The Rolling Stones road-tested the prototypes and the first production models of the Ampeg SVT on their 1971 US tour. Back in those days, PA systems were just stupid-useless. If you wanted to fill an arena, you had to to line the back of the stage with huge stacks of amps and speakers. The Stones had a couple of SVT's each behind them!

I have an Ampeg VT-22 2x12" combo that was rated at 120 Watts (clean) in stock trim. Fool that I am, I swapped the 7027A output tubes for a quad of KT88's and bumped the output closer to 140 Watts! When pushed into distortion, it sounds amazing, but there's nowhere I can do that anymore.

What I use now, is an Ampeg VT-40 that I salvaged as a flood-damaged junker. The amp guts were the only part I could save, so I built a custom 1x15" sealed-back cab for it. Again, being power-mad, I chose a Weber California speaker, which has the perfect, neutral, frequency response to bring out the best of this amp. 'Thing is, its also a very efficient speaker, so this 60 Watt amp actually puts out a higher SPL than my VT-22! :eek: I can still use this amp, only because it has a Master Volume control that lets me reduce the sound level to where no one gets hurt.