Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

[pac112]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

Chief, good thing u reviewed it, i've been eyeing it as a practice amp to replace my marshall mg.

got some questions to ask you:
1. how loud can that 5 watter go? is it even enough to play with a "subtle" drummer ?

2. how heavy is it? (i might possibly need to lug it around, LOL)

[Loserchief]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

1. depends on what style of drumming we're talking about. A sublte blues or jazz drummer probably shouldn't overpower the amp, but i wouldn't try it with rock and metal drummers. Overall it's more for practice and homeuse than for a band situation. Can't really compare volume, sorry.

2.I measured the weight and got 7,6Kg. Not too much imo.

Don't know much about the Valbee, well nothing really, but the new Epi Valve Jr Head seems to be all the rage on other forums I surf- 5 watts, 1 volume knob, class A single ended el84- and only $99 US!

well the valbee wasn't released in the US AFAIK and the Valve JR is practically unknown her in Europe, so it's hard comparing the two(also considering the totally different specs)

[pac112]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

no way im using 5 watts with metal!

okay thanks for the info, looks like its worth trying out.

[Pierre]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

Dude you CAN crank your Valbee? Your neighbors must love ya There's no way in hell I could get it that loud. The volume stays around 1 on either channels.

[Davey]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

Dude you CAN crank your Valbee? Your neighbors must love ya There's no way in hell I could get it that loud. The volume stays around 1 on either channels.

=/

whats the point of having a tube amp then?

[Pierre]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

There's still a difference between SS and tube at low volumes.

[Loserchief]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

Dude you CAN crank your Valbee? Your neighbors must love ya There's no way in hell I could get it that loud. The volume stays around 1 on either channels.

And you're wondering that it gets fizzy!? The Valbee is the same as any other tube amp, you gotta crank it to get the good sounds out of it. Only difference is that the total volume is way less but the behaviour remains the same.

Crank it Up you wussy

[Pierre]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

I did, and it's still messy on the low end. I wouldn't have complained otherwise

I got a TAD tube that was just a Mesa tube (meh) and today I got an Electro Harmonix 12AX7. Let me just put it on.

[Pierre]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

WOOOT ok the EH tube brought back the gain and made it sound darker, yet overall better than either tubes that were in before Sweeeeet. Tomorrow: cranking the *****

[Loserchief]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

WOOOT ok the EH tube brought back the gain and made it sound darker, yet overall better than either tubes that were in before Sweeeeet. Tomorrow: cranking the *****

add: "getting a new powertube" to the list
you won't regret it.
those stock china tube are awful and the one in my valbee actually rattled like a broken lightbulb tho it was fully working.

[Pierre]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

I'm leaving Saturday and I don't have 20 euros for a new powertube. The only ones I could find here were TAD too...it's hell to find anything here. It IS on the list but not for now

[Pierre]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

Alright: marketing errors from Ibanez:

NOT a 10 or even 12'' driver as standard
NOT an external cab plug
Advertising as full tube while there obviously is some other method of getting gain in there. Or else they managed to get A LOT of gain out of ONE 12AX7...
Putting a 6L6 in there. This is obviously NOT an amp oriented towards headroom. A 6V6 or even EL34 would have been better. I'll try to mod it for an EL34 someday.
This amp could have a lot of potential if it were marketed the right way, and wiht the right options. Right now everyone's raving about the Valve Jr and everyone's talking about it. The shops will sell these and be stuck with the Valbees which are a bit ugly, and people aren't attracted to it because of its small speaker and lack of possibility to hook it up somewhere. It's a good amp otherwise.

[Loserchief]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

Alright: marketing errors from Ibanez:

NOT a 10 or even 12'' driver as standard
NOT an external cab plug
Advertising as full tube while there obviously is some other method of getting gain in there. Or else they managed to get A LOT of gain out of ONE 12AX7...
Putting a 6L6 in there. This is obviously NOT an amp oriented towards headroom. A 6V6 or even EL34 would have been better. I'll try to mod it for an EL34 someday.
This amp could have a lot of potential if it were marketed the right way, and wiht the right options. Right now everyone's raving about the Valve Jr and everyone's talking about it. The shops will sell these and be stuck with the Valbees which are a bit ugly, and people aren't attracted to it because of its small speaker and lack of possibility to hook it up somewhere. It's a good amp otherwise.

hm... interessting views but imo what you call errors are things that are just out of the range of uses the amp is desgined for. I mean it's designed totally as a portable and good sounding practice amp. All the things you added imo would change the amp more than improveing it. I guess we have pretty different views on what a practice amp should do, but here's my take on it.

1. Why put a 10" or even 12" in there? This would just make it heavier and less portable and the speaker that's in there already sounds better than most of the cheapo 10"s or 12"s i've heard so far.Also it's quite heavy already considering it's size.
2. What purpose would an additional cab on a 5W bedroom/practice amp serve? Volume wise the Valbee is pretty practical as it is, additional speakers would just make it louder.
3. No idea about the gain but it sounds,feels and reacts like an all tube amp, so why even bother(interessting idea though)?
4. Headroom never was a strongpoint of any 5W amp but the lack of headroom means you can get natural overdrive without unnerving your neighbours. Is there a need for tons of headroom in a bedroom amp? In the end it's advertised as a high-gain tube amp and 6L6s make the better high-gain tubes compared to EL34s and 6V6 if you ask me.
5. it might be a bit ugly but it still looks better than the roland cubes imo(maybe different colors would help). There are no right or wrong features,just different purposes. The main reason why people would prefer the Valve Jr is imo more the fact that it only costs half of the Valbee, not the outer appearance by itself

[Pierre]

Re: Review: Ibanez Valbee (long)

No the appearance was just a random point, it didn't go in the list
Otherwise I agree with what you said too, I'm just showing the other sides of the arguments.
Look at what people do with their Valve junior heads? Hooking them up to 4X12 People will want to do the same very soon with their Valbee. Proof is, me
About the gain, because if there IS a solid state section, then it's a bit like saying the hybrid Marshall are tube amps while they're not. That doesn't matter much though, I just feel there's something about the amp we don't know. If I weren't that lazy I'd look into the guts of it.
About headroom, there's no way I could put it past 5 without getting the neighbors and family pissed. It's just way too loud at this point already. I haven't gotten power tube distortion from it yet. I didn't buy it for that either. And 6L6s are used in a lot of high gain amps because they're transparent: most if not all of the gain comes from the preamp, and they want to keep the poweramp clean to minimize the noise and to have high fidelity amplification of the preamp sound. So in a small amp which, as you say, is made so that people can crank it and have more distortion from the poweramp, they should logically have used something that distorts earlier no? That's why I'm a bit confused as to their choice for a 6L6.