Vox Amplifiers: China Versus England Built

[johnallg]

Ivan, same with Ampeg since they moved production to 'Nam. Costs must have gone way down, but now I see the selling prices went up. Talk about maximizing your margins!

[rickenmetal]

Although they obviously don't make all the amps in one country. The solid-state and hybrid Voxes seem to be made in Vietnam, the Pathfinder seems to be Korean (I don't know if all of them), then I have seen ROC on the back of some of the AC-30CCs, which would mean they were made in Taiwan, unless they did some weird labeling.

Then the newest Ampeg guitar amp, the J-20, seems to be Korean, although sadly without reverb.

[johnallg]

..... Then the newest Ampeg guitar amp, the J-20, seems to be Korean, although sadly without reverb.

A Crate in Ampeg clothing you think? In today's issue of Bass Player, there was a mini SVT stack (SS head, 2 x 10 cab) that is tiny but dressed out like the big sib. Maybe both are actually Crate amps? Anyone? Bueller?

[rickenmetal]

Why would it be a Crate? It looks like an Ampeg, doesn't have a Crate equivalent as far as I know. Do you have leads that it's made in the same factory as Crate?

It's actually kind of cool, 150 watts and there aren't really other solid-state bass heads in that power range anymore, as far as I know, plus you don't have to buy the cab. Too bad it only has one mid pot. I have a Korean-made 140 watt Hartke 1400 head (no longer made), which I find wonderful, great head.

[soundmasterg]

I think the same company that owns Ampeg now owns Crate.

Greg

[johnallg]

I think the same company that owns Ampeg now owns Crate.

Greg

Yup. Just speculation on my part, but with the multi-corporate atmosphere it is a possibility.

http://www.loudtechinc.com/

Read some of the job descriptions - cross company.

http://www.loudtechinc.com/jobs/index.html

[paologregorio]

As an owner of both an old AC 30 and a CC2X, I have no complaints about the sound. My only issues with the amp have been:

1.) It arrived with a broken reverb tank(upon removing the tank from its bag I the springs fell to the ground), which could have easily happened druing shipping, and in any case, Vox doesn't make it's own tanks. I've had the Accutronics tank on a stand alone Fender reverb unit do the same thing. This was easily remedied-I took it back to Guitar Center and they took care of me.

2.) The cheap Chinese preamp tubes grew noisy after what I considered to be too short of a duration. I replaced them with Groove Tubes.

3.) The aforementioned too short speaker wire leads, which my old AC 30 also had, before I had a speaker jack wired in!

Other than that, the amp sounds to my ear to be equal to the old AC 30. I will probably have it converted to being completely hand wired by my local amp tech, who is a whiz at this sort of thing, and a whiz at getting repairs done in a timely manner!!

[kennyhowes]

As an owner of both an old AC 30 and a CC2X, I have no complaints about the sound. My only issues with the amp have been:

1.) It arrived with a broken reverb tank(upon removing the tank from its bag I the springs fell to the ground), which could have easily happened druing shipping, and in any case, Vox doesn't make it's own tanks. I've had the Accutronics tank on a stand alone Fender reverb unit do the same thing. This was easily remedied-I took it back to Guitar Center and they took care of me.

2.) The cheap Chinese preamp tubes grew noisy after what I considered to be too short of a duration. I replaced them with Groove Tubes.

3.) The aforementioned too short speaker wire leads, which my old AC 30 also had, before I had a speaker jack wired in!

Other than that, the amp sounds to my ear to be equal to the old AC 30. I will probably have it converted to being completely hand wired by my local amp tech, who is a whiz at this sort of thing, and a whiz at getting repairs done in a timely manner!!

I have three AC30 amps. Two Korg, one JMI.

Been on the fence about a Chinese one - thought about maybe tracking down an AC30CC1, for something different.

So, at the end of the day, how's the Chinese one stack up to the Korg one? (The JMI has the advantage of being, well, a JMI with more hours under its belt, so I don't gig with it as much as I do with the others.)

[paologregorio]

Cruise by my place and try mine out.

[whojamfan]

There is a lot of great information about Vox AC30 amps on the Plexi Palace vintage amps forum. There seems to be a general consensus amongst the amp builders and techs there that the Korg reissue has more problems, design, and construction flaws than the new CCs do. Apparently, you can mod a CC to sound just like an old JMI by swapping out some components. I haven't done this myself, so I can't give you any reports one way or the other.

I used to work for a Korg dealer in the 90s who was also a RIC dealer, and really found the AC30 needed to be cranked up a bit to sound good(to my ears)and found the sweet spot to be in a very limited range. This, combined with no other features, made the 2000 dollar or so price not worth it too me, IMHO. BTW, I did have all 3 channels jumped together, and the other guitar player in my band in the mid 80s had a 60s JMI AC30, so I had experience playing through and listening to one in person and not just on a record.

I'm not knocking the Korg RI, just simply stating that for what I wanted and the price, it wasn't for me. I was happy to see the CC series, as they have the preamp mix and overdrive options, effects loop,reverb, and a few other things that make it nice for half the price of what the Korg RI went for 10+ years ago. For me, it has worked out just fine. As far as the reverb, if you don't like it, you can always change out the tank, or run your standalone through the loop.

I've found it to be quite a versatile amp, and am happy to know that it is quite easy to change out components in any stage of the signal path to fine tune the sound if I choose. Once again, check out the Plexi Palace, and those folks can break it down for you to the smallest detail. Needless to say, I'm happy with this amp, and want to say again that I'm not knocking the Korg RI, as many people are happy with them and have enjoyed using them.

Of course, there are those who cannot get past the fact that the amp is made in China, even if it was handwired to milspec with the highest grade components available. To them I say "Hey, If you got 4 grand to drop on an original JMI, UK made RI, or these new clones, be my guest."

I do, however, own some 90s Vox solid state stuff, T60, T25, and a Pathfinder, and find them all to be cool little combos. It is a bummer that Korg/Vox never made a bigger bass amp, maybe in the future.

Ampeg and Crate are both owned by St. Louis Music, and I fully agree that the price of the overseas Ampeg stuff should go for half the price of the previous stuff, just as Vox has done with its CC series.

Just my 2 cents

[jps]

Ampeg and Crate are both owned by St. Louis Music, and I fully agree that the price of the overseas Ampeg stuff should go for half the price of the previous stuff, just as Vox has done with its CC series.

Just my 2 cents

Um, that should be past tense regarding SLM, as Ampeg and Crate have been owned by Loud Technologies (LT) for quite a while now. What gets me is that LT dumped most of the US workforce when they went overseas. I too, agree that Ampeg, etc., should go for way less than they do, so greed was the main reason for going overseas, not cost savings to the buying public.

[BlueAngel]

I will also acknowledge that when thinking of AC30's, most of us have a particular sound in our heads of how if should sound, and in my case, the experience of the "penny dropping" as to what vox tone is all about (for me, trying to decode Edge's "Joshua Tree" tone as a 19 year old, as well as the famous "Paperback Writer", "Got to get you into my life" tones).

The funny thing is that 'Paperback Writer' was not recorded with an AC-30, it was done with a Vox 7120 - which is a hybrid amp using a silicon-transistor preamp and a high-powered KT88 tube output stage. I find it pretty funny that one of the 'classic AC-30 tones' which people have been chasing for years (and claiming to get close to using various versions of one) is in fact basically a solid-state fuzz circuit into a clean power amp - it actually always sounded like that to me too, even before I found out what it was from the Beatles Gear book (which details every piece of equipment used on every session). I can't remember what 'Got To Get You Into My Life' was done with, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was something similar.

The Edge used Roland JC-120s a lot around the time of The Joshua Tree too, although I don't doubt that the recordings were with an AC30.

[kennyhowes]

Well, I got an AC30cc1. It's great! But I'm broke, so here it is:
http://orangecounty.craigslist.org/msg/899875297.html

[johnhall]

Um, that should be past tense regarding SLM, as Ampeg and Crate have been owned by Loud Technologies (LT) for quite a while now. What gets me is that LT dumped most of the US workforce when they went overseas. I too, agree that Ampeg, etc., should go for way less than they do, so greed was the main reason for going overseas, not cost savings to the buying public.

Unfortunately, SLM chose to hook up with a star that had already begun falling, back about the time they acquired Mackie. Lotsa changes in the executive suite as well:

http://finance.google.com/finance?clien ... ASDAQ:LTEC

It's a shame when the requirement for shareholder results supplant the consumer's expectations in great old brands.

[paologregorio]

I will also acknowledge that when thinking of AC30's, most of us have a particular sound in our heads of how if should sound, and in my case, the experience of the "penny dropping" as to what vox tone is all about (for me, trying to decode Edge's "Joshua Tree" tone as a 19 year old, as well as the famous "Paperback Writer", "Got to get you into my life" tones).

The funny thing is that 'Paperback Writer' was not recorded with an AC-30, it was done with a Vox 7120 - which is a hybrid amp using a silicon-transistor preamp and a high-powered KT88 tube output stage. I find it pretty funny that one of the 'classic AC-30 tones' which people have been chasing for years (and claiming to get close to using various versions of one) is in fact basically a solid-state fuzz circuit into a clean power amp - it actually always sounded like that to me too, even before I found out what it was from the Beatles Gear book (which details every piece of equipment used on every session). I can't remember what 'Got To Get You Into My Life' was done with, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was something similar.

The Edge used Roland JC-120s a lot around the time of The Joshua Tree too, although I don't doubt that the recordings were with an AC30.

If you listen close you can probably tell which are which; Paul Weller did the same thing with the Jam, but I can pick out a number of the songs he did with a JC 120-some of these are super easy to pick out because he's using the built in stereo chorus on the JC 120.