search for little tube practice amp

[Ben N]

My main house amp is a Vibrochamp, which I keep pretty much on 10 and control from the guitar. That's 5-6 watts--it's fine for the house in the daytime, but I have to dial it down at night, and I think it might be loud for an apartment--but that is only if you want to crank it. So maybe something EC99 based, like Doug's other amp (I forget the name at the moment...), so you have a bit more headroom than the Firefly, but not too much.

[DougH]

Loudness of amps depends a lot on speakers and their efficiency too. But I don't like speakers less than 12" for tonal purposes. Getting an amp up loud enough to get "the sound" is most likely always too loud for a condo, no matter what the wattage. Attenuators and other tricks only buy you so much and IMO aren't worth much if you can't get the speaker loud enough to move some air, which I doubt you can do in a condo situation.

I usually suggest to people in apartments and condos to get a POD and a good pair of headphones.

[Ben N]

Good point about the speaker, BUT: it does depend to some extent on how and where you play, and with whom. My VC, with its little 8" speaker (Weer Sig Series, BTW), which might sound thin and weak at a jam, sounds great in the living room, in part because I keep it on the floor, partially obscured by some furniture and pointed obliquely at a wall, which fattens it up considerably, allows me to dime it without excessive volume, and eliminates beaming effects. Otherwise I also stick to 12"s.