Ampeg Reverberocket 212 Reissue or Fender Hot Rod Deluxe?

When I saw Little Village live, Ry Cooder had a whole stack of about 7-8 vintage combo amps---Fenders, a Gibson, a Silvertone I believe, all mic’ed up. Best live guitar tone I’ve ever heard, and his playing was pretty good too ;-) The most interesting amp I ever accompanied was the legendary Magnetone, used by some of the Blues players in the 50's and 60's, and by Jimmy Vaughan I’ve been told.

I second Wolf’s advice to get a low-power (15-25w) combo amp with a single 12" driver. There are a LOT of them available, from both small boutique companies and majors like Vox and Fender. I’ve been on stage with a number of them, and a particular favorite is the Fender Deluxe Reverb. It’s available everywhere, and is very affordable. Mike Campbell (Tom Petty ) likes the Vox AC15 and AC30, Bill Pitcock IV (Dwight Twilley) and Evan Johns the Deluxe Reverb.

The issue with higher powered/more driver combo amps is that in order to get the nice over-driven tube distortion you want, you have to turn up the amp to almost full gain. A small amp will still be at a reasonable SPL when you do so, a larger amp will be too loud. I've had to play with Fender Twin Reverb and Super (Stevie Ray Vaughans fave) amps (both 65w, the Twin having 2-12's, the Super 4-10's), and they are LOUD.