NAD.: Vox AC30CCH

thomasw88

Saw a rather mint one online so snapped it up. 

I've read that should  just keep the Standby switch on at all times, and that the reverb tank is a bit cack ( sounds alright to me but I'm a fairly basic user of reverb anyway.).
Any hints or tips on these?

It'll be getting paired with an open backed 1x12 with celestion alnico cream  or a 2x12 with v30/GH30

It'll be getting its first public airing tomorrow, very impressed with it so far.

Cirrus

Yeah, just keep the standby switch on, pretend it doesn't exist and all will be fine and dandy.

I had a head which I did a few mods to, including bypassing the standby switch altogether so it did nothing, which meant that the guy who helped us set up/ tear down at gigs could carry on using it like before and I didn't need to keep telling him not to  

A relatively common issue is that the FX loop bypass switch on the back panel gets a bit dirty inside which causes signal dropouts/ crackles that people often take to be a valve failing or some major issue. So if you get crackles, low volume or occasional dropouts, before you take it to a tech try flicking the FX loop bypass switch back and forward a few times to see if that fixes it.

thomasw88

Cirrus said:

Yeah, just keep the standby switch on, pretend it doesn't exist and all will be fine and dandy.

I had a head which I did a few mods to, including bypassing the standby switch altogether so it did nothing, which meant that the guy who helped us set up/ tear down at gigs could carry on using it like before and I didn't need to keep telling him not to  

A relatively common issue is that the FX loop bypass switch on the back panel gets a bit dirty inside which causes signal dropouts/ crackles that people often take to be a valve failing or some major issue. So if you get crackles, low volume or occasional dropouts, before you take it to a tech try flicking the FX loop bypass switch back and forward a few times to see if that fixes it.

Did you find it valve hungry? any pedals that worked particularly well with it?

Cirrus

thomasw88 said:

Did you find it valve hungry? any pedals that worked particularly well with it?

No more valve hungry than any other AC30 I've had. They do go through power tubes quickly, because they're biased hot. You can cool them down with the dipswitch on the back panel, but tbh I've always thought AC30s sound best when the valves are pushed hard (not to the point of blowing after a few hours, but I usually thought they started sounding flat after 6 months of regular use) & that taking the pressure off them for longer life makes them sound a bit flat.


Pedals are very player/ guitar dependant, but the best I found with it were the Bognor Burnley, Timmy, Proco Rat, & basically any clean-ish boost. Smallsound/Bigsound Fuck Overdrive was great too, but I don't know how easy it is to get hold of them any more.

thomasw88

well first gig with it was mixed.   First set was with a strat, and the cleans were great.   Worked really well with my rat, less so with a egnator goldsmith dual drive, and not great with an OCD.     The drive from the amp was good, but I generally use a 2 channel amp with that band so just footswitch between clean/drive, so required a bit more fiddling than I normally do.

2nd Set, swapped out the egnator goldsmith for a Boss OD3 and a TC spark booster, and those 2 as well as the rat and a Les Paul sounded generally  great to me anyway! 

Its definitely a very different amp to what I'm used to but I really liked it in the main, and found I was using the volume on the guitar far more than I usually do.

I don't how people can crank these amps tho.   Drummer is a loud one,  and I don't think I had the Master volume over a quarter, and  that was on the 22watt setting..

57Deluxe

whilst we are talking Vox, then this episode of the Tone Lounge is quite relevant.

That Mini Beatle sounds superb too...

StefB

thomasw88 said:

I don't think I had the Master volume over a quarter, and  that was on the 22watt setting..

Is it a current model you have?  The attenuator on mine drops the volume down to either 3w or 1/3w so the 22w option sounds quite intriguing.

thomasw88

StefB said:

thomasw88 said:

I don't think I had the Master volume over a quarter, and  that was on the 22watt setting..

Is it a current model you have?  The attenuator on mine drops the volume down to either 3w or 1/3w so the 22w option sounds quite intriguing.

It’s the cch version  so the previous model.