Vox Guitar Amp Heads

This is the real Vox vintage tone, not the vox cc crap being sold today.. This amp was made with quality components These amps were made just as they used to in the 50s and 60s. Same great sound as it's bigger brother the AC30 heritage handwired amp, just less clean headroom obviously. Just remember, if you are planning to connect this head to a cabinet that does not have blue alnico speakers you will not experience the true Vox chime and tone. The Celestion blue alnico speaker is an essential part of the Vox sound. Don't even expect this from the greenbacks. The difference is huge. That's why the good ones come with blue alnico.

The Vox Night Train is Vox's answer to the low wattage game. Offering a reasonable mixture of portability and sound quality, the Night Train is one of the nicest low cost tube amps on the market as of 2012. The Night train's front panel is adorned with a simple array of controls. Gain, Treble, Middle, Bass, Volume. Two toggle switches offer advanced control over your sound. The operating mode switch functions as a standby and half power switch, while a second toggle allows you to choose between bright and thick modes. Engaging the Thick mode bypasses the amp's Eq and allows for more gain to be applied to the sound. The amp is 15 watts but can operate at 7.5 watts with the half power switch engaged (using the triode selection) and runs on a pair of el84's. UTILIZATION The Vox's simple layout makes getting a good sound a straight forward endeavor, however the lack of an effects loop or the ability to select channels makes the amp decently compromised in the eyes of a gigging musician. These missing features can easily be forgiven though considering the affordability granted to an all tube circuit. The amp takes pedals fairly well without the effects loops and the amp is plenty loud if you are mic-ing your backline (and you should be). SOUNDS I played through the Vox Night Train with a Gibson Les Paul Traditional w/ stock pickups. I used a Mesa 2x12 cab. No pedals. The amps clean sounds are very pleasant and compliment a variety of guitars. I primarily tested the Night Train with a dark sounding, mahogany body guitar and the bright mode made the guitar sparkle. The tube circuit provides for nice articulation in your sound. Engaging the thick mode, you are able to drive the amp very hard and cover many genres. The drive sounds performed excellently and I found myself often forgetting that I was playing a $300 amp. OVERALL OPINION The Vox Night train is an excellent solution for those who need a portable, all tube design. The affordability of this amp is unparalleled when comparing the sound quality of it's neighboring price points.

The Vox AC4tvh is one GREAT little amp! I am absolutely blown away at how great it sounds straight out of the box. I'm using it with an American Deluxe Telecaster, and an open back cab with a single 12 in it. 4 watts is much louder then I thought it would be. Love the OP Level switch. Turn it down to 1 or 1/4 watt and you can get some great tone at home with out freaking out the neighbors. I plan to upgrade the tubes at some point, but all in all this a must buy for home studio owners or someone that wants great tone at a reasonable volume. UTILIZATION I have been recording at home on the 1 watt and 1/4 power levels and the sound im getting is something like a 5000 dollar stage rig. After warming it up for about 5 minutes, Im getting tone from this little AC4 and a squire "60's vibe" Stratocaster, (at low conversation volume) that is about equivalent to a 40 watt blackface fender after running hot half the night. unbelievable. SOUNDS I wanted to be able to get some decent tone and sustain at lower volume levels, so I thought I would try this little VOX tube amp out. One thing that surprised me is the amount of volume that this little tube amp is capable producing. When you crank this amp up on 4 watts it can still easily aggravate your neighbors. I was even surprised at how loud it can get on just 1 watt of power . OVERALL OPINION I think this amp is definitely worth the money you pay for it because you can get some great sounds out of it with out blowing your ear drums out or having the neighbors calling the police on you. Try this out, you wont be disappointed.

The major difference in this amp to the regular production Vox Ac30 is that is is all hand wired components. There are no PCB boards and everything is hooked up via turret boards. This makes the construction of the unit a lot stronger and easier to fix if you ever run into any problems with the amp. And of course this is the head version so you'll need to pick up a cabinet to plays with this amp. Preferably a cab that is a fawn match. The combination of this hand wired amp and the Celestion Alnico Blue Dog speakers give a sparkling and a sweet warm classic Vox tone. There are a few different features to this particular amp then the latest reissues that came out a few years ago. One of those being the Hot/Cold switch which changes the treble in the top boost channel. And also the wattage selector from 30 to 15 watts. UTILIZATION Key Features and Product Highlights • Hand-wired turret board construction • Birch-ply cabinets featuring solid bracing and a natural high frequency diffuser • All-tube design • ECC83/12AX7 preamp tubes (x3) • EL84 power tube quartet; (AC30 models); EL84 Duet (AC15 models) • GZ34 rectifier (AC30 models); EZ81 rectifier (AC15 models) • Fitted with matched Ruby Tubes that provide extended dynamic range • Traditional VOX two-channel design. • Top Boost and Normal. High and Low inputs for each channel • The Normal channel provides an additional BRIGHT switch. • The top boost channel provides a HOT/COOL switch to achieve even more gain • Master Volume/BYPASS switch completely bypasses the Master Volume section • OP mode switch cut the amp’s Output Power level in half • Vintage fawn-colored vinyl, reminiscent of the 1960 classic AC30 • VFS1 footswitch controlls the Top Boost channel's HOT/COOL switch • A premium, custom-fit dust cover is included with every model SOUNDS This amp is more used for country, blues, and mild rock tones. The biggest users of the amp is the Edge and Brian May. Not this particular amp model but the Vox AC30 in general. The best thing about Vox Ac30 is their ability to take pedal extremely well. You can throw just about any pedal in front of the amp and it just accepts the tone from the pedal and blends it with the Vox darker amp character that is present in its voicing. A Les Paul works quite well with this amp. You get a great blues rock tone that is extremely warm and smooth in tone. I like to use a Strat with this amp as I'm a big fan of the Edge and his Strat is very recognizable in the songs I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and Bullet The Blue Sky. OVERALL OPINION If you need a well built combo amp and are playing anything from country to mild rock then this might be an amp for you. If you use overdrive or effects pedals frequently then this is just about the best amp you could use effects with. I am not sure what the going rate for these amps are but I have seen used ones going for aroud $1300. That might be a little high for an amp like this but it is hand wired and that price is recognized in that feature. For the regular production Vox AC30 then you would look at about a few hundred dollars cheaper than this. I would recommend this amp to anyone who needs a Vox tone which is very unique and distinct from all other amplifiers.