Just want to report that indeed, the Federal sounds pretty stellar. The seller was an old ham radio guy. When I asked, "are the tubes all good?" he whipped out a box of NOS, never used Sylvania tubes and put all new tubes in! I've changed out the electrolytic caps that need to be replaced and am working on moving the threshold and ratio controls to the front, along with adding attack, release, output pad and meter zero adjust pots. But even unmodified, it sure does sound good on bass. Trying it with guitars tomorrow night.
