Are those Victor Mason's amps? 
http://mojaveampworks.com/
He talks about his collecting in the interview... and plexipalace.
http://mojaveampworks.com/background/victor-mason-interview/
http://plexipalace.com/wp/
 
I think they might be... I think your wife should buy them for you.
 
J

BTW, the Marshall DSL-15 is an impressive little amp. I think it sounds better than the DSL-40 but you really want a Vintage/Modern (trust me).
 
J

I've been told that the 40 Watts might be preferable because it has 2 EL34 - the 15 Watts has 2 6V6. Another comment was that the pentode/triode switch wasn't all that great and that you lose a lot by switching to triode.
 
40 watts is probably at least 35 watts too loud for my needs, anyway...

I thought that to but have played them and to my ears the 15 sounded better, that was back when they first came out. You should be able to find a place to check them out... and I would if I were you. 6V6s can sound very Marshall and you can run a Boss EQ pedal in front of it and make it sound like anything... you can push the clean level with the pedal too but mostly you can sculpt the tone.
I didn't buy one because I really wanted to like the 40 better but... I didn't. I think you can get Yellow Jackets and swap out to el-84s. http://www.yellowjacketstc.com/
Can't convert to 12ax7 but you can convert to these:  EL84 including 6BQ5, E84L, EL844, 7189, 7189A and 7320. Pretty cool stuff really.
 
J

Unless you're playing live with a drummer I think 40 watts would be a waste of money. My little 18 watt amp is too loud for living room use if you want natural distortion. My brother has one of my 18 watters and a VOX AC15 and he found both to be too loud once you get to the sweet spot. He just bought a new Fender 12 watt tweed amp and is very happy with it. I think it's the Eric Clapton Tremolux model. It sounds great but costs a fortune, so it would never be on my hit list.
 
The pentode/triode settings are basically circuits that hobble the output tubes. I did one of my usual amps with this added and there was very little difference and I didn't like the mushiness it caused. The little 6V6 Marshall sounds real good and you may be able to install tube adapters like yellow jackets. This gives you 2 output tube families to work with. As for the aversion to the vintage 30, I can only tell you that speakers are cheap. Pull the stock speaker out and replace it. You will get the most tone change for the least cost by changing speakers.
 
I'm working with an online tube vendor to start publishing practical info video's for guitar players and tweakers. I will soon be publishing some video about pre amp tube substitution. You can see in the video how much gain reduction you will get by using each of the common 9 pin pre amp tubes.
 
Small amps rule when space is limited and tone is important.

Please keep us posted when the videos are available! :)
 
I had that little Blackstar HT-1 for a little while last December and even that seemed to get loud. I have a 15 watts solid state amp which I never pushed beyond 3 for testing. Most of the time, it's set to 1 when I'm practicing.