I guess enough has been written and is widely understood about what makes the AC30 such a desirable amp without my needing to add a whole lot more to the mix.
There’s no FX Send/Return which is fairly uncommon on a modern amp, theres nowhere to plug in your iPod, no headphone input or USB out, not an onboard digital effect to be seen – and most Vox aficionados will be quite content with that. Other than that theres only the footswitch input and power chord. The rear panel features an extension speaker output and external speaker output, the latter muting the internal speakers. The addition of a Master Volume is also new with this AC30, but before purists start making ‘tutt tutt’ noises, they need to know that there is a Master Volume Bypass switch so you can run it as you would a classic AC30, or with Master Volume engaged you can wind down the Master and drive the 12AX7 pre-amp tubes by cranking the channel volume – ideal for lower output requirements like bedroom jamming or recording.Īnother innovation is the Op Mode switch which allows you to run the amp at half power – on two rather than four EL 84s and delivering less power amp distortion and a less harmonically dense sound. The Tone Cut control is placed in the power amp as opposed to the pre-amp section and works in the opposite way to what you might expect – turning it clockwise decreases the higher frequencies – and it does so very effectively. You can use the supplied footswitch to engage the Hot setting as a boost for lead solos. In Hot mode this largely (but not completely) bypasses the tone circuitry, allowing a purer signal path to the power amp and the corresponding extra gain and natural amp overdrive.
The Top Boost section features Volume, Treble and Bass controls and the addition of a Hot/Cool switch. This would be the first port of call for jazz and trad blues guitarists with its mellow warmth, bass response and ample clean headroom.
The Normal channel is as basic as it gets with a single Volume control, tone shaping being accessed via the Tone Cut control in the Master section, and also through engaging the new Bright switch which adds sizzle to the top register – great for dark-sounding guitars like Les Pauls. While it may simply be an electronic device, you can use words like heart and soul when talking about Vox amps because, as anyone who has owned one would probably agree, you can actually get quite emotionally attached to them. So when NZM indicated there was a new hand-wired AC30 awaiting investigation, the possibility that there might not be too much new to say about this fairly basic, but well-bred workhorse, was totally over-ridden by the fact that I simply had to get my hands on it.Īs it turns out the HW (Hand Wired) line has a few excellent new features aimed at taking an evergreen favourite into the 21st Century, without tampering too much with the heart and soul of the original AC30 design. It’s the sheer class and sweet tone of the Vox voice that makes it such a solid platform to build your own unique sound on.
That these two players coax such unique but divergent sounds from the same amp indicates that owning a Vox is merely the start of a journey into tone that will in all likelihood never end. It’s obviously a voice that some not-too-shabby guitarists have fallen for over the years the list is literally endless but would have to include, at the high-profile end, The Edge and Brian May with his famous wall of AC30s. Vox amps, and the peerless AC30 in particular, are all about voice – a voodoo mix of valve and speaker choice, power and pre-amp distortion characteristics, tone circuitry and all the other tech specs that make one model of amp as distinctive and different as Taylor Swift is to Chris Cornell. It seems a particularly apt name for a line of British amplifiers that has had a massive impact on electric guitar playing for decades.
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