Harley Benton TUBE15 Celestion

I bought this amp in november 2021 and felt is was better to wait with a review after the "honeymoon" was over. But after three months I'm still happily married. :)
I'm a professional player for over 40 years and studio-owner/producer and I own way to much equipment, as far as that's possible ;) Most of those amps cost way more than this Tube 15.
But I'm going to to do a theatretour and because I wanted to travel light I decided not to bring one of my Fender amps (it probably would have been a 1991 Blues de Luxe or a Blues Junior because those are the snallest combos I have) and no large pedalboard.
I'd already heard of this amp sometime ago and after reading many reviews and watching numerous clips I ordered one, because I was almost sure it could do the job.
And it can. This is a serious amp, absolutely not just for starters.
It has nice cleans, a nice crunche and even some serious distortion without the need for a booster or other pedal. Use your volumepot, but make sure you have a good "treblebleed". You'll be surprised.
the EQ works fine, the tonepot is a nice extra feature and the reverb does the job. The effectsloop is also a feature that in my opinion should be on any amp for the time-based fx. No stand by, but own more amps without one, like my early Peavey Delta Blues and it never bothered me.
No cons?? Not really and that's not even considering the price. I've heard people not liking the stock Celestion-sspeaker. So far I've only compared it with a Celestion V30 and that wasn't an improvement for me. I will for sure try other tubes in the near future, but so far they're ok. Yep, nice amp!!!

Forget the sound samples this amp sounds much better when you are actually in the room with it. Fantastic amount of features on this amp that you might expect on an amp costs 3 or 4 times the price. Even many of those amps haven't got as many features and extras ( think Fender or Vox). This amp sounds great and will do anything right up to a Classic Rock tone. For me the most useful features are the ability to run a pre-amp pedal into the Fx loop section and the ability to run it into another speaker Cabinet. Also having ability to run other effects into the Fx loop is a real bonus.

Using the amp directly I find that the Tone Control is another very useful feature and it really makes a difference, giving this amp great flexibility of sound above and over what you get from the 3 band Eq. I tend to use this between 1 o clock and 3 O clock to brighten up the amp. The Gain really comes alive past 2 O clock mark and still increases all the way to max. Past 3 O clock you get into Classic Rock territory. However even at the 1 watt setting this is still a loud amp. To overcome this problem I run mine out to cheap 1 x10 cabinet via a Harley Benton PA-100 Power Attenuator to bring it down to a range of bedroom practice levels. It really works so other people in house can easily watch TV without being disturbed etc. Using the 15 w setting you could easily do a small venue.

My only criticism would be the speaker. It's ok but I find the bass a bit boomy and it lacks a bit of detail in the mids. For the price it's ok. For a beginner it's also great. But this is where the compromise is being made in it's manufacture and what keeps it below the £350 mark. However I fed this into a cheap 1x10 cabinet ( cost about £60) that was well broke in and all these problems fell away which indicates the amplifier itself is an absolute gem. Maybe if I took the time to break the amp's own speaker in I may have a different impression. To conclude I am well satisfied with the amp and it's a no brainer at the current price. Because of the fx loop you can really get creative with this amp if you know what you are doing. You can get stuff to make it sound like a Marshall or a Vox for example and because it's all tube it sounds so much better than digital modelling ever could, even those units costing 4 times as much.

ok - there's no escaping the price here. this would be fantastic value at twice the price.
Pros:
its a great sounding, very versatile amp. the 1W setting is perfect for getting some crunch at home volumes. At full power its loud enough to gig with, although you may wish for more headroom.
very useable SPRING reverb.
Speaker gets a bad rep, but is actually fine once you break it in.
power tubes (surprisingly) were TAD (tube amp doctor).
3-band EQ with 'tone' master control is very nice .
Cosmetically very nicely finished.

Cons:
-cabinet is somewhat thin MDF - fine at the price point
-the cabinet is about as small as it physically could be - a factor of the 'big speaker/small cabinet' is a tendency for these amps to have tube rattle on first power tube (seems to be a common issue)- this is minor, but annoying, can be fixed by use of tube damper rings (a side note - Thomann were very responsive and helpful with this, so thanks).
- no name preamp tubes are only ok - I swapped in some tungsol - improved the sound significantly.

In summary - a 50euro investment on some new pre-amp tubes and tube vibration damper rings will put this from the great to the amazing

The Tube15 is a Great Little Amp. It ticks many boxes - It's loud, it's small, it's well made and it has a built in real spring reverb. The inclusion of an effects send / return loop is something very useful and often not seen at this price point - and what a price point it is!!
The Tube15 is easily loud enough to play gigs with.
It has a lot of gain - maybe too much gain - for those of you wanting a loud clean sound it may be nessacery to swop out the 1st 12AX7 tube for a 12AT7 or even a 12AU7 to reduce early breakup.
The tone controls are typical of this type of amp and are not as "wide sweeping" as more modern circuits. (perhaps 6db/octave rather than 12)
The only thing I didn't like was the sound of the speaker cab and speaker combination. There is not a lot of bottom end "push". I kept comparing it to my Fender Mustang lll cab which sounded SO much better

I am an intermediate guitarist, learning and playing guitar for fan, mostly on my own at home, but also sometimes with friends.
This is my first Tube amp and I love it, but is it the right amp for me or you?

I also own a solid state Roland Cube 30, which I have used for about 7 years and have been fairly satisfied with.
As I progressed with my guitar playing, I became curious about tube amps and wanted to buy one.

In my family we have 6 guitars. 4 of them are Harley Benton. I like the guitars, I think that they are good, for me anyway. What is important for me, I trust the HB brand.

So when HB Tube 15 appeared at Thomman, the reviews were quite good, the price was attractive, and I decided to go for it and try a tube amp.

Good:
I ordered it and received it very quickly, as always.

It looks nice and it looks reasonably sturdy.

It sounds really good.
I love the way it sounds.
Comparing to my old amp, HB Tube amp's sound is much nicer, much richer and more detailed to my ear. It is difficult to put the finger on it and explain the difference. But I've found that I just enjoy playing guitar through my new amp more than the solid state one.

Maybe not so good:
On the other hand there are features (or lack of them) that make me wonder if it is the best amp for me.

-One Channel: The amp has only one channel, so if you don't use tone pedals you have to bend down and turn the dials in order to switch to a different set of tones. Which is not a big problem for my home playing.
But if you want to switch between e.g. "clean" and "overdriven" quickly during a song, you will probably need to buy tone pedals and spend more money. Again, not a big problem if that is the cost and direction of travel you are aware of and want to pursue.
- if you want to use a backup track and play along through the same amp, again you will need to buy some sort of pedal or gadget that enables you to do that. I am currently using a looper pedal. Again, that is more money to spend.
- some modern solid state amps offer good sound and versatility. Like selection of tones that emulate reasonably well different tube amps. (i.e. wider selection of tones than just one amp).
- is it loud enough for use at gigs? I don't know. But it sure is more than loud enough for any house or shed.

Conclusion:
I decided to keep it because I liked the sound it makes so much that I will be prepared to spend some more money to get even more fun from it.

On the other hand, if I was a beginner or if I was on a very limited budget and could afford only one single amp, I would make a different choice.
I would buy a versatile solid state amp instead of this one.
Or any other tube amp.