Here's my assessment:
I own four Epi Valve Juniors. One is my main amp and heavily modified as I've stated before.
I own two Blackheart Little Giant amps, a combo and a head.
The stock VJ gets dirtier quicker. It will only do clean at very low volumes. Cranked up it sounds great, but it is loud. It is a fairly gainy amp. It takes pedals well. You will probably have to swap out the preamp and power amp tubes for better ones. The construction is marginal to good. The chassis is kind of flimsy, the output transformer is kind of small, but it sounds good. There are lots of mods you can do to transform the VJ into something completely different.
The Blackheart Little Giant stays clean almost all the way up on the volume knob. The cranked OD sound is thin and kind of nasty, IMHO. Like the VJ, the LG amp takes pedals well. The stock tubes sound good in the circuit, so there is no need to change them until they wear out. The construction is much better than the VJ. The LG's chassis is very sturdy and the out put transformer is decently sized. The LG does have a three band TMB (treble/middle/bass) EQ, but the only band that does anything is the treble which makes the amp brighter or darker. The middle and bass controls don't really do much. The LG takes pedals very well, better than the VJ, IMHO. It rocks right out of the box. You can do mods to it, but you don't have to.
Since the VJ and LG are the same price, I would go with the Little Giant. It is built better and it sounds better. And it is slightly more versatile.
tung
