Alright, now that I've had it for a few months, it's time for you all to hear about my new (well... old) Ampeg VT-22 (recently bought on ebay, for those of you who didn't read the thread awhile back).

Ok... so at first I hated it... I got really mad at myself for letting all of LATS raving get to me. The problem with it was it just didn't give me a useable tone... I couldn't get that jazz sound, or the SRV sound I've been longing for.

I took a twenty foot chord, put the amp in my garage, opened tthe garage door, put the amp on 10, and played the start spangled banner. That was actually pretty cool, but nevertheless I still wasn't happy.

So I messed with the EQ for hours, and days, and weeks... I went online and read more reviews of the amp, finding out that you needed to tweak it to the max to get the sound you're looking for.

And at long last...

I found a useable tone, but it's still not what I'm looking for. I've found a way to get a nice funk tone, but the amp in general sounds really harsh to me. Maybe it's just because this isn't the typical fender amp that I could just leave flat and still great a fantastic tone out of.

But I'm hoping that I can find the magic of this amp eventually...

but I am peeved about two things -

Weight: This thing is so darn heavy, and I probably wouldn't mind that if I had found the perfect tone by now. Unfortunately that hasn't happened yet, and now weight is just one more thing getting on my nerves...

The second thing is that it just sounds old. The amp buzzes and rattles like nothing I've ever heard before. On some specific notes I'll hear a loud spring buzz that sounds like the reverb spring. Sometimes, and this is the worst of all, it just starts ringing (you know, like the "this is only a test" sound from the broadcasting company on TV?). And no matter what I do - turn off the volume of the guitar, turn down the volume of the amp, turn down the reverb, it just continues. I have to turn the amp off and on to stop it. The control panel also moves around at the top (like it shakes), and I don't know if it's supposed to do this.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not going to give up on this amp, after all the good things I've heard abou it. But it isn't living up to the name as of right now.

So please help - what can I do to save myself from thinking I made a terrible purchase?

Thanks!