Harley Benton TUBE15 Celestion

I bought this amp in november 2021 and felt is was better to wait with a review after the "honeymoon" was over. But after three months I'm still happily married. :)
I'm a professional player for over 40 years and studio-owner/producer and I own way to much equipment, as far as that's possible ;) Most of those amps cost way more than this Tube 15.
But I'm going to to do a theatretour and because I wanted to travel light I decided not to bring one of my Fender amps (it probably would have been a 1991 Blues de Luxe or a Blues Junior because those are the snallest combos I have) and no large pedalboard.
I'd already heard of this amp sometime ago and after reading many reviews and watching numerous clips I ordered one, because I was almost sure it could do the job.
And it can. This is a serious amp, absolutely not just for starters.
It has nice cleans, a nice crunche and even some serious distortion without the need for a booster or other pedal. Use your volumepot, but make sure you have a good "treblebleed". You'll be surprised.
the EQ works fine, the tonepot is a nice extra feature and the reverb does the job. The effectsloop is also a feature that in my opinion should be on any amp for the time-based fx. No stand by, but own more amps without one, like my early Peavey Delta Blues and it never bothered me.
No cons?? Not really and that's not even considering the price. I've heard people not liking the stock Celestion-sspeaker. So far I've only compared it with a Celestion V30 and that wasn't an improvement for me. I will for sure try other tubes in the near future, but so far they're ok. Yep, nice amp!!!

Forget the sound samples this amp sounds much better when you are actually in the room with it. Fantastic amount of features on this amp that you might expect on an amp costs 3 or 4 times the price. Even many of those amps haven't got as many features and extras ( think Fender or Vox). This amp sounds great and will do anything right up to a Classic Rock tone. For me the most useful features are the ability to run a pre-amp pedal into the Fx loop section and the ability to run it into another speaker Cabinet. Also having ability to run other effects into the Fx loop is a real bonus.

Using the amp directly I find that the Tone Control is another very useful feature and it really makes a difference, giving this amp great flexibility of sound above and over what you get from the 3 band Eq. I tend to use this between 1 o clock and 3 O clock to brighten up the amp. The Gain really comes alive past 2 O clock mark and still increases all the way to max. Past 3 O clock you get into Classic Rock territory. However even at the 1 watt setting this is still a loud amp. To overcome this problem I run mine out to cheap 1 x10 cabinet via a Harley Benton PA-100 Power Attenuator to bring it down to a range of bedroom practice levels. It really works so other people in house can easily watch TV without being disturbed etc. Using the 15 w setting you could easily do a small venue.

My only criticism would be the speaker. It's ok but I find the bass a bit boomy and it lacks a bit of detail in the mids. For the price it's ok. For a beginner it's also great. But this is where the compromise is being made in it's manufacture and what keeps it below the £350 mark. However I fed this into a cheap 1x10 cabinet ( cost about £60) that was well broke in and all these problems fell away which indicates the amplifier itself is an absolute gem. Maybe if I took the time to break the amp's own speaker in I may have a different impression. To conclude I am well satisfied with the amp and it's a no brainer at the current price. Because of the fx loop you can really get creative with this amp if you know what you are doing. You can get stuff to make it sound like a Marshall or a Vox for example and because it's all tube it sounds so much better than digital modelling ever could, even those units costing 4 times as much.

The amp came in perfect condition from Thomann as almost every time I purchased something from here.
Right out of the box it sounded very nice but I ordered a V30 speaker and replaced the stock one because I was planning to use it in high volumes as in live jams and sessions and the V30s sound better to me than the stock speaker at that volumes. It actually excelled during rock jams with a hard hitting drummer and with the volume around 5 with all the EQ between 5-6 and gain to 3-4.
The stock valves sound great to me. The amp has no noise or hum even at high volume and gain settings, so I am not planning to replace them.
It also works perfectly as a pedal platform and the 1W option, the reverb and the fx loop are additional features not expected in that price range.
With the stock speaker inside, it is very lightweight but the V30 speaker added some significant weight as expected. Not too much though as I am almost 50 and I can carry the guitar, the pedal bag and this amp at the same time with no big effort. That was my initial plan and the reason I first thought of buying that specific amp and it worked.
Not impressed with the spring reverb but i am not into Rockabilly or other reverb oriented music styles so for me it currently does the job along with a delay pedal I have in the fx loop and saves me from a reverb pedal.
I cannot say anything about its durability as I have it almost a month. I hope it lasts forever.
Overall, I am very pleased with the purchase. 5 stars for that price. With the new V30 speaker, I spent 400 euros in total. With that amount I couldn't buy any other amp even used with these features and sound.

I was ready to pull the trigger on a asian made, brand name dual channel 20W tube amp (that i previously owned once) for twice the money and switched at the last moment for this one. I gambled.. and (so far) I won. I find the Celestion 80 speaker in this amp way better than I found it to be in other budget amps and I cannot say yet why.. might be the tubes (mine came with TAD power tubes and chinese preamp tubes - later ones I changed with JJ's) or the amp itself but the speaker doesn't have the harshness and the piercing highs I used to hear in other amps. The amp looks great and doesn't have any estetic flaws (has similar build quality with other bigger brand asian made amps). The 1W setting is very usable at a livingroom level and you can get decent distorted tone but you'll have to make some noise for it - nothing beats headphones for a very quiet practice. The 15W mode on the other hand is awsome for giging or band practice and will compete with an acoustic drum set just fine. The tone with the knobs at noon is decent using a stratocaster, but a bit faded (no high sparkle) and lacks a bit of presence, but you can dial up to a certain point your tone using the knobs. For further tone dial options I recommend an eq pedal last in the fx loop section witch will eliminate any need of speaker upgrade - again, I cannot belive i am prasing a speaker that I have replaced 2-3 times before in other amps. With the gain turned past 12 o'clock and Volume about the same, the amp has a very natural fat and creamy distorsion on the strat bridge pickup that can satisfy all classic rock and blues fans out there. The reverb is organic and true to its nature and even though one migh ask for a deeper setting I never found the need to turn it past 12 o'clock.

This amp has amazing value and I recommend it to people who need good giging tone and dynamics on a decent pedal platform that you can use both home and on stage. The fact that you get amazing tone by only pluggind the guitar and dial its knobs is proof that this amp deservers some consideration.

This is hands down the best small tube amp value in the world. However, it does require some additional investment. I must mention that US buyers need to be aware of the 240v power supply and the necessity of a step up transformer that weighs a ton. Also, the cabinet can make any speaker sound bad. The stock speaker is pretty cheesy. That all said, through my 1-12” cabinet loaded with a Jensen 100 watt alnico Blackbird, this amp is wonderful.
Headroom is limited. Robust, detailed cleans aren’t really available, but rolling down the guitar volume produces serviceable rhythm tones. From 10-12 o’clock on the preamp volume gives a tweed Deluxe-like tone reminiscent of Larry Carlton’s Nightfly sounds. That’s where I live. Above that, it is the sound of rock. Pegged, you’re in Angus Young territory.
The global tone control is super useful. Set it to noon and then dial in the 3 band eq. If you change guitars, make your adjustments on the tone knob. Easy. The reverb is not awful. The loop works fine.
I’ve owned a few el84 powered amps, a Dr. Z Maz 18 and Maz 38 Studio Deluxe, a Vox Pacemaker and this hangs with all of them. I actually think I like it more. Kudos to the designer who made an amp using cheap Chinese off-the-shelf components sound this good.

ok - there's no escaping the price here. this would be fantastic value at twice the price.
Pros:
its a great sounding, very versatile amp. the 1W setting is perfect for getting some crunch at home volumes. At full power its loud enough to gig with, although you may wish for more headroom.
very useable SPRING reverb.
Speaker gets a bad rep, but is actually fine once you break it in.
power tubes (surprisingly) were TAD (tube amp doctor).
3-band EQ with 'tone' master control is very nice .
Cosmetically very nicely finished.

Cons:
-cabinet is somewhat thin MDF - fine at the price point
-the cabinet is about as small as it physically could be - a factor of the 'big speaker/small cabinet' is a tendency for these amps to have tube rattle on first power tube (seems to be a common issue)- this is minor, but annoying, can be fixed by use of tube damper rings (a side note - Thomann were very responsive and helpful with this, so thanks).
- no name preamp tubes are only ok - I swapped in some tungsol - improved the sound significantly.

In summary - a 50euro investment on some new pre-amp tubes and tube vibration damper rings will put this from the great to the amazing

The Tube15 is a Great Little Amp. It ticks many boxes - It's loud, it's small, it's well made and it has a built in real spring reverb. The inclusion of an effects send / return loop is something very useful and often not seen at this price point - and what a price point it is!!
The Tube15 is easily loud enough to play gigs with.
It has a lot of gain - maybe too much gain - for those of you wanting a loud clean sound it may be nessacery to swop out the 1st 12AX7 tube for a 12AT7 or even a 12AU7 to reduce early breakup.
The tone controls are typical of this type of amp and are not as "wide sweeping" as more modern circuits. (perhaps 6db/octave rather than 12)
The only thing I didn't like was the sound of the speaker cab and speaker combination. There is not a lot of bottom end "push". I kept comparing it to my Fender Mustang lll cab which sounded SO much better