NAD Victory V40

Rowby1

I bought one, tried it, didn't get on with it, sent it back, bought an MJW.

On paper (like you) the ideal amp for my needs. In reality it didn't sound "right" at all. Couldn't even keep up with my Egnater Tweaker for tone and feel, and that's a way cheaper amp.

On top of which the one I had seemed rather noisey.

Evildurka

jenks80085;939840" said:

I love my Kraken...

I love my Kraken too!

Fortheloveofguitar

Evildurka;941350" said:

[quote="jenks80085;939840"]I love my Kraken...

I love my Kraken too!

[/quote]


I love my Engl Ironball and that's a Kraken beater

stratman3142

My experience in comparing my Hotrod Deluxe 3 with a Victory V40 has been quite different.

Although the Hotrod is probably one of the lightest good sounding giggable valve combo amps for big venues, I have back problems and needed something lighter that I could use in a separate head and cab format. My Hotrod isn't quite stock in that it has a Celestion Vintage 30 speaker and I use it with a closed back Marshall 1912 1x12 extension cab loaded with a Celestion Vintage 30. Not to everyone's taste, but over the years I've found the V30 speaker to work well in a band gig context.

Last Friday I took one of my Marshall 1912 cabs with me to Andertons to try how it would sound with a Victory V40. I also took my HSS (S1) Strat, a Maxon OD9 (Tubescreamer) and a JHS Angry Charlie distortion pedal.

They put me in the big room with the PRS guitars and left me to it, so I could try it at gig volume. It sounded great. I liked the cleans and it was awesome with the pedals. An Angry Charlie through a V40 is a sound to behold . I tried both the EL34 and 6L6 versions of the V40 and the difference was subtle to my ear. I went for the EL34, basically because it's the standard version.

Interestingly, I tried the V40 with its recommended open back 1x12 Creamback Victory cab, but I greatly preferred the sound through my closed back Marshall cab with the Celestion Vintage 30. Maybe it just needs to be used with a cab speaker combination you like. At volume, the recommended Creamback loaded cab sounded smaller and compressed. It seemed like the speaker wasn't really coping, whereas my cab was unconstrained, with a big full sound.

He's my amp comparison, which I did tonight after I read this post.

I used channel 1 on my Hotrod with the volume set at 3, which is about as loud as I would usually need to go at gigs (bear in mind it's got a Vintage 30 which is 3dB more efficient than most speakers), so that's pretty loud.

The Victory V40 on voice 2, with the mid kick off, set with the Master on full, and the volume at 10 o'clock (i.e. two markers left of vertical)  was the about same volume as the Hotrod and has a sound in the same zone.

When I bypassed the Hotrod speaker (obviously the combo is open back) and connected it to my closed back Marshall 1912 cab, the sound of the two amps was even closer.

They don't have the same sound but they're in a very similar zone. The Hotrod seems a bit crunchier (in a good way) at the same volume. The V40 seems a bit more refined and probably has more clean headroom, but could be set to break up earlier by increasing the Volume pot and backing off the Master pot. It's a matter of opinion which is best. So far I'm liking the V40 through my closed back Marshal cab more than my Hotrod.

I'm only interested in using the V40 clean at gigs so the Master pot will be high with the Volume pot lower. I'll using my OD9 and Angry Charlie for my overdrive and distortion sounds.

I've got a rehearsal next week so hopefully I'm still happy with the sound in a band context. But I won't really know until I've gigged with it for a while through both my Marshall cabs.

Pete

firks91

Ive also been really interested in the V40, but reading the other posts has disheartened me. Not sure what to do anymore. i like the sound of my HRD but its just too damn loud in the house. one thing that does encourage me though is that for instance, ive been told that voice 1 is very akin to a deluxe reverb, which sounds pretty appealing. That said, it do really like a good open but warm clean tone too, as well as a darker sound a la Mayer...which is something the HRD seems to be able to do ok. 

For the ones who've tried it, just how close to a sparkling/glassy fender tone is voice 1? 

As everyone knows, youtube vids arent normally much to go by but ive mixed impressions from them. some seem to sound great, but many others sound kinda dull. 

And for any Kraken owners, how do you find clean tones? 

benmurray85

@firks91 I have no issues getting a "decent" sound out of my HRD at home levels - I never understand it when people say they cant achieve that? It isnt the best but its perfectly fine and certainly not disapointing or whatever?

Anyways re. the V40. Ive been thinking about it again today with this blog popping back up and I think the best way to describe it is its "divisive." In that those that get on with them really seen to love them and those that dont, dont. Im a huge fender fanboy and even defend the HRD to the hilt as being a perfectl decent amp. BUT in my limited experience the V40 just doesnt do that full "fender" sound. As I said above it was all top and bottom with nothing in between. 

Voice 1 was the most disapointing as I really wanted to see how it did the deluxe reverb style sounds. I think if I buy another amp again I'll just plump for one of those.

Voice 2 was an improvement but how hard is it to make a decent sounding tweed style amp? (I mean that as a serious, sincere question - I know nothing on the subject) I would hazard a guess its easier to get that right thought, although please correct me if im wrong experts.

In short the V40 is an "OK" amp for 200 quid - but it doesnt cost that much. For what it is its waaaaay overpriced.  

firks91

benmurray85 said:

@firks91 I have no issues getting a "decent" sound out of my HRD at home levels - I never understand it when people say they cant achieve that? It isnt the best but its perfectly fine and certainly not disapointing or whatever?

Anyways re. the V40. Ive been thinking about it again today with this blog popping back up and I think the best way to describe it is its "divisive." In that those that get on with them really seen to love them and those that dont, dont. Im a huge fender fanboy and even defend the HRD to the hilt as being a perfectl decent amp. BUT in my limited experience the V40 just doesnt do that full "fender" sound. As I said above it was all top and bottom with nothing in between. 

Voice 1 was the most disapointing as I really wanted to see how it did the deluxe reverb style sounds. I think if I buy another amp again I'll just plump for one of those.

Voice 2 was an improvement but how hard is it to make a decent sounding tweed style amp? (I mean that as a serious, sincere question - I know nothing on the subject) I would hazard a guess its easier to get that right thought, although please correct me if im wrong experts.

In short the V40 is an "OK" amp for 200 quid - but it doesnt cost that much. For what it is its waaaaay overpriced.  

I can get a decent ish sound at really low volume, but it could be better. As a result, i dont feel all that inspired when playing it at home, which is all i do these days. In all fairness though, its a straight up amp, no variac settings, power scaling etc so you cant expect too much from a 40w tube amp when the vol isnt even on 1. 

Honestly the Victory appealed to me mostly because of its various power level etc.. its size, and its ability to get a genuine breakup tone solely from the amp at a low volume. 

Adam_MD

firks91;949583" said:

Honestly the Victory appealed to me mostly because of its various power level etc.. its size, and its ability to get a genuine breakup tone solely from the amp at a low volume. 

It's still my perfect amp on paper so I'm reserving judgement until I've tried one for myself.

firks91

Adam_MD said:

firks91;949583" said:

Honestly the Victory appealed to me mostly because of its various power level etc.. its size, and its ability to get a genuine breakup tone solely from the amp at a low volume. 

It's still my perfect amp on paper so I'm reserving judgement until I've tried one for myself.

thats what im trying to do but ive been "stung" more than once by buying blindly. by that i mean straight up just not liking it aha.

Teetonetal

Adam_MD;949619" said:

[quote="firks91;949583"]

Honestly the Victory appealed to me mostly because of its various power level etc.. its size, and its ability to get a genuine breakup tone solely from the amp at a low volume. 

It's still my perfect amp on paper so I'm reserving judgement until I've tried one for myself. [/quote]

Me too. But as it's so hard to find one in my neck of the woods it's going to miss out this time.

Adam_MD

I'm going to do a road trip to Andertons in a few weeks via Feline guitars to try one. Might as well make a day out of it

strtdv

shaunm said:

First impressions are normally right as far as gear goes.

Got to agree with this (one or two amps excepted).

You know very quickly whether an amp is "for you" or not. If you're fighting it from the start, chances are you'll be fighting it a year down the line.

I've sold some very nice amps that just weren't my sound. Some I've persisted with for up to a year, but in the end you know when the sound is there. My Laney and Hiwatt were both like that, I knew within about 30 seconds of switching them on that the sound was there and they were keepers.

The one thing I would allow before I passed judgement though is some new valves. My amps are pretty low gain and vintage voiced, and even just a nice valve in V1 makes a huge difference.

meltedbuzzbox

Evildurka said:

jenks80085;939840" said:

I love my Kraken...

I love my Kraken too!

I'm a bit partial too

http://cocktails365.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/img_01441.jpg?w=610

stratman3142

I'll be trying it at band rehearsal tonight, so I'll report back when I get time. Up to now I've only tried it in Andertons and at home. Although I did crank it up to gig volume in both cases.

I just need something clean that sounds similar'ish to my Hotrod at gig volume. I have to find a lighter amp now I've turned 60. My back took two weeks to recover after a New Years Eve gig with my Hotrod. In fact it still hasn't really recovered.

Pete

strtdv

@stratman3142 have you tried the Fender Supersonic 22?

It's compact, a bit lighter than the HRD, and should do those darker overdrive tones well.

They come up in the classifieds every so often for under £600.

digitalscream

firks91 said:

And for any Kraken owners, how do you find clean tones? 

Usually by rolling off the guitar volume on high-gain tones

Seriously, if you want good traditional clean tones, look away from the Kraken. It's clean up to 9 o'clock, after that it's dirt all the way.

Fantastic amp, but not for the country crowd...

firks91

digitalscream;949730" said:

firks91 said:And for any Kraken owners, how do you find clean tones? 





Usually by rolling off the guitar volume on high-gain tones

Seriously, if you want good traditional clean tones, look away from the Kraken. It's clean up to 9 o'clock, after that it's dirt all the way.

Fantastic amp, but not for the country crowd...

Yeah, just wondered what the tone is like really.
Ideally id have the Kraken for all the rock stuff and the v40 (im hoping) for everything else.

benmurray85

In this case I'm sure its me thats at fault, or not to my tastes or whatever. I still listen to the online demos and think that I love the sound of the amp. 

Some rave about it so Im sure its just my personal tastes or whatever. Hope others get on with it better than I did.

stratman3142

strtdv said:

@stratman3142 have you tried the Fender Supersonic 22?

It's compact, a bit lighter than the HRD, and should do those darker overdrive tones well.

They come up in the classifieds every so often for under £600.

The other guitar player in the band uses a Fender Supersonic 100w. That's a heavy beast but it sounds good. I'd always worry whether a less than 30W amp would be clean enough with a loud drummer in a full band, but I've not tried it so I don't really know.

Anyway I tried the V40 tonight at band rehearsal and I like it so far. I started with two Marshall 1912 closed backed cabs loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s (wired in series to give 16ohms), which is how I'll use it for gigs. I had to quickly revert to one cab tilted back. I was blowing the bass player's head off because he was in line with my cabs.

The other guitar player said it sounded fatter than my Hotrod, but perception of sound is weird and it varies so much depending where you stand in relation to the speaker cab.

In my band there's drums, bass, another guitar and keyboards/vocals and the V40 occupied a nice frequency space in the sound. I'd say the clean is more focused than the Hotrod. Not better or worse, just a different good sound. However, my Hotrod has a Vintage 30 in it, so it's not a typical Hotrod sound to start with. I didn't like the original Hotrod speaker.

The V40 sounds more 'Marshall like' with overdrive/distortion pedals than my Hotrod. Actually the latter was my perception when I compared it the the 6L6 version of the V40 at Andertons, which was part of the reason I chose the EL34 version. But that is very subjective. So far I prefer the V40 to my Hotrod with my overdrive/distortion pedals.

I set it clean but I could get a nice crunch sound (for example on Honky Tonk Women) by engaging my Maxon OD9 (Tube Screamer) and a (post) boost pedal, then backing of the volume pot on my guitar to take it down to rhythm volume.

The clean was sweet. Definitely different to my Hotrod in a band context, but a sound I liked. I used the voice 2 setting with the mid switch off, which seems to work best in my band.

High gain tones sounded good with my Angry Charlie. I could get an EVH type tone with the bridge humbucker and a Santana type tone for Smooth with the neck and middle pickups in series humbucker mode, selected by the S1 switching on my Strat.

So far so good, but I won't really know until I've gigged with it for a while, and my next gig isn't until late next month.

I've made some comparisons with other amps I own, plus other amps I tried before getting the V40, so maybe I'll post some stuff on that when I get time.

Pete

firks91

stratman3142 said:

strtdv said:

@stratman3142 have you tried the Fender Supersonic 22?

It's compact, a bit lighter than the HRD, and should do those darker overdrive tones well.

They come up in the classifieds every so often for under £600.

The other guitar player in the band uses a Fender Supersonic 100w. That's a heavy beast but it sounds good. I'd always worry whether a less than 30W amp would be clean enough with a loud drummer in a full band, but I've not tried it so I don't really know.

Anyway I tried the V40 tonight at band rehearsal and I like it so far. I started with two Marshall 1912 closed backed cabs loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s (wired in series to give 16ohms), which is how I'll use it for gigs. I had to quickly revert to one cab tilted back. I was blowing the bass player's head off because he was in line with my cabs.

The other guitar player said it sounded fatter than my Hotrod, but perception of sound is weird and it varies so much depending where you stand in relation to the speaker cab.

In my band there's drums, bass, another guitar and keyboards/vocals and the V40 occupied a nice frequency space in the sound. I'd say the clean is more focused than the Hotrod. Not better or worse, just a different good sound. However, my Hotrod has a Vintage 30 in it, so it's not a typical Hotrod sound to start with. I didn't like the original Hotrod speaker.

The V40 sounds more 'Marshall like' with overdrive/distortion pedals than my Hotrod. Actually the latter was my perception when I compared it the the 6L6 version of the V40 at Andertons, which was part of the reason I chose the EL34 version. But that is very subjective. So far I prefer the V40 to my Hotrod with my overdrive/distortion pedals.

I set it clean but I could get a nice crunch sound (for example on Honky Tonk Women) by engaging my Maxon OD9 (Tube Screamer) and a (post) boost pedal, then backing of the volume pot on my guitar to take it down to rhythm volume.

The clean was sweet. Definitely different to my Hotrod in a band context, but a sound I liked. I used the voice 2 setting with the mid switch off, which seems to work best in my band.

High gain tones sounded good with my Angry Charlie. I could get an EVH type tone with the bridge humbucker and a Santana type tone for Smooth with the neck and middle pickups in series humbucker mode, selected by the S1 switching on my Strat.

So far so good, but I won't really know until I've gigged with it for a while, and my next gig isn't until late next month.

I've made some comparisons with other amps I own, plus other amps I tried before getting the V40, so maybe I'll post some stuff on that when I get time.

Pete

Another very nice account, thanks for sharing. 

i also asked a question on the FB group earlier, about dark cleans in the style of Mayer and Larry Carlton etc.. Mick Taylor, among others replied and said its what it does best, so thats reassuring to me. I absolutely love John Mayer's tones, definitely one of, if not my favourite clean flavour. 

the overdriven stuff excites me too, especially since i hope to buy a Kingsley Minstrel too, to accompany it (if i get a v40).