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Well I have finally got myself a valve amplifier. The AC15 by Vox.
It wasn't my first choice.. cough.. cough.. The Fender Deluxe Reverb RI '65 was but I got impatient you see.. I have been waiting for far too long in the search of the tone I'm after.
So far I'm a little disappointed in the AC15.. I know your not going to get the crystal cleans out of it, but I thought I'd be able to get the tone I'm after, and that's a thick, warm, punchy clean tone.
It seems to be lacking punch it sounds very weak. Yes, yes I have just got it out the box but still.
I do plan to get some JAN GE12AX7's and some better EL84's. I also plan to change the speaker also, ideally to a Fane Medusa 150c or something similar in characteristics. Oh! And the stock reverb tank in it too.. It is terrible!
Is there any cat's out there that use this, or have used this amplifier? Could you please throw me some tips etc.
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04-04-2014 11:40 AM
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I don't have an AC15 but I have had them in the past, I used one in a Swing Band for years with a Guild 175D Manhatten and I'm surprised it lacks punch and sounds weak, I never experienced that with the ones I had and they did a pretty good clean tone as well, they were used by The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, The Yardbirds etc. Hank Marvin and The Shadows used them in their early days and you can't get much cleaner than them. They were originally made by an English company Jennings Musical Industries but they are now made by Korg so perhaps that's why they sound different.
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Unless the current tubes are faulty, you're unlikely to get a significant modification in the clean tone with new tubes. A speaker change is more likely to be effective, but it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. One person's "thick, warm, punchy clean tone" is another's mud fest.
Originally Posted by cybersailer
I've always thought of AC15's as being snotty rock amps. An AC30, OTOH, I think would work quite well for clean tones. I used to own a Voz AC30 CC1 and it was a good amp, but after a while I really started to miss the bottom end you get from a BF Deluxe. It was also remarkably heavy, so I sold it and got a DRRI. Course, at the time I was playing strats only, so your experience with an archtop using a neck humbucker might vary
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I think they often need a speaker swap to get the tone you might want. If it's an AC15C1, that's the most recent one, generally they have a better quality speaker than the previous CC1 version.
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i adore mine but they aren't what i'd typically consider "jazz" amps. your best bet: a 12ay7 (or similar) lower gain tube in the v1 position (random nos is what i use), better el84s (people love jjs, i use mullards), use the normal channel and work the cut knob to taste. i'm afraid of nos el84s because voxes are tube hungry amps.
personally, i run the normal between 10-12 oclock and set the master where i need it to be. i like to run the channel voume a little high to get more life into the sound. a g12h30 type speaker is a good compromise between versatility and voxyness. i prefer pedal reverb, and if i can't get the volume up high enough, i like to use an ep booster to give a little life and bottom.
truth be told, i jump my channels 100% of the time and dial them in to taste, but i don't know if thats an option for your model.
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Hi Cyber,
I'm not sure if you've mentioned but what guitar are you trying with it?
Some humbuckers, with guitar volume maxed, will never sound clean until you back the guitar volume down.
Try turning the amp Master Volume up high, the gain Volume low and the guitar volume low. This should give you the"best" clean volume.
An AC15 is a loud amp. It should have more than enough volume for playing at home and in my opinion 15 properly functioning valve watts can be a bit much volume for home use.
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"yes I have just got it out the box"
So maybe you need some time to let the speaker and the tubes to open up ...
Last time I changed power tubes in my amp, I thought I made the wrong choice, but a couple of hours later, I was more than happy.
As already stated before, AC15 should be much better than what you described
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I battled with the AC15 up and down. I really disliked it at first because of the tone and all the things you mentioned. My suggestion to you is to give it some time before you start making changes to it. I gave it a very good while of warming the tubes, not warming the tubes and playing, Tone up,mid,down-little reverb no reverb, tweeking all the knobs until I got the tone I wanted. The only thing I'm doing different is adding an EQ pedal live for louder trio work. I even handed back the Fender I borrowed. Open that Vox Up! ...a few times. This guitarist I was paired up with 2 months ago said "Vox get's a bad rap in Jazz, it's a good amp. You just have to give it a chance to adjust to you , nobody else."...I did just that and I couldn't be happier.
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I have an AC15C1 since about a half year and I enjoy it a lot. I have almost used it exclusively with a classic vibe telecaster so far, a tried and true combination that sounds great. I tend to favor the normal channel (no eq) for this. Tried it briefly with my Ibanez AFJ95 hollow body, but thought it perhaps sounded a bit too bright even with the tone cut heavily engaged in the master section of the amp on normal channel. Yesterday I gave it another shot with the ibanez, but used the top boost channel, which even though it is dirtier than the normal channel, also has a bass/treble eq. I thought I could get a nice jazz sound out of the amp now. The pre-amp volume on the top boost channel needs to be kept really low, about 9'o clock. Bass/treble low around 8-9 o'clock, tone cut fully clockwise. Master where needed for overall volume. Tone knob on the guitar can mellow things out more if needed. I don't know how far these settings will go in a live situation volume wise.
Maybe something to try if you've given up on this amp for jazz tones?
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Depending on what you're after, I've gotten some nice tones from an AC15. My approach was to use the TB channel with the gain peppered in to taste. The mid cut all the way clockwise. Start with the bass and treble all the way down and bring them up to taste. For the Ibanez guitar I was trying it out on, I got the bass and treble up to maybe 10 o'clock. Very nice I thought. Heavy amp.
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Or maybe the output tubes need to be biased (or preamp tubes to be changed, or both). I have a custom made 30W tube amp, that tonewise is some combination of Fender and Vox, and when I bought it, I couldn't get it to overdrive for the life of it, and I was loading it with medium output humbuckers (some 10K), maxed gain, and the master volume well passed halfway - it would still stay clean. But one of the tubes started to rattle, and I swapped the output tubes with matched 6l6's. The first thing I noticed when I turned it on was that now it would overdrive slightly when the gain knob is maxed. With the combination of gain and master volume, not I get a nice overdrive out of it, and a bit more lively clean I guess.
I thing that the change is due to the fact that I didn't bothered to bias the tubes. No biasing pot, so too much complicated for me, either to do it on my own, or to take it to the nearest technician, that is not that near.
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So, you bought an AC15 because you couldn't wait for a Deluxe and now it's the amp's fault for *not sounding* as you've *imagined* it will? Originally Posted by cybersailer
Am I the only one not seeing any logic whatsoever?
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Changing tubes, speaker and reverb all at once on a new amp???
Maybe try a different amp?
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The Vox AC and Fender DRRI are very different amps for sure. Originally Posted by LtKojak
So, you bought an AC15 because you couldn't wait for a Deluxe and now it's the amp's fault for *not sounding* as you've *imagined* it will?
Am I the only one not seeing any logic whatsoever?
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I have a late 70's AC30 and 2010 AC15HW1X (hand wired version of AC15) for playing rock. Could be great for jazz too, but I have had little Fenders and Polytones for that.
AC15HW1X is amazing amp. Touch sensitive, dynamic, sweet. First six months I just couldn't stop playing it.
A year ago I changed the Cel Blue to a more Greenbackish Celestion G12-35 special edition and it sounds more like jazz now... Still can't beat my Polytone.
Good luck with Your AC15!
Voxes don't need biasing. Originally Posted by aleksandar
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I purchased one a while ago with the Celestion Greenback and I loved the tone. I had to return it though, since at 60lbs, it was just too large at only 15 watts for me to make it practical. I ended up with an older Fender Hot Rod 40 watt, since I just wanted clean tone.
That said, if I could just keep it stationary and money wasn't an option, I would have kept it...
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