What's your budget?
What kind of guitars and pickups will you be using?
Combo cab, 1x12, 2x12?
Speaker Cabs? Single, double, 4x12?
What kind of overdrive family pedals do you have? Other pedals?
How loud/quiet do you want to play? Bedroom, Living room? Jam? Gig?
There are 18 watt marshall/clones, 20 watters.
JTM 45s are, I forget, 28-30 watts? 3 different power tube versions, right? KT-66, EL 34, 6L6? Did I forget one?
You have to consider that the cool amp you start with now may not be the one you wind up with in a year or two. When you buy name brand amps, or well respected boutique amps, you pay more up front, but you get more back when you sell it to buy something else. And you will sell it to buy something else, yes you will!
Ask me where the '69 Plexi 50 watt and the full stack went! Or the 3 Hiwatt 50 watters with the Full Stack!
Ask me why I have a Princeton Reverb and Deluxe Reverb for gigs, nowadays!
My fave band sound ever was an early-mid '70's 100 watter Marshall changed over from 6550s to EL34s, 4x12 sealed-back slant-cab with Celestion G12-65 speakers, THD Hot Plate attenuator set on 25 watts, ash-bodied, maple-neck Strat with 'vintage plus 5%' pickups and either a Klon, TS9 or custom clean boost pedals. I had a wonderful sound at what I thought was at low volume. The rig was sitting next to my drummer but pointed away from him, towards the audience/front of stage.
We played a Petty song, maybe, big chords, big leads, pretty anthemic, with 2 guitars, bass and drums. I remember thinking, 'this is my best sound ever!' I looked at my drummer, he had this totally startled look. We were in our 50's then and I thought he was having heart attack, honest.
'Mike, are you... okay?'
Hesitantly, he said, 'I feel like I've been baked!'
'What?'
'Your amp, I feel like......I've.....been baked!'
So much for the best sound ever...
HH