Hi,
Hello from across the pond (England)
What you have there is and AH250GP12SMX. Bit of a mouthful!
AH (Amplifier Head) 250 Watts power output.
GP12 12 Band graphic equaliser
SMX Dual band compressor (cool )
You may think its 250 (even though it says 280 on the tin) watts are a bit puny. But I can assure you it is loud!!! It will be louder than a modern 600 watt amp.
The reason for this is that massive torrodial transformer. The big doughnut you can see and the massive capacitors. These are able to keep the power amp 'over' supplied with enough juice at all times
What this means it they deliver a consistant amount of power at all times, and at a frequency range of 30Hz - 10KHz which means amazing solid tight lows and unbelievable loudness and amazing headroom. If you experience this solidness you will never stray from it. Modern amps, particularly digital amps will sound puny to you. If you use the compressor section correctly it will be so punchy.The downside of this type of amp is the weight!!
250 watts is the absolute minimum it will put in, typically they will run at 400-450 watts. I run one of these into a Eden 410XST they really run well together and its soooooooo loud due to the power and high SPL of the cab. But just make sure you have good cabs with high spl/ good frequency response. 250-400watts at 50Hhz gives a lot of cabs a nose bleed!
Not many amps are built like this today with the exception of the Genz GBE750 and MK500 from Ashdown. A real cool amp this one.
For the record regarding Gibson era stuff, its not much different, they didn't change all the components overnight to cheap inferior stuff and all the staff were the same = the same amp.
The problem was and why Trace failed under Gibson was the amps were Made in England from very high quality components and hand assembled and didn't use any printed circuits in the power sections. They got stupidly expensive espec in the biggest market USA. Good for you as it will last a life time
D