Outmoded Electronics: Crab Guitar Effects Benzin Head (Inspired by Diezel VH4)

My order of the Benzin 50W head, inspired by the Diezel VH4, is making its way from Ukraine to the US. I contacted Crab Guitar Effects through FB Messenger to put the order in. My amp was shipped a little over a month after I put my order in.

Edit - 4/8/25 - The Benzin has arrived. The amp was well packed, with styrofoam on all 6 sides and several layers of bubble wrap. The box got to me with minimal damage as it passed through multiple countries.

Here are some the features:

4 preamp tubes instead/ 2 power tubes
Toroidal power and output transformers
50W output
2 sets of EQ: VH1/VH2 and VH3/VH4
Footswitchable between VH1/VH2 and VH3/VH4
Tone Shift to take out lower mid frequencies
1 serial effects loop

I wanted to get use out of all four channels of this amp.

VH1 - I like this channel the least. I’ve been spoiled by the cleans on the Dual Rectifier Multi-Watt and Rectifier Badlander. Whereas the Recto Multi-Watt’s clean seems to be perfectly matched with V30s, the Benzin’s clean sounds a bit honky through the same speaker.
VH2 - I was hoping to get JCM800-type tones out of this channel, and it does a great impersonation. Setting all of the tone knobs around 12:00 with the gain past 1:00 sounds very Marshall-like, especially through Greenbacks.
VH3 - This is the sound that everyone associates with the Diezel VH4. This channel sounds like all of the clips that I’ve been hearing online. The low end is big sounding. The hope for a thick high gain voicing was main reason why I went with the Benzin over the Mesa Mark-inspired Marcus model. I came across some marked settings from Adam Jones. He apparently turns the Treble (4:00) and Mids (Maxed) up very high.
VH4 - This is a gainer and more compressed version of VH3. The level of gain seems on pair with the 5150/6505 Lead Channel. I don’t think I would deviate from setting the gain between 9:00 and 11:00.

Crab Benzin front.

Crab Benzin rear.

The Benzin is compact in relation to a typical head.

I took a look inside the chassis. The amp looks nice all around. The earlier examples of amps by Crab Guitar Effects appeared to have etched boards, but recent amps look like they are all populated with PCBs.