New Vox VX2 and VX1 amps

[roger bayliss]

Hi

I just recently bought a Vox VX2 amp for home practice and I am very pleased with it so I thought I would pass it on.

They are cheap practice amps ideal for home use and the specs are on the Vox site in the link below.

They have two Vox AC30 models being the AC30 normal channel and the Top Boost Channel. To my ears these are very good and compare to other Vox amps I have owned. As such they are very good for doing Shads tunes both early stuff and later top boost tunes. I use a Caline EQ pedal to finish the sound and it is as good a sound as I have ever achieved in a live setting from an amp.

The case is made of ABS plastic with a wooden speaker baffle and it has bass porting to improve low end response from the small 8" speaker. The best part of all this is you can pick this amp up with your little finger !

There are 11 amp models and effects and they all sound realistic to me. I would think they are similar to the DA and Mini series, but they have New technology from Vox in the circuit design. The power amp is analogue and FET based emulating a valve power stage and the pre amp modelling is digital based on a new VET modelling technology by Vox. Made in Vietnam by the way. Additionally the tone stacks are modelled for the amp selected and the Vox one behaves as expected.

Although made of ABS plastic they are quite smart and they are cheap and they sound great so I am very pleased with mine.

The only thing I would like is more headphone volume but I think there would be a resistor in circuit you could change or remove to improve that.


http://www.voxamps.com/VXSeries

[jase]

Hi Roger

I've jumped in and got one on order for tomorrow, at the price they are selling them they have to be worth a punt. I owned one of the VT range a few years ago which I didn't keep for long so it will be interesting to see if the technology has improved. I'm also interested to see if it's compatible with my IPad and see if and how it works as an interface.

[roger bayliss]

Great I am sure you will like it and let us know how it goes.

[jase]

It arrived late yesterday afternoon and I've managed to have a little go with it both last night and tonight. My very first impression was that it looked rather cheap and maybe a little flimsy however I was amazed at how light it was. I haven't quite worked out how to turn it on without selecting a preset but I seem to be able to turn them off, although I'm not quite sure how I've done it each time. I don't care too much for the effects that are on the amp, but I didn't buy it for those anyway. Both the AC30 and AC30TB sound very good to my ears and well worth the £115 it cost me and once you connect a shadows like echo before it your certainly in the territory. I connected it to my IPad via the Apple camera connection kit and it was straight away recognised in Multitrack Daw and I did a quick record and it works fine. You do have to turn the power level down when using it with usb as just plugging in the usb doesn't kill the speaker. As Roger commented there is virtually no level if your using headphones, both volume and power level have to be at maximum and still it's very quiet, this must be a design fault. I think this amp will do me fine for practicing and it definitely has some sounds worth recording. At £115 it's cheaper than some effects pedals that model an AC30. I owned a VT40 a few years ago and what I've heard so far I think this sounds better.

[dave robinson]

I'm not in he market for one as I have a couple of small Voxes that we use for rehearsal, the Vox Mini 5 and the AC-4 and each of them sound great, just as you would want and expect a Vox to sound. But I know these new ones will sound good, as I haven't heard a bad sounding Vox to date and I try and test them all down at our local music store. They are always good value for money and easy to get the Shadows sound from. Highly recommended !

[roger bayliss]

It arrived late yesterday afternoon and I've managed to have a little go with it both last night and tonight. My very first impression was that it looked rather cheap and maybe a little flimsy however I was amazed at how light it was. I haven't quite worked out how to turn it on without selecting a preset but I seem to be able to turn them off, although I'm not quite sure how I've done it each time. I don't care too much for the effects that are on the amp, but I didn't buy it for those anyway. Both the AC30 and AC30TB sound very good to my ears and well worth the £115 it cost me and once you connect a shadows like echo before it your certainly in the territory. I connected it to my IPad via the Apple camera connection kit and it was straight away recognised in Multitrack Daw and I did a quick record and it works fine. You do have to turn the power level down when using it with usb as just plugging in the usb doesn't kill the speaker. As Roger commented there is virtually no level if your using headphones, both volume and power level have to be at maximum and still it's very quiet, this must be a design fault. I think this amp will do me fine for practicing and it definitely has some sounds worth recording. At £115 it's cheaper than some effects pedals that model an AC30. I owned a VT40 a few years ago and what I've heard so far I think this sounds better.

I am sure there will be a resistor in the headphone side to restrict volume. It is probably health and safety at work again !
I found that setting a preset up for the two amps I use most was the best way to get it set up on switch on. You can save two pre sets of your own.

Yes it is plastic but the sound is there and the price is brilliant and as we said it is as light as a feather.

[roger bayliss]

Hi

I did a couple of quick recordings using the JamVox software and the VX2 amp today for purposes of quick demo.
Both tunes were recorded using the USB connection straight to JamVox. I did not use the software amp sounds this is the VX2's own sound via USB. I just set up a Roland echo that was simulated in the software to approximate and a little room reverb with pre delay and recorded Peace Pipe using the Top Boost amp. I did not change anything and used the Normal Channel on the VX2 and did Apache. The echo is all wrong for Apache but I decided to do it to demo the amp sound mainly so do not take too much notice of the echo !

These files were recorded straight from JamVox and no EQ added or any other effects. I just converted to MP3s for the upload. The guitar was a G&L S500 with 10s fitted.

Hope they give some idea of the amps sound.

Peace Pipe
https://app.box.com/s/yk2k1pblav43mmzh1rmfa2m9yj2nrgjw

Apache
https://app.box.com/s/dix4zr79xe0hdvyjw68t076myr6yy9ry

Also I think to use the amps in the JamVox software you simply need a USB interface device rather than than VX2 itself. The only ech in the software suitable is the Roland emulation so it is a bit limited but you can add the usual echo in the way you normally would when recording with any other software and interface.

[derekdelboy]

Hi Roger and others

I too have done demos of Peace pipe but not using the free Jamvox software.
The Jamvox version is very good but using the AMP ( mic'd ) I think is more useful to most.

I used my Hall and Collins ( P15) echo pedal and an SM57 Mic.

I hope demonstrates the capabilities of the Amp used "Live" ..... VERSION 1 uses the AC30 Sim .... Version 2 the AC30 TB Sim ..... a great little amp I think !!
Version 1
http://app.box.com/s/j07n89h4wccwa6h8y6eo9kdhx98fjfzy

VERSION 2

http://app.box.com/s/i7mh9h8n0r02u5zt1ruvjc6bfjnynqfp

Derek