I've gotten into tinkering with amps for all the wrong reasons. Basically, I'm not a musician, but a pulsed power engineer with a PhD in what amounts to giant filter circuits. Was working at the UK Aomic Energy Authority when the guy in the next office convinced me that buying a guitar and amp was a good idea, as he presumably wanted me to stop talking about hi-fi and start talking about amps. Before then, my idea of a propper capacitor was something you need a fork tuck to lift and an amplifier was either something for RF signal analysis or a monstrous beast in its own building and used to energise giant magnets (because physics needs giant magnets...) or hi-fi, where distortion is a bad thing.
Have been finding valve amps and the occasional pedal a great way of playing about with electronics without having to do paperwork first
but that meant having to learn how to play wooden planks with strings on 
Present setup is a modded VOX AC30 with modified Celestion blues. And I don't care if your not supposed to play a bass through it - sounds good to me.
Anyhow, hi.
