Any vox experts?

suspiciousminds

Around about 1988 i had a vox amp and although i have no pics i'm trying to find out what model it was.
It had the classic vox logo and grille and was quite large.
Controls were on the top - black chickenhead knobs - there was definately no gain, but bass, treble, vol knobs (possibly tremelo although i'm not 100% about that as it was my second amp) and i remember the "on" switch was a rocker type switch that illuminated when on.
I had to turn it up to distort and it was bloody loud.
I flogged it for 50 quid in the '90's.
I never knew what model it was because the serial wasnt there.
A bit vague i know, but its always bugged me which one it was.
Does this type of vox ring any bells?

ADP

I'm not an expert but I know a man who is: http://www.voxshowroom.com/equipment/index.html

ICBM

The illuminated rocker switch tends to indicate it was a mid-80s AC30, although it's possible it could have been an older one that had been converted as a repair.

thermionic

Didn't those have an illuminated rocker standby switches as well? Seems like the OP would remember if there were two adjacent switches.

danban

Rose Morris period ac30?

ICBM

Yes, I think you're right. Just struggling to remember any Vox with just a single illuminated rocker switch.

danban

The only vox ac30 I can think of with a single switch was the ss? But can't remember if it had a rocker...

ICBM

danban said:

The only vox ac30 I can think of with a single switch was the ss? But can't remember if it had a rocker…

All AC30s had single switches with no standby until the 80s, but they're all toggle types, including the SS. I'm pretty sure the V125s only ever had toggles too.

suspiciousminds

It was definately a rocker as i destinctly remember it making a loud pop noise through the amp when i switched it off.
No reverb either.

thermionic

Does this look familiar? 

suspiciousminds

I'm sure there werent as many chicken head knobs - i remember that it was quite basic.

ICBM

Do you remember how many speakers it had, or if you could even see them from the back?

I'm wondering if it might be some sort of later Escort series solid-state amp - they pop when you turn them off! Although I wouldn't describe them as quite large and bloody loud.

suspiciousminds

Pretty sure it was enclosed, although i'm not 100%.

suspiciousminds

ICBM after googling the escort, it looked very much like the escort 50 bass - the only difference being it definately had a rocker as opposed to the toggle switch.

ICBM

suspiciousminds said:

ICBM after googling the escort, it looked very much like the escort 50 bass - the only difference being it definately had a rocker as opposed to the toggle switch.

I could be wrong but I think the last ones of these might have done.

Aha!

This one has been very heavily modded , but you can see that it did originally have the rocker switch.

http://music-electronics-forum.com/attachments/28936d1400682314-photo0123.jpg

If that's what it was, they're not terrible amps but not all that great, and you didn't make a huge mistake selling it for £50 - certainly not back then. The bass version is only worth maybe £150-£200 today, the lead (with fuzz channel!) maybe £50 more.

suspiciousminds

Yep mystery solved i think.
There was definately no fuzz or gain because i used to run a arion metal master through it which was the only effect i had at the time.
Cheers ICBM - never thought about it being a bass amp as the only info on it was the vox logo.

ICBM

Calling an Escort 50 Bass a bass amp is pushing it .

You could maybe get away with it for low-volume practice if you're looking for a deliberately woolly, thuddy 60s bass tone, but no more. Its only real practical use is as a clean-ish guitar amp, and even then the Lead version using the Normal channel probably sounds better.

Not that well-built either - in particular the large PCB suffers from vibration and heat-related cracking, which is probably why that one above was stripped and rebuilt as something completely different! They're quite cool though - and at least not very heavy by Vox standards.

thermionic

Early AC30s came in "Bass" variants which was merely a few component values different for a less trebly overall sound and not intended for bass players. Looks like the nomenclature stuck for the Escorts.

ICBM

thermionic said:

Early AC30s came in "Bass" variants which was merely a few component values different for a less trebly overall sound and not intended for bass players.

They were intended for bass players! And for which they were very poor and usually blew the speakers… the head and cab version was more successful. Paul McCartney - among many others - used his for bass.

Interestingly the first proper bass amp Vox made was the T60 transistor amp - the first ever production solid-state amp, I think - but which was unreliable. After his blew up, McCartney went back to using the AC30 but with the better T60 cabinet.