There was an excellent thread here that was the official Pignose thread. The last post was in 2012 and since it doesn't show up on a search of the site, I am guessing it is archived. Figured it would be better to start a new thread.
Around 2009 or so, I found a used G40v on sale at Musicgoround and snapped it up. It was my first tube amp. After a few months, I wound up swapping the tubes and speakers out. I debated doing some of the other suggested mods but never got around to it. At the time, I figured it was a good starter tube amp until I moved up to something more impressive. It never happened. I've been so happy with the G40V that I haven't really found any reason to swap it out.
Recently, I spotted another G40V locally for $125.00. After a little bit of a debate about the necessity of owning two G40Vs, I decided to jump on it. They don't make these anymore and I would be pretty devastated if mine crapped out. At worst, I would easily be able to flip it. I picked it up yesterday and brought it home. From the pics and the obvious original speaker, I assumed it was all stock. I plugged them in side by side and was surprised that both sounded great and there wasn't a huge amount of difference between the two. I remember when I modded my original G40V, it was like a brand new amp. Later, last night, I got curious. Yes, the original speaker is still installed but all the Chinese tubes have been swapped out for JJ 6l6s and the preamps had been swapped for JJs as well. I couldn't quite make out exactly which tubes but I am going to take a look again later today.
I spent this morning swapping both amps out between two different guitars taking turns plugging each guitar into each amp. Both amps really have a beautiful tones. It's more obvious that they are voiced differently and depending on which guitar I was using, which one that I liked better. So now I have two really awesome amps that each bring a something a little different to the table.
Observations/Questions
Serial numbers - Old amp has a different sticker with seven digits. The sticker is metallic. / New amp has eight digits and is on a white sticker.
Amp fuse - Old amp has a 3 watt fast blow fuse / New amp has 2 watt fast blow fuse.
The new amp louder than the old amp. I tried to keep the settings identical to get a good idea of the differences but the old amp needed to get to 10 - 11 o'clock to get the same volume output as the new amp does at 9 o'clock.
Both amps hum like crazy when the Master is turned past noon.
Because of the difference in the fuses and the old issues with the failing transformers, I am leaning towards my "old" amp being the newer version of the amp even though the serial only has 7 digits.
A question I have is should the amp with the 2 watt fuse be swapped out for a fast blow 3 watt?
