iekobrid
New member
Picked up a last-in-the-building $399 stereo Valvetronix head at GC last Sunday. The amp models and effects all seemed to work properly and sound decent in the store, even through the stock 2x12 cab.
After a week of tweaking, I gotta say: this thing is either broken or grossly overhyped. Most likely the former.
Clean and low-gain settings were dull... lackluster... even with the recommended help from the OD pedal sims. Also the strings of every guitar I tried sound a bit muted, as if a loofah sponge had been crammed under the picking area.
Mid- to high-gain settings were even more disappointing. All of the noise and squeal of a cranked tube amp, but none of the crunch or balls. Regardless of which amp model it was set to, turning the gain knob above 11 o'clock resulted in an imitation of a fuzz pedal with a dying battery. Not fizzy, even -- just farty.
On top of all that, when playing with a guitar plugged into either input jack on top neither left channel speaker output produced any sound, whether by itself or as part of a stereo pair. Both right channel speaker outputs seemed to function normally.
I tried bypassing the internal preamp by running an external OD pedal (a Mesa Bottle Rocket) directly into the Valvetronix's power section via the left channel effect loop return jack. That got some sound out of the left side speaker jacks, but only half the volume of doing the exact same thing with the right side loop and speaker jacks. Also, the general fartiness was still present.
Current/former Valvetronix owners: Is it there a chance that the tube in the power section went scrubar on the trip home from the store and is responsible for the symptoms described above? Reckon it's worth digging inside to swap it out? And even if the amp were operating corrently 'mechanically', should the sound quality be significantly better than I've experienced so far, or is simply not a good match for my ears and/or cabs (a Carvin Legacy 212 w/ V30s, an Avatar 212 with V30 "Hellatones", and a Jackson 212 w/ 1 GT75 and 1 Eminence Gov.)?
After a week of tweaking, I gotta say: this thing is either broken or grossly overhyped. Most likely the former.
Clean and low-gain settings were dull... lackluster... even with the recommended help from the OD pedal sims. Also the strings of every guitar I tried sound a bit muted, as if a loofah sponge had been crammed under the picking area.
Mid- to high-gain settings were even more disappointing. All of the noise and squeal of a cranked tube amp, but none of the crunch or balls. Regardless of which amp model it was set to, turning the gain knob above 11 o'clock resulted in an imitation of a fuzz pedal with a dying battery. Not fizzy, even -- just farty.
On top of all that, when playing with a guitar plugged into either input jack on top neither left channel speaker output produced any sound, whether by itself or as part of a stereo pair. Both right channel speaker outputs seemed to function normally.
I tried bypassing the internal preamp by running an external OD pedal (a Mesa Bottle Rocket) directly into the Valvetronix's power section via the left channel effect loop return jack. That got some sound out of the left side speaker jacks, but only half the volume of doing the exact same thing with the right side loop and speaker jacks. Also, the general fartiness was still present.
Current/former Valvetronix owners: Is it there a chance that the tube in the power section went scrubar on the trip home from the store and is responsible for the symptoms described above? Reckon it's worth digging inside to swap it out? And even if the amp were operating corrently 'mechanically', should the sound quality be significantly better than I've experienced so far, or is simply not a good match for my ears and/or cabs (a Carvin Legacy 212 w/ V30s, an Avatar 212 with V30 "Hellatones", and a Jackson 212 w/ 1 GT75 and 1 Eminence Gov.)?
