I was just listening to some clips of the newer version of this amp and it sounds very good. It sounds very similar to a JCM 800 2203 straight and boosted. The Butcher gets into hard rock and kind of heavy metal with nothing in front of it and sounds very/very good at it. I can imagine with just a some more push it can do speed/thrash metal. I was very surprised how well this amp sounds. It is an EL34 amp as well with a good amount of features. Anyone have one? Opinions?