Re: which amp should I take ?
I know this isn't a great recommendation because you have to assemble the thing yourself, but I've been playing the baby will (18w, single volume/single tone) pretty much nonstop since I built the thing. One thing though is good preamp tubes go a long way - I've got a NOS 5751 in v1 and a 12ay7 in v2 and man that thing rips.
Because it's only 18w you don't have to worry about feedback as much depending on the size of the room - pretty much anything bigger than a bedroom though and you're good.
If you're handy with a soldering iron it's like $250 in parts not including the cabinet/speaker - and IMO worth every penny. Seriously, you just dime the amp and the volume knob on your guitar will take you from achingly beautiful cleans to ted nugent and AC/DC - if you need more gain than that any of the bluesbreaker-based pedals are fantastic. I have a general guitar gadgets marshall bluesbreaker clone I recently modded to nearly-KoT specs (everything except one capacitor) and even before all the mods it was great. After the mods it's on another planet though.
I mean, you can get vintage led zeppelin dirty/clean sounds, pink floyd-esque cleans, red hot chili pepper funky spank, that thick ZZ top grind - and that's just with a telecaster. I seriously think this may be the best all-around amp for jazz/blues/rock/funk/country in small to medium sized venues. It doesn't have the oomph of a 50w, or the clean headroom to play jazz over a heavy handed drummer, but if you want something that's plug and play, and sounds all kinds of good, and doesn't have too many knobs to fiddle with, then search no more.
I don't know if you can find a used 18w baby will (you can find the boards and parts list at
www.guitaramplifierpcbs.com) but if you can that IMO would be a good option so long as you swapped out the preamp tubes (IMO the 12ax7 tubes the kit recommends have too much gain - really only about half of the volume knob is useable unless you get a lower gain preamp tube or two).
My second choice would be the fender hot rod series - I've played a few hot rod deluxes (40w I believe) and they've all been really useable at a wide array of gain and volume settings. Good all around amp and there's plenty of them floating around.
