Tonight one of my adult rock ensemble students brought his whole rig into class to give it a spin after the amp had been serviced by Kevin Nelson. He felt it was much improved than it had been pre-service although a quick comparison with my 1972 Deluxe kinda bummed him out. On a hunch I ran a speaker cable from his amp to the celestion greenback in my amp...a BIG improvement but man the reissue isn't nearly as good sounding as my amp. There are too many variables to directly compare the two amps since mine has been blown up and repaired many times in the last 40 or so years but any thought I had that a DRRI would be a decent substitution if I needed a replacement is gone.
I also finally had an opportunity to try the 440 through my Holland Lil Jimi..very nice as well although I had to play with the controls a bit to dial it in...the only drive pedal it liked was the Xotic RC Booster....