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Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
It may just be an unusual balance between being artistically and technically minded which makes some of these things pop out to some people and not others.
An ability to listen and focus very intently on precise aspects of sound plus a technical understanding of what might be causing it is probably why you're not just your average amp mender. It's definitely the reason I pick up a fair bit a development work from an FX manufacturer - I'm good at bridging the art/tech divide without being especially brilliant at either.
Because Vox designed the Blues as gigging amps they set the underlying EQ characteristics to sound best at full blown gigging volumes. But this meant they are missing something at low volumes compared to e.g. Line 6 amps that had the EQ set to sound good in the store but the tone went flabby and muddy with volume. The EQ remedies that, and as the volume increases you need it less.
And ICBM is right...if you can't get great tone from the Blues then its you not the amp. And by the way, the old Blue amps are very different to all subsequent AD chrome amps, because the Blues have a genuine valve output stage that reacts to speaker impedance.
Not a joke - I had a Vox AC4TV for a couple of days once, and it sounded *awful* with any of my guitars. I could not get a decent tone out of it at all, either clean or dirty, I have since discovered that they have a basic problem with humbuckers, or even hotter single coils like P90s or Rick High-Gains. Guess what I was using...
They actually sound OK or good with low-output, glassy-sounding single coils, ie Fender-types.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
ICBM said:
I'm very surprised and more than a little puzzled that you struggled to get good tone from a humbucker guitar. I had an AC4TVH head on loan with the matching 1x12 cab containing a Celestion Greenback and it sounded pretty good with the humbuckers in my PRS Cu24. Although I switched to single coils after 2:40 the first part was on the bridge HB p/up. The jazz tone at 3:40 was the neck H/B and from 06:40.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
My mate switched the valve out on his and it definitely made a difference too. So I don't know what the valve does in it, but it does do something. He swapped the stock one for a new mesa (the old one was years old!) and the difference was there.
Very cool amps, both the chrome and the blue one. I actually miss mine - loud, reliable and good sounds. I used the ac30tb, uk70s and uk80s only - ac30 for home practice, uk80s high gain and UK 70s for cleans, mild od and crunch all from pick attack and volume knob. Really cool thing.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
@Danny1969: Tone opinion aside, every amp tech I've spoken with has actually commended the build quality of the chrome VT series saying they are very tidy inside and superior to several of the more expensive amps from 'big brand' names. I had a VT30 on loan and was very impressed with it - and to be fair I much preferred its tone with the 10" speaker to the VT50 with the 12" which was too dark sounding for my taste.
@ThePrettyDamned: Yup, the original chrome ADVT's with just the 11 amp models are actually well liked, and these can respond very well to a valve change. The other interesting 'mod' on all the chrome variants is to add some 'filling/padding' inside which reportedly really tightens up their tone. Both these 'mods' are well documented by folk on Valvetronix.net
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein