Vox AC30 Guitar Combo Amp

Wow. In just a few short paragraphs, you provided a more useful guide to historic AC-30 models than I've read on entire websites. Hell of a review!

haha, I left out half my knowledge, that's the hands on buyers guide to getting the top boost tone from easily identifiable and readily available ACs

Here's an addendum to my post I will call Top Boost on a budget....

So you want the ac30 thing but you need to keep it under a grand. What is a poor guitarist to do?

1) Ceriatone Dizzy 30 - made in Malaysia, these clones of the matchless C30 amps of 90s fame are built on turrets instead of being true point-to-point, but JMI built the original voxes on turrets and terminal strips, so this isn't a bad thing. This has the matchless TB channel which is a little gainier and a little more complex due to it using a parallel triode input (Mark Samson couldn't stand wasting the second half of V1 but couldn't squeeze a 3rd channel to cop the 60s normal channel Brian May favors I guess). Channel 2 is the mighty EF86 pentode channel, a hot-rod, super-tweakable version of the original AC30/4 black panel brilliant channel. I could go on and on about how you'll never touch the TB channel, but find out for yourself! These amps are very well built, but have mediocre transformers and a weak chassis. You have to weld aluminum all over guys. However, Nik's prices reflect these downgrades and his customer service is A#1. He's a true enthusiast who will chat you up. Mine has seen a lot of gigs and sessions and I love her.

2) Orange double terror - Okay, it doesn't have the top boost active tone circuit really, but it IS very much in the ac30 camp and sounds great for the scratch. Add an open-back 2x12 with blues? You're the Queen of May! Though this is a PCB amp it is extremely well ventilated (voxes get really hot, so PCBs in this circuit are scary). Anyway, over some of the other maintenance whores in this rundown I will trust a current production orange with a good warranty any day of the week and twice on sunday.

3) AC30 custom classic 1st series - The original Custom Classics were better amps than the current ones. They were voiced a little better and the cabinets were built better. Add a pair of blue alnico speakers (or mix a blue with the stock wharfdale G12H30 clone) and you can get in the right ballpark. These seem to be built adequately well, especially for a Chinese product, but the traditional Vox lack of ventilation scares the bejeezus outta me. The bigger vents are nice, but they only make me feel better on the HW series. A PCB vox needs more air flow guys. I've seen 60s JMI AC30s burst into flames. Straight up, dude... smoke, then fire.

4) Gibson Goldtone GA30RVT 90s - these are Trace Elliots by a different name. There's an equivalent Trace model with a simple tonestack that this amp is based on (the Trace Elliot Velocet is their ac15/matchless spitfire interpretation and it sounds pretty good and the 30 watt Trace may also be a Velocet but it has a fender deluxe style tone knob like the orange terror so I'll stick to the Gibson version with the full cathode follower tone section that's closer to a top-boost circuit). The Trace made Gibbies are pretty well made, really voxy and only fall down in their oddball 12"+10" speaker cab which is a nod to the original GA20s and 30s of the 50s that had a 12" and an 8"... but those amps had little to do with a vox apart from cathode bias. Okay, they maybe had some influence on vox in later series like the 2 tones, but by then the speaker configuration had changed and.... I digress. Sorry. This amp will get you close if you put a blue in the 12" slot. I hear they made a head version, but I've never seen one. This amp is a good bet as I've never seen a broken one. Just a heads up, around the time Gibson bought Trace they also bought Orange. Many of you will not recall Gibson's attempt to revive the Orange brand in the early 90s because they rapidly switched dears to rebranding Trace amps as Gibson Goldtones, but I think the current Orange staff with their many Vox influenced offerings might containin more than a few former Trace engineers since the whole Trace line was super Voxy. So yeah, this one is a good start.

5) 90s Laney VC30 - It has too many of the wrong features, but under the hood its still basically an AC30. It sounds like Ken Bran of 60s Marshall's take on the vox thing. Once again, add the right speakers and you are getting in the right territory. These are PCB but well ventilated and I thin they were built in the UK by people who sort of care. They're from the period of the GH50L so they're not as bullet-proof as an 80s Marshall, but better than a lot of the far east dreck out there today.

6) Crate Vintage Club 30 90s - These sound REALLY AC30ish. The cabs are crappy, the PCBs are flimsy, they need more ventilation and pretty much everything is under-spec in typical St Louis Music fashion (hell, these are the folks who resurrected Ampeg by making bastardized reissues that crap out every week and putting out a ton of solid state 'SVT' amps... WHAT?! humph)... all that said, the Crate will get you there with a good pair of speakers installed (good=blue). Don't rely on this as your main gig amp unless you have 2... or 3. If you can find more than 1 that still works....

7) Bugera V22 current production - this amp was just brought to my attention by another EB member.... she appears to be a PCB based Chinese knockoff of a modern classic, Bad Cat's Hot Cat 30R. That's a good circuit! A little true top-boost, a cascaded triode hi-gain channel and a matchless power amp. I have no personal experience of this amp, but on paper it should do a pretty good vox impression with proper speakers installed. Its made in china, but so is the dual terror and the Custom Classic. If you're on a budget you're stuck with china sadly. And if you don't care about your amp having a famous British name badge (the thing ain't made in the UK, you may fool some, but not me)... well, if you don't want brand recognition, this Is probably a good bang for buck Chinese voxer.

So that's my whole jam here... hope it helps some top-boost seekers with shallow pockets.

I always wanted this amp. I will add this to my gear list someday. Nice review

I have since writing this acquired an Arbiter with the 70s greenbacks and solidstate rectifier as well as having one of the 90s Marshall PCB-build reissues fall into my lap. Next to eachother they are all really different. Even though I need to service it, I am really digging how aggressive the arbiter version is. Its much more rockin than any other version of the ac30. Really good.

what a great review you like this allot man

i finally got it

@kira what? did you buy a vox

Hey Jim, did you ever get that grey panel Arbiter serviced? I'd be curious to know what your conclusion on that one was.

@nikfarr I serviced it myself (it just needed filter caps and a few joints reflowed where they looked dodgey like on the tube sockets) and decided to sell it recently for a profit. I liked it a lot but I don't like PCB amps (purely service reasons) andmine was a PCB arbiter, not an early terminal strip one... also, it was pretty fucking loud. It could hang with a 50 watt amrshall combo, loudest ac30 I've ever played. It sounded great though, a little more harsh than my other ones but also very mean when cranked up, very much like a 50 watt plexi actually and close to that volume... if you wanna see sme legit gear porn I added some pics of my '62 ac30 to my gear porn section a little while ago. That girl just went through a round of servicing and was fitted with some broken in reissue celestions for safe gigging and is kicking ass.

@jimmarchi1 That is wild, man. I'd love to try one of those, even though it doesn't sound like exactly my cup of tea. Thanks for reporting back on that :-)

@nikfarr, for real, go check out my gear porn for pics of the crème de la crème of ac30s, agreed by most who ehar it to be particularly good sounding even as this era goes

what version ac30 did you invest in? an HW2?

No, I have the CC2

Yes, please see my review.

Nice. What kind of music do you play? What do you think it's best suited for?

work as a music producer in my country. Turkey. I have a band too. I also played for people at the concerts for many years. So i played modern pop to blues and almost all kind of rock music. I lived and play music several years in New York too. I can say that Vox AC 30 was mine main amp. I used Fender to Bogner Mesa Boogie to Marshall and owned them. But Vox is the real deal. What do i think its best suited for... it depends on the sound in you. If you want more headroom change the tubes use less breaking el 84s. But maybe you love less headroom again the tubes.. And Vox AC 30s are most pedal friendly amps in my opinion. Speakers are also very important. Greenbacks and alnico blues are the most cpmmon speakers. If you like more mids go for the alnicos. I prefer greenbacks for all around music.

What era is your AC30 from? please add that to your review, or, if its a custom classic or a fawn handwired please look up your specific model (they are all on Equipboard) and add that to your board.

yeah! the only way to use an AC30 is on meltdown unless you are in a Byrds tribute band or something.