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aidan.04
Published on 04/29/08 at 05:52
The AC15CC 15-watt Class A tube combo is the next incarnation of the 1958 classic that guitarists have loved for years.
The AC15 Custom Classic (which is made in China) comes equipped with a few modern features and conveniences that its ancestor didn't have. Controls include Master volume, Treble and Bass controls and Tremolo with fully variable Speed and Depth, and features spring reverb. Tremolo and Reverb are footswitchable with the included footswitch.
It sports 2 EL84's and 2 12AX7's, and has a silicon rectifier. The speaker impedance can be switched between 8 or 16 Ohms so you can connect it to external cabinets oif your choice.. The AC15CC is available with either a Celestion AlNiCo Blue Speaker (AC15CC1X) if you fork out a couple hundred extra dollars, or is available with a VOX designed Custom speaker (AC15CC1). Its up to you.
UTILIZATION
This amp is fairly quiet. I've noticed slight hum in most or almost all of the lower end tube combos like Blues Junior, Epi Valve Junior. I was glad to not see that here with the Vox AC15.
The controls are self-explanatory. One thing I noticed is the eq section interacts a great deal with itself, and with the gain section. (most amps behaved like this back in the day anyway). It means you need to really explore the settings and protential to tweak, not just put everything at 12 o clock and settle for what you get. But getting a good sound from the start is easy.
SOUNDS
The AC15 is all about earthy classic British tube tone. It behaves much like you'd expect from a small tube combo. It breaks up without having to shatter your windows and gives you a nice clean overdrive. This amp is very responsive to picking attack. It LOVES single-coil pickups, so break out the LP Junior with P-90's and Telecaster. Its like jangly classic rock heaven. Sadly, I don't play single-coils at all hardly. But it loves my Ibanez Ghostrider with Gibson P.A.F. humbuckers, it brought out a lot of brightness and gave me a nice raucous bark of a rhythm tone, and some stinging bluesy leads.
This amp has crazy, glassy high transients. It has brightness for days and can bring out the tinkly highs from even the darkest guitar (like an old Fernandes w/humbuckers that I have) with the treble dimed, without being harsh at all.
What this amp does not do is 5150 or bogner like high gain, which.... I would hope you weren't expecting. With a pedal thrown in front I'm sure you'd be happy with the high gain sounds you could coax this amp into, then maybe you'd get some versatility from this amp. In and of itself, its a pretty distictive sounding amp so you have to like that "vox sound" to really appreciate this amp.
A word here about the speaker: If you play it in the store and it sounds a bit "brittle" to your ears, you are not alone. But after a good amount of playing (a few weeks or so) you will significantly break in the vox speaker and it sweetens up for you. The more I played this amp, the better it sounded.
OVERALL OPINION
I play indie rock that leans toward classic rock tones sometimes, so I like the raw classic sound of this amp that leaves cheesy solid state amps in its dust. Sometimes I demand more gain at lower volumes than this is capable of producing but I'm quite used to relying on my Tube Screamer and DOD pedals, which interacted with this amp nicely.
I gotta say, 600 bucks sounded like a lot but now I'm quite convinced that tonally and features-wise this is quite an amp for the price. I own an Epiphone Valve Special which is great at 200 or so, but it doesn't have a 12" speaker, tremolo, or switchable dual channels, or footswitch. The only thing that concerns me is the reliability. Its the only thing that made me feel hesitant when I read reviews of it, and yes it does have plastic jacks and cheap feeling pots, and the fuse holder is quite sketchy looking. At least the tube sockets look like decent quality. Thats the only thing I can knock off points for. I havent had any problems yet but I'm crossing my fingers on this one.
The AC15 Custom Classic (which is made in China) comes equipped with a few modern features and conveniences that its ancestor didn't have. Controls include Master volume, Treble and Bass controls and Tremolo with fully variable Speed and Depth, and features spring reverb. Tremolo and Reverb are footswitchable with the included footswitch.
It sports 2 EL84's and 2 12AX7's, and has a silicon rectifier. The speaker impedance can be switched between 8 or 16 Ohms so you can connect it to external cabinets oif your choice.. The AC15CC is available with either a Celestion AlNiCo Blue Speaker (AC15CC1X) if you fork out a couple hundred extra dollars, or is available with a VOX designed Custom speaker (AC15CC1). Its up to you.
UTILIZATION
This amp is fairly quiet. I've noticed slight hum in most or almost all of the lower end tube combos like Blues Junior, Epi Valve Junior. I was glad to not see that here with the Vox AC15.
The controls are self-explanatory. One thing I noticed is the eq section interacts a great deal with itself, and with the gain section. (most amps behaved like this back in the day anyway). It means you need to really explore the settings and protential to tweak, not just put everything at 12 o clock and settle for what you get. But getting a good sound from the start is easy.
SOUNDS
The AC15 is all about earthy classic British tube tone. It behaves much like you'd expect from a small tube combo. It breaks up without having to shatter your windows and gives you a nice clean overdrive. This amp is very responsive to picking attack. It LOVES single-coil pickups, so break out the LP Junior with P-90's and Telecaster. Its like jangly classic rock heaven. Sadly, I don't play single-coils at all hardly. But it loves my Ibanez Ghostrider with Gibson P.A.F. humbuckers, it brought out a lot of brightness and gave me a nice raucous bark of a rhythm tone, and some stinging bluesy leads.
This amp has crazy, glassy high transients. It has brightness for days and can bring out the tinkly highs from even the darkest guitar (like an old Fernandes w/humbuckers that I have) with the treble dimed, without being harsh at all.
What this amp does not do is 5150 or bogner like high gain, which.... I would hope you weren't expecting. With a pedal thrown in front I'm sure you'd be happy with the high gain sounds you could coax this amp into, then maybe you'd get some versatility from this amp. In and of itself, its a pretty distictive sounding amp so you have to like that "vox sound" to really appreciate this amp.
A word here about the speaker: If you play it in the store and it sounds a bit "brittle" to your ears, you are not alone. But after a good amount of playing (a few weeks or so) you will significantly break in the vox speaker and it sweetens up for you. The more I played this amp, the better it sounded.
OVERALL OPINION
I play indie rock that leans toward classic rock tones sometimes, so I like the raw classic sound of this amp that leaves cheesy solid state amps in its dust. Sometimes I demand more gain at lower volumes than this is capable of producing but I'm quite used to relying on my Tube Screamer and DOD pedals, which interacted with this amp nicely.
I gotta say, 600 bucks sounded like a lot but now I'm quite convinced that tonally and features-wise this is quite an amp for the price. I own an Epiphone Valve Special which is great at 200 or so, but it doesn't have a 12" speaker, tremolo, or switchable dual channels, or footswitch. The only thing that concerns me is the reliability. Its the only thing that made me feel hesitant when I read reviews of it, and yes it does have plastic jacks and cheap feeling pots, and the fuse holder is quite sketchy looking. At least the tube sockets look like decent quality. Thats the only thing I can knock off points for. I havent had any problems yet but I'm crossing my fingers on this one.