The TE Elf has built in compression and like most TE solid state heads sounds best with the gain well up. The compression light SHOULD be coming on. It ends up putting out as much power as a more highly rated amp as it controls transients via the compression rather than handling them with headroom.
If the is rotated into the last part of its range an overdrive effect is also applied.
You can easily compete with an uncompressed 500W amp through the same speaker cabs, and can set the gain to get a good clean sound, dirty or on the cudp so it's pretty clean and gets dirty as you dig in.
Very clever and much misunderstood. The designers really knew what they were doing. People who think it's a glorified practice amp and complain about fan noise gave missed the point of the Elf.
It's as if it was designed specifically to spread the myth of Trace Elliot Watts