from another online vender's B-stock, and it is everything that I could expect from an inexpensive combo. Good tone, good volume.

I own this Amps little brother(Ba115)while this amp belongs to my college. When I saw the music department had actually gotten the amp I suggested I was amazed!

However,after a few months it started to lose its volume and "omff". It started crackling up and even cutting out somedays. I am just waiting for the day when i plug in and nothing happens. I am no electronics "Wiz" but I think either the preamp tube is coming lose or something along the lines of that, or, the speaker has taken a beating.

I blame this on the metal head guitarists that turn everything up 2 ten because its not loud enough.

It is a similar story to my amp. I get nothing out of mine anymore at all. It's dead.

These are great Amps while they last and my issues with 2 of these Amps shouldn't stop you from trying them out. Maybe a new speaker or regular check ups could help.

I play with Warwick corvette standard 5 strings. The amp has very good tube sound, good punch good bright sound, but it has a buzzing sound came with the punch, the buzzig come from down to the left of the amp, every time you make a punch the buzzing come out too.. it is not a big deal if you play in band nobody hear it even youself. I try to play in concert for a night club 300 people size with out PA system this amp can handle it Vol 6 master 7(if you know how to control sound for live band), but my sound eng put it to PA a litte bit just in case. I don't use input -15db because it drop too much so i put it to 0db even my bass is Active, (Volune 10 master 10 Amp still alive Good speaker with musicman bass) ...Overall this amp is very good sound for combo amp, easy to carry