Vox DA5

I purchased this amp a little over 3 years ago as a beginner guitarist looking for as much diversity as possible when learning and practicing. My tastes in music vary and I wanted something highly versatile when it comes to sound and effects. I play blues, classic rock, hard rock, punk rock, some thrash metal and progressive metal as well, so I searched for a decently priced amp that could give me all the tones and special effects I needed, in one single box.

Features
The DA5 has a wide range of play styles due to the ‘style’ controller which can cycle through 11 different styles.
The styles are comprised of Clean 1, 2 and 3, Blues 1 - these 4 are excellent in tonality and sound, as the name says, they’re quite clean and out of all the available solid state amps the Vox wins without a doubt in this category;
Blues 2, 3 and Crunch 1 which try to emulate a slightly overdriven tube amplifier;
Crunch 2 and Higain 1, my two personal favorites which offer a rich overdriven distortion type of sound, perfect for hard rock. grunge and punk for example;
Then we have Higain 2 which is acceptable for metal in general;
Higain 3 which I find too fuzzy and exaggerated and last but not least we have Drive which is a slightly more distorted version of Crunch.

Not only does this amp have a rich range in styles, it also provides you with 11 effects which you can also fine tune as much as you want. The effects are not so great, you can’t compare them to actual effect pedals, however Reverb and Delay are actually more than decent and personally, being a fan of Tool I used these extensively during practice. There are other effects such as Chorus and Phaser which I didn’t use much or at all. All of these effects also come in combination of two in case you want to use more than one effect at the same time.

The amp also has knobs for adjusting Gain, Tone and Master volume. They all work well and are useful, I just wish the tone knob would offer me individual control over low, mid and high frequencies but at this price that is something I won’t complain about.
You would think that’s all that this bundle of joy comes with, but there is more. In the back it comes featured with a power switch so you can select if your amp’s wattage at 0,5 W, 1,5 W and 5W. It also has a line in for a microphone if you want to sing along, it has an auxiliary line in if you want to connect the amp to your computer so you can record, or play music through it while you play along and you can also connect a headphones to it if you want to play at night without disturbing anyone.
I also need to mention you can use the amp on batteries for a few hours if you want to play outside.

Sound
I have tried both a Stratocaster and a Les Paul through this amp, one of them with a Seymour Duncan pickup and I arrived to the conclusion that the difference in sound due to the actual guitar is minimum or even totally unnoticeable. That being said, for a solid state amp this little box can give out quite some decent quality sounds. The clean channels remain clean even at maximum volumes, without sounding distorted, as for the high gain channels you do need to adjust them a bit until you find the sweet spot. Other amps of this level are better when it comes to distortion, but the Vox can’t be beaten when it comes to the clean channel. Add a distortion pedal like the DS1 or anything you want on top of the clean channel and you will have a wonderful range of sounds.

Reliability
I’ve had this amp for 3 years now and I bought it used from someone who used it for another 2 years. That being said, I haven’t had 1 single problem with this amp…ever. Everything still works impeccably, not even a dent on the casing.

Overall impression
This little guy was everything I could’ve wanted at that time and even though it’s a solid state amp there is a lot of value for the money spent. It has all the styles and range of effects that you could need as a beginner; it is very reliable, decent sound in general though you might want to invest in a distortion pedal if you want better quality from it.
At today’s prices, however, you might want to save a little more money and buy a 5W tube amp instead. At that price it might not come with any effects and special gimmicks but nothing compares to the rich tone of a tube amp.

This is not a bad little amp by any means. This amp comes at the economic small and portable side of Vox's approach to simulation amps. This is not a typical Vox amp or the tone of a Vox amp even though you have a setting. This is going to be a sterile sounding solid state digital amp simulation. However, it is not going to sound too bad and even when you running the thing with dying batteries. This thing is battery operated.

VOX DA5 Classic at a glance:

* Classic Black w/Brown Diamond Grille
* The amplifier provides eleven distinctive sound styles that can be used in various musical genres.
* This portable amplifier is powered by six C batteries or the included AC adapter, enabling you to play anywhere.
* Inputs include an AUX IN jack, for connecting an external audio device (CD, MP3 player, etc.), and a MIC INPUT jack, so you can play guitar and sing along with recorded music.
* Eleven high-quality effects are built in and seven are multi effects that let you use two effects simultaneously, plus Noise Reduction.
* The power select switch lets you adjust the output power. This means that even when the master volume is turned up to the max to drive the power amp, you can lower the volume without losing any tone or feel.

UTILIZATION

VOX DA5 Classic Features:

* Number of Amp Types: 11
* Number of Effects: 11 plus Noise Reduction
* Input/Output Jacks: INPUT, AUX IN, MIC INPUT, LINE/PHONE
* Power Amp Output: 5W RMS
* Speaker: VOX original 6.5"
* Signal Processing: 24-bit (A/D and D/A), 44.1 kHz sampling frequency
* Power Supply: Six C batteries or AC adapter
* Current Consumption: 390 mA
* Dimensions: 10.51" (W) x 7.05" (D) x 10.51" (H)
* Weight: 7.72 lbs.
* Included Accessories: AC adapter, carrying strap

SOUNDS

This amp is not really and amp per se but a mini guitar playing speaker with amps sounds. You are not going to go up on stage with this thing or even record with it. You are going to tuck yourself away in your office or home and play without being disturbed.

I like this little unit with a Les Paul or humbucking style guitar. It has a high gain feature that sounds pretty fun to jam around with. You don't need any external effects since they have a bunch built into it. The only thing it is missing is a built in tuner. Then it would be an all in one portable office jamming machine.


OVERALL OPINION

This thing is ok and fun to mess around with. If you have spent any time with a real tube amp then this thing will not be that pleasurable for any great length of time. If you are closing your office or bedroom up and need a quite little 5 watt amp then this might be something you would go for.

At new they come in at around $140 and that isn't too bad of a price. I wish they had a tuner though then it would be great. It gets some fun tones and if you need something portable and don't care how it sounds for practicing then this might be right up your alley. I wouldn't recommend any engineer getting one of these things and if you are an engineer you probably already know that. So 14 year old kid this might be what you need.

This is a small, portable digital amp with 5 watts. It's basically only good for practice. There is one guitar input and a mic input in the rear of the amp. There is some amp modeling, 2 clean amps, 3 blues, 2 "crunch" settings, 3 Hi Gain amp models and one labelled "drive". There is a gain knob, a tone knob, and a master volume. There are also effects, which include reverb, delay, chorus, tremolo, flanger, phaser, compression, auto-wah, and some combinations. There's two buttons and a knob for adjusting the effects.

UTILIZATION

The general setup is easy. It gets a little more difficult when you start working with effects. The manual explains how to use them but even then it is time consuming and sometimes annoying to really adjust the effects to your specifications. The most annoying thing about it is that there are two knobs that adjust everything, so you either have to remember what each knob does for each effect or refer back to your manual every time. This gets old quickly. The manual is pretty clear about explaining everything, but it shouldn't be necessary to refer to it all the time.

SOUNDS

The amp is pretty good at simulating a diverse array of sounds. Don't expect pristine tone though. This amp really doesn't have too much too offer in terms of quality. You can get a rough idea of certain sounds from playing with Different amp settins, and the effects can be cool in limited amounts. Overall though, you'd never do anything beyond practice with this if you knew better. Recording and gigging are not an option with this. If you need to work on solos in your dorm room, this might be a great idea though. Considering this, I was a little more lenient with my grading.

OVERALL OPINION

I've been using it for two years. I didn't have much use for it after I moved out of my freshman dorm, once I had more room to practice and was able to use a bigger, better amp. I don't like the effects, as they tend to sound pretty terrible most of the time and are somewhat hard to use. I tried some other models, some by Marshall and Fender (the model numbers escape me now). Those definitely sounded better but did not have the same effects. This is the issue that is the deal-breaker. I think the price is pretty reasonable for this amp, considering I didn't pay too much for it, but you have to make sure you're actually going to get enough use out of it. Also, be aware that it breaks easily; my roommate didn't admit it, but he broke it accidentally somehow. I had to replace it and i realized later that it probably wasn't even worth. I'd say that unless you really don't have the little bit more cash necessary to buy a better practice amp, stay away.