My wife found and bought me a stadium rig in a charity shop

Cirrus

A Vox V125 lead head, which I know nothing about other than seeing 4 EL34s in, with two big ported matching 2x12 cabs. It's in the living room, no idea what I'm going to do with it.

bertie

any use /help ? 

firstly the amp looks to be worth (working) £500 +  

what speakers are in the cabs ?  (blues ?  ) 

Cirrus

That's the one

bertie

120 vox watts must be............................ I said 120 VOX WATTS MUST BE LOUD

ICBM

bertie said:

what speakers are in the caps ?  (blues ?  ) 

Fanes with blue frames, not the same thing at all.

Personally I think these amps are absolutely awful! But since they’re old, Vox, and have valves in, some people are willing to pay quite a lot for them…

If you’re lucky, the valves are the original Mullards. Worth more than the rest of it in my opinion .

Supportact

Did she bring it back on the bus? 

Cirrus

ICBM said:

bertie said:

what speakers are in the caps ?  (blues ?  ) 

Fanes with blue frames, not the same thing at all.

Personally I think these amps are absolutely awful! But since they’re old, Vox, and have valves in, some people are willing to pay quite a lot for them…

If you’re lucky, the valves are the original Mullards. Worth more than the rest of it in my opinion .

The two cabs have different speakers in them. From the dust caps I reckon one pair is g12-80s, but need to get in them to see.

thecolourbox

I would say Let me know when you are going to fire it up but to be honest I'll probably hear it from here.

I'm sure you know your wife is a keeper

Stuckfast

I have the combo version which is ridiculously named the Vox Climax and I can't say I agree with @ICBM. It's an unusual amp and one that takes a bit of time to get to know, but it can sound very nice. It just doesn't sound like an AC30 which perhaps is why people don't like it. The built in distortion is horrific though.

RocknRollDave

Pics?

Cirrus

Struggling to get a working photo link on my phone, I'll pop one up later.

prlgmnr

I used to have one of these back in the early 2000s, used it with a band and it used to blow fuses every gig, so I traded it to a guy for a Marshall Valvestate (not the 8100 that people now want, I think it was an AVT)

Cirrus

Right, now I'm back home. Here we are. The shop didn't really know what they had so the Valvetronix came as part of the bundle.

The left cab has 2 uk-made Greenbacks in. One has a fairly big repaired tear in the cone. Right cab seems to have the Fane blue-frame Vox branded ceramics, purely based on the colour of the frame I can see without taking them out.

The head works. I can't crank it up at home but it sounds like a big loud clean valve amp, from what I could garner from some different blends of preamp and master volume. Tonestack is very strange, and with everything at noon it's got a pretty big midrange honk. I turned the 500hz knob down quite a lot, and pushed the 125hz and 2500hz knobs up. I wasn't expecting some lost classic, I know enough about early '80s Vox. But still, exciting to have something different to play with. Might end up selling the head on, or opening it up and seeing where the circuit goes wrong from a good tone POV. But even just finding the greenbacks makes me happy.

ICBM

At least you got an AD15VT, those sound good .

Cirrus

Not now, John.

Cirrus

Greenbacks work. Very happy. The cabs are cool.

Cirrus

Oh, right, ok. They're pre-rola greenbacks with pulsonic cones. I'm really hoping they work at proper volume, I'll take them to practice on Weds and give them a go. The right one has been repaired with tape & I guess PVA glue, which is a method I've heard of before. The left one has a small tear near the surround, maybe 1cm in size.



If they work, and the entire pile of cabs and head is otherwise garbage (I am keen to see what the ported cabs are like with my AC30), I'll be happy - and I might try them in my ac30 combo, see how they compare to my blues with modern cones.

bertie

hmm had a AD30VT,  second only to the BJ as my worst sounding amp ever 

Cirrus

The ad15 is ok, The vox setting is fine for a cleanish practice amp through my pedalboard, and I guess it'll be fine for taking round mate's houses for jams etc. The higher gain models are pretty gash, just different flavours of old digital fizziness through the cab's particular low/ low mid resonances. I do have a feeling they'd sound better just a little bit louder than I can play at home, but... it's a practice amp, it works, it's fine.

fastonebaz

Cirrus said:

Oh, right, ok. They're pre-rola greenbacks with pulsonic cones. I'm really hoping they work at proper volume, I'll take them to practice on Weds and give them a go. The right one has been repaired with tape & I guess PVA glue, which is a method I've heard of before. The left one has a small tear near the surround, maybe 1cm in size.



If they work, and the entire pile of cabs and head is otherwise garbage (I am keen to see what the ported cabs are like with my AC30), I'll be happy - and I might try them in my ac30 combo, see how they compare to my blues with modern cones.

I used to have some of those same speakers and they sounded awesome when paired with my marshall head.  Gigged loads with them. 

Loobs

ICBM said:

bertie said:

what speakers are in the caps ?  (blues ?  ) 

Fanes with blue frames, not the same thing at all.

Personally I think these amps are absolutely awful! But since they’re old, Vox, and have valves in, some people are willing to pay quite a lot for them…

If you’re lucky, the valves are the original Mullards. Worth more than the rest of it in my opinion .

is there anything you don't think is awful?