Hot _Grits
Buttery Toneologist
I just tried the new handwired AC15 heritage amp:
http://www.voxamps.co.uk/heritagecollection/ac15H_head_and_cab.asp
-it's awesome! easily one of the best production line amps I've heard in recent years. One channel is built around an EF86 pentode, with three preset brilliance settings, a pentode triode setting for the EF86 and a bass shift. The other channel is an AC30 top boost channel, and there's a global cut control. On top of that there's a pentode triode switch to drop the wattage to 7W. I tried the combo with a single Celestion Blue.
Basically it sounds like two different flavours of classic vox. The EF86 channel isn't especially high gain, especially compared to some other EF86 amps I've heard.In fact the top boost channel is noticeably gainier. the EF86 channel dos have a very complex tone, and the brilliance settings work very well to shade the tone and give varying degrees of looseness.
the Top Boost channel is squarely in AC30 territory, and overdrives sweetly like a good vox should.
The shop kid even let me pop the hood, and I was impressed with what I saw: it's an interesting build, with a tag board ala vintage amps, only the board is a PCB, so some PCB traces run along the underside. All components are handwired, and I detected the presence of carbon comp resistors at certain points. The pre tubes are mounted in ceramic sockets onto a protruding metal plate, and the good-sized pots are all hand wired with flying leads. The only cheapo area I could spot were board mounted input jacks. Very impressive for a Chinese made roduction line amp. it also has by far the most ventilation I've seen on a vox amp design.
Kudos to Vox for getting a lot of boutique into a production line amp.
http://www.voxamps.co.uk/heritagecollection/ac15H_head_and_cab.asp
-it's awesome! easily one of the best production line amps I've heard in recent years. One channel is built around an EF86 pentode, with three preset brilliance settings, a pentode triode setting for the EF86 and a bass shift. The other channel is an AC30 top boost channel, and there's a global cut control. On top of that there's a pentode triode switch to drop the wattage to 7W. I tried the combo with a single Celestion Blue.
Basically it sounds like two different flavours of classic vox. The EF86 channel isn't especially high gain, especially compared to some other EF86 amps I've heard.In fact the top boost channel is noticeably gainier. the EF86 channel dos have a very complex tone, and the brilliance settings work very well to shade the tone and give varying degrees of looseness.
the Top Boost channel is squarely in AC30 territory, and overdrives sweetly like a good vox should.
The shop kid even let me pop the hood, and I was impressed with what I saw: it's an interesting build, with a tag board ala vintage amps, only the board is a PCB, so some PCB traces run along the underside. All components are handwired, and I detected the presence of carbon comp resistors at certain points. The pre tubes are mounted in ceramic sockets onto a protruding metal plate, and the good-sized pots are all hand wired with flying leads. The only cheapo area I could spot were board mounted input jacks. Very impressive for a Chinese made roduction line amp. it also has by far the most ventilation I've seen on a vox amp design.
Kudos to Vox for getting a lot of boutique into a production line amp.
