i have a new vox vt30 with 22 different amp settings for my small practice at home amp it sounds great at low volume with the power output dial on the back. it has that tube/valvestate power and it only cost me $269 brand new at guitar center. great amp for they money.
also what amp did you play your strat through at the store?
and watch out for those gdec 30s my friend has already gone through two of them in 3 weeks. they keep burning up on him. also any tube amp with 15 watts or more may get to loud for a apt before they start sounding good.

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Blues Jr. I have one, and have heard of many people who are happy with theirs.

If you're interested - I suggest either getting a NOS or any other version w/ a jensen speaker upgrade.

I tried a peavy viper out in the week. A very good amp much along the same lines as the vox you mentioned. Very affordable too. I think i'm one of the few that truly despises the blues jr. Mines a coffee table at our rehearsal room these days. The drive is disgusting and the clean doesnt shimmer like it should. You may love it though plenty of people do.
Your not going to get super brilliant tones out of a modeling amp. They all favour their own brand of amp and consequently try to make the other models sound a bit worse. The only modelers i found that do give a decent approximation of all manufacturers is line6. Their not trying to advertise their own high end amps through low priced modelling amps.

Also i think music shops are designed to make instruments sound better. Nothing ever sounds the same at home except headphone amps.

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No no and no

well said nick. i also am not a fan of blues jrs they sound to thin to me. you are also right on the modeling thing you'll never get a digital amp to sound just like a real marshall or a vintage fender tube amp. but i kinda like the amp modeling on my vox its just like having 22 different colors to paint with. but that vox will never replace my 72 fender bassman with a 1x15 cab with a jensen live

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Another thing you may want to concider is the power that you want the amp to have with living in an apartment. You want to try the amp to see how it sounds and at what level, does it have to be cranked to sound good or what. Don't make the mistake of buying a bazzilian watts that you will never need unless you are going to be playing at some stadium somewhere.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Stratohawk.
Notice how the vox does great vintage vox models and everything else doesnt sound as good. Its the same with the vibrochamp xd. It does great fender sounds, the marshall sounds are horrible though. Perhaps its just my scepticism but i think they do it on purpose. You couldnt have a fender doing a better marshall tones than fender ones could you?

CV. Your bang on correct again i use a 5 or six watt amp around the house and thats way too much. The marshalls are redundant till i get an attenuator. Even the 15watt blues jr is too loud for a stage with a decent P.A. I'm seriously considering the champ xd untill i get an attenuator. I'm considering these if anyone knows anything about them.
http://www.tubejuiceattenuators.com/buy2.html#max100.

A very nice price. My only concern is the voltage for the fan being incorrect for our 240v mains. I dont really want to be lugging a transformer around too. Perhaps the seller will make me a 240v one, he makes them to order.

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No no and no

This is why i have, and suggest the Champion 600 reissue, its 5 watts, sounds great, though I have heard the tubes aren't consistant, so try it out, and make sure you get one that has good tubes ( i got lucky.) I use my Ibanez TS-808 tubescreamer for some crunch. i am very happy with it for when i can't be loud. I live in a townhouse 4 plex, so I can't be super loud all the time. Plus you get great tones, without using hearing damaging volumes. A nice plus.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Check out a Blackheart Little Giant 112- 3/5 watts of Class A all tube tone, a 12" Eminence speaker in a heavy duty cab, and it's in your price range. Mines great. Can't recommend them enough. Best value in an amp, bar none.

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'95 Custom Warmoth Soloist Solid Flame Koa Body/Neck, Duncan Classic Livewire SSH, Sperzel locking tuners, Wilkinson VS100 bridge, all black chrome.
2008 MIM Lonestar Strat Black/White Pearl
2008 Taylor 114 CE

Hi again you guys
Went to the shop today and tried the amps that you suggested.
I did like the Fender G-Dec and the X Champ.
I was explaining to the sales guy that I play in an appartment, and cannot crank the sound loud. He said that with those amps just like on the Vox AD30VT I had tried; at a low volume the sounds is crappy, that theyre made to be played loud, to get the tone. He suggested a Roland Micro Cube RX which he said is great for appartment and sound good at any level.
I tried it with my guitar model (the strat american standard) and on pickup 1,3,5 the buzz is soooooo loud, I have to stick to only pickup 3,4 That suck!
Aye aye aye.... I keep reading about amps on the web and getting more confused.
I dont want to have to be stuck to have earphones on all the time....
Which decent amp sounds good even at low level ????
Help

the vibrochamp xd has good enough sounds for me to enjoy at 1am with the kids in bed. It does sound vastly better at max though. Its not good on the marshall or high gain sounds. Its tweed, bassman and blackface sounds are great though as is the fender reverb effect.

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No no and no

once again i would have to agree with you nick

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If you want to really accentuate the Strat tone you will play through a Fender amp. Otherwise an amp like a Marshall will give you a classic hard rock roar. And don't let all the cattle on the internet sway you to believe solid state amps are crap. They are pretty good for what they are. My last gig I played through a Valvestate and it sounded way better than the amp I used on the gig before that which was a genuine tube JCM-900.

The thing about some Fender amps is there is no build in distortion so know which ones have it and which ones don't. I personally would never play through an amp with no on board gain control.

You don't hear much about these but the Fender Amp Can is not a bad amp for playing at home. It's got a built in rechargeable battery that will hold its charge for a couple of hours. This makes it convenient to pick up the amp and take it anywhere around the house where you want to play. It's a simple amp with just a volume and tone control. There is also built-in distortion. The distortion is not that great but it's OK. There's also a second channel for a microphone.

I have a Raven 20W....great for my apartment

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Your Fender HSS Standard Stratocaster in Electron Blue was made at the Fender Ensenada Plant in Mexico in the Year: 2008.
Final Assembly Date: July 30th, 2008
Model Number: 013 4700 587
Serial # MZ8031252

As you can see, there are A LOT of opinions about this issue. Very simply everyone has their "favorite amp" just as they do their favorite guitar and that is always going to vary from person to person. To be blunt, no one is going to be able to tell you what sounds good to your ears here...what may sound great to me or anyone else on this forum may sound like complete rubbish to you. The only way you are going to find the amp that is right for you is to forget about what other people say...including the sales guy at the music store...and just play as many amps as you can until you find the sound you're after.

Now there are a couple of things I would like to add to that. First remember that no amp ever sounds the same way in your bedroom, apartment, living room or studio as it does on the sales floor. This is something that used to frustrate me to no end...I'd take my guitar into a music store and try out a few pedals or amps and then when I brought one home, it just didn't sound the same. You need to remember that the "acoustics" of your average music store are completely different from that of your typical "living space". Be it a bedroom, living room, etc., usually your typical living space has things like furniture, carpet, drapes, etc., which all effect the way you hear sound/music. In many cases an amp (or guitar or pedal) that sounded really great on the showroom floor many sound flat and lifeless in your living room....it's just the nature of acoustics.

Second to that, as you have already discovered, amps tend to sound different at different volume levels. Most people tend to think that most amps sound better when they are cranked up a bit...especially tube amps. My suggestion to you here is that as you are trying out different amps at a music store, ask the sales guy if there's a seperate little room where you can take a few amps to listen to them at -low- volumes. Most smaller music stores will usually have practice rooms where they give guitar or other music lessons and even larger shops such as Guitar Center has their "acoustic room". This will let you hear what the amp really sounds like at lower volumes so you can make a better evaluative decision.

Now in regards to the "noise" issue with the pickups...welcome to the wide and wonderful world of Fender Stratocasters! LOL!!! I'm really sorry to say this but 'tis the nature of the beast. Single coil pickups can be noisy...it's as simple as that. That's their glory and that's their horror. You can have a $4000 Custom Shop instrument and if it's got single coil pickups, it's going to get noisy in positions 1, 3 and 5....it's why Gibson, Jackson and many other guitar makers use "humbuckers". Of course a humbucker doesn't sound the same as a single coil either. Now that said, there are some things you can do to minimize this issue. Since you said you bought an American Standard and since you said this problem seemed rather prevalent with the Roland Cube, my guess is that you were probably close to some kind of electric interference (at least more so than other amps that were in the store). Since you are clearly new to the world of electric guitars, here's a little experiment for you (no offense is intended here...this is just meant as a learning thing). Take your guitar and whatever amp you are using and sit down in front of your computer monitor with the pickup selector in either 1, 3 or 5. Turn your monitor on and off and listen to the "hum" as it changes. This is what you heard in the store...that Roland Cube may have been near one of the store's computers or some other source of electrical interference. Other things will cause this too...florescent lighting, electrical motors (particularly refrigerators for some reason), TV's, poorly grounded electrical systems, etc..

To be honest here, I have an older Kay P-bass that I use to record with. She's a really great sounding old lady (better than most genuine Fenders) but whenever I'm recording in the studio, I have to hit the record button, turn off the computer monitor (I do all my recording on computers), -then- start playing otherwise the noise the bass pickups up from the computer monitor is simply unreal. So that said, if the Roland Cube sounded good to you other than for the noise issue, you can try playing it "elsewhere" where you won't get any electrical interference...it may very well be "the right amp for you" after all. There's a lot more on this particular issue including shielding options etc., so I'll let you explore that on your own.

The last thing I will say here is simply this...don't let yourself get too hung up on finding that "perfect tone". Tone, in and of itself, is a very subjective thing. Again what sounds great to one person completely sucks to another. Some people spends years, if not most of their lives trying to find that ever elusive perfect tone. The simple truth of the matter is that...well...it really doesn't matter. I've been playing for well over 25 years both live and in the studio and in all of that time I have NEVER had a person walk up to me and say "gee...that sounded ok but it would have been better if you had of used such & such brand of amp instead". Honestly your average non-guitar player couldn't tell you the difference between a Fender Twin, a Marshall stack and a Buick and even most guitar players, once the blind fold goes on...they really can't tell which amp is which. I've owned and played thru vintage tube amps, solid states, combos, stacks, practice amps, etc.. The one single thing that people notice is -your playing-. So with all that said, my advice to you on this issue is just find yourself a decent little amp that you can be happy with an play the crap out of that Strat! You'll get far more millage from your fingers than you will from "the perfect amp".

These are, as always, just my own personal opinions...please use them for what you think they are worth.

Peace,
Jim