Re: Please school me in 5E3 amps/similar amps (discussion thread)
This totally is not a troll, but this is my experience with what it sounds like you want to do with your amp setup.
About a year ago, I thought the same thing you did - I'll get a smaller, low wattage tube amp and then I'll just get all my drive from that! I already had a Siverface Champ, but the 8" speaker wasn't really something you'd want to gig with. So I decided to go the next step up and get a 5E3. I built myself a clone from Mission Amps. The amp turned out excellent and the overdriven tone is all I wanted it to be. But... then came the real world limitations. My band was not impressed to hear how loud it was at rehearsal. I had to turn it down. Then I brought it to a gig. The soundman made me turn it down (way down). Finally, I ended up buying an attenuator (Weber MiniMass). It helped - A LOT. I was able to drive the amp but now I could actually control the volume. Still, I found the set up for stage use a bit messy. Finally, I got turned on to a pedal called the Lovepedal Les Lius. It does all sorts of cranked tweed amp tone - and it does them VERY well.
Now, I'm actually using my larger higher wattage amps (Vibrolux 40w, and Bassman LTD 50w) at gigs and using the pedal for driven tone. I'm getting much better tone because I can get the sound I want at pretty much whatever volume the situation requires. I haven't played through my 5E3 in quite some time now.
This is the one drawback to the approach of trying to tailor the wattage of the amp to the gig or situation you're playing - and especially since most of these Fender tweed clones are single volume knob amps (no master). You have ONE volume level. If you turn it down, you lose your crunch. If you need more volume, there's nowhere to go. I've still got my 5E3 and Champ, but they're mainly for home and studio use now. The little amps are excellent in the studio.
Just some food for thought dude. I've been down the road you're on, and found it not to be great in terms of being practical and applicable to different situations.
20w gets LOUD and even at "3" it can be surprisingly efficient.... heck it blows away my Vibrolux on "5" and that's supposed to be 40w.
For the classic rock and roll Americana sound I think it's perfect (which is why I bought it in the first place), but the volume thing is a consideration as it's not as linear as glowing reviews would like you to believe.
