My impression is the Dirty Shirley is super organic and real sounding. The thing I loved about the amp is you heard the guitar, some amps just wipe away any real character of the guitar with saturation and compression. This amp was real sounding and feeling. It was in the vein of a Plexi but had it's own thing. It sounded so good to my ears, very versatile too. As you played softer the amp cleaned up like Fender/Vox kind of vibe. Great amp and something I think that is unique to Friedman type guys, it's not just another high gain/jose yata yata yata, it's fresh and a sound that is really important in rock-n-roll. You could do anything from Tom Petty to STP to GnR to AC/DC to Kelly Clarkson/Pink to country to pop. My kind of amp. I really am excited to play it some more. It was refreshing. To me I don't find channel switching amps versatile I find amps that switch tones and gears based on your playing versatile. Fukker kicks ass!