Marshall is the way to go especially if he likes rock or metal. You can get a Marshall MGdfx amp in that budget, I would advise the all in one amp rather than the head and cabinet combo. FOr the money the tone is great, may not sound like a tube JCM800 through a stereo cab but it defeinitely sounds like Marshall. Among my manyu toys I have a MArshall 100MGdfx, 100 wats which is plenty loud to play with metal drummer and it comes with a pedal to flick the built in effects on and off (reverb, flanger, chorus) and to flick between the clean and dirty channels. Fender make nice amps but they are very shrill and have poor gain settings - as far as crunchy metal tones go. With the above amp he will be sorted for anything from blues to metal and everything in between for the next 5 years.