Straight out of the box ,I was surprised how good this was, no fizzyness, very quiet, excellent and very loud cleans and the distorted sound is brilliant, sounds good down low too ,but so much better at close to full power, but don't try this at home the roof will probably take off and loose windows will follow, I built a isobox from 6x 122cmx 60cm sheets of 18 mm mdf and lots of rock wool and lots of glue and 2 million screws, put a 16 ohm celestion creamback in it and miked it with sm57 and senheisser mk4 going into the souncard and yamaha hs8's .........bliss.... and its hard to get a good sounding gtr in hs 8's, so very happy and I can turn it all the way up if needed , and not destroy everybody's ears, but don't need to as the sweet spot comes in a lot earlier, hope it will last as it a great sounding amp. really shines when you turn it up, as with all tube amps. This is a very simple amp and its so easy to dial in compared to a lot of others.