So far I have found it to be very clean, but not very sparkly. Compared to my other amps, it's a bit dry. I assume I can dial it better with time, and its certainly good enough.
It's funny, back in the day -- I'm talkin' late 60s-early 70s here (yes, I'm old) -- we'd pick an amp by going to a store, having them haul out, say, all their Fender Bassman heads, we'd play through them, and they'd all sound just a little different. In my case, I'd pick the one that sounded the best to me, put the cover on it, pay for the amp, and walk out the store with it thinking I'd run the racks and found the "good one."
Of course, with the hand wiring, there were (and are) differences in individual amps, and no two transformers, pots, or tube sets were exactly alike. Over the last 25 years of being a studio rat, one thing I've learned is the difference that the tubes that were, and are, put in the amps can make. You probably know this.
I've done subtle and not-so-subtle changes in the character of my amps with tube selections, so that might be worth trying if you haven't rolled tubes before, and you want a little more sparkle.
My stock PRS preamp tubes have mostly been JJs (I'm an HXDA and DG30 single channel amp guy; the DG30 came with NOS BRIMAR tubes in V1 and V3 because it was an Experience run, but I've had a couple of HXDAs, first the 50, now the 30), and I've found that the JJs have a nice amount of gain and the good ones are relatively noise-free, but they also vary quite a bit from tube to tube. I've gone the NOS route with my amps to varying degrees over the years, and have found the results worthwhile. Sometimes, of course, an amp will sound better with the original tubes, but sometimes there's a real improvement in the tone of the amps with NOS - or at least, the result is closer to what I like.
As an example, changing the preamp tubes in one of my Two-Rocks a few years ago from the stock Chinese NOS that came in the amp to RCAs completely changed the clean tones. And recently, I put an NOS Mullard in the V1 of my HXDA30, and it immediately sounded warmer and more buttery than it did with the stock JJ (I wanted that, as opposed to more brightness). At the same time I also ordered some new JJs that were tested and measured for microphonics, gain, and matched triodes for the other positions, and really, the whole tone of the amp went up a notch -- and it was great to start with.
