Question:
So I need a decent practice amp for in my room. Well,actually a all-around amp (for use in the church too. Our church isn't that big so i think 30w will do just fine).
I was thinking of a Cube-30 or a VOX Ad30 valve.
I heard a lot of good things about the cube. In fact more than the ad30.
I'm not a distortion like sound lover. I'm more at the funky/blues/jazz sounds
I also looked for the microcube,but i think its to "soft" for me. 2 watt...
As you can all guess I choose these two amps because they have effects on it. Good bright tones,clean, good delay,...
So anyone who has these 2 and kindly give me an advice.
Answer:
I owned the Cube-30 just recently (sold it and bought a Fender Hot Rod Delxue) and I can tell you it's a very very nice practice amp. I also played it in church. Like you, I'm not a metalhead or anything, and I found th Cube 30 good for blues / classic rock sort of stuff. It also has a really nice Jazz clean.
Hope that helps. If you haven't yet, check out the reviews for both at harmony-central.com
-Nick
Answer:
Yeah, I checked the reviews on harmony central
And thats just it actually, Ive read many negative things about the vox. Like that it would go dead after a while or something like that...
Its all good and well for the effects... more that the cube has ok ... but will vox last long ... i mean ... do i really get the quality for the money?
Cube is built sturdy and well but for me the sound is more important.
Answer:
Originally Posted by Jester_T Yeah, I checked the reviews on harmony central
And thats just it actually, Ive read many negative things about the vox. Like that it would go dead after a while or something like that...
Its all good and well for the effects... more that the cube has ok ... but will vox last long ... i mean ... do i really get the quality for the money?
Cube is built sturdy and well but for me the sound is more important.
i have the vox ad30vt. awesome amp- i love it.
anyways, the body of the amp is very sturdy. i havn't noticed any problems there. as far as reliability, the only thing i've noticed (in about 6 months) is that my bypass button, used to bypass the effects section, won't work. this kinda disapoints me... and i'm expecting a memory reset to fix it. i'll probably try it tonight, after i write down what my settings are for my channels... i'll let you know what i find out on that. the only other thing that i've noticed with how it is built is that when the amp is turned up and a lot of bass is pumping out the amp, something vibrates fairly loudly. kinda annoying. it didn't do this when i first got it... and only when the amp is up very LOUD. the only time i need to turn up that loud is when i'm playing in winter percussion, and i need enough volume to compete with the rest of the pit and the 10 member drumline (a little more than 1/2 volume) so, that really doesn't bug me much. if i have enough time sometime, i might open it up and see what exactly is causing the noise. in overall reliability, i don't expect the amp to stop any time soon. those 2 things are the only 2 things that i've noticed... and i take my amp everywhere. right now, school 2 nights a week, and church, usually 2 nights a week. its gotten its share of being bumped around and the such. as said before, very sturdy amp.
more importantly, tone-wise, the amp is very flexable. very sweet tones. cleans are nice and warm, overdrives are smooth and full. plenty of clean tones:
Boutique clean (i think its modeled after a matchless amp) - sounds very much like my old kalamazoo 5 watt kalamazoo tube amp. very simple sound... i rarely use it...
fender blackface 2x12 (Fender Twin Reverb) - very fender-like. sounds a little thin compared to some of the other models, but it gets thicker as the gain is turned up. this is another that i rarely use, because it doesn't offer much/any distortion. possible to overdrive with the gain maxed out and a high signal (or just an EQ pedal with a 15 dB boost )
fender tweed 4x10 (Fender Bassman) - fendery sound, but has a little more dirt. begins breaking up when the gain is raised up high. thick, warm sound.
AC15 - classic small tube-amp sound. warm and full when clean, sweet when overdriven.
AC30TB - similar to the AC15 with a bigger, more defined and aggressive sound. usually the amp that i use. cleans are bright and when the gain is pushed a little, overdrives very easily. distortion also sounds great when pushed all the way.
UK '70S (Marshall Plexi) - makes for an awesome 'blues' amp. low gain, the sound is full and thick. med gain, the amp sings. light overdrive without a 'dirty' feel. this one seems a little bass heavy lately... i think its my guitar, as i've been tinkering with it lately... and my overall sound is a bit off.
and thats it for the clean sounds. the rest get into more of a 'high-gain' catagory... the amp is absolutely awesome in sound. tremendous flexability in the range of sounds.
te next thing is effects, which i almost never use. i rarely even use reverb... but thats just be. the effects all seem to be good quality. parameters editable. the only downside, if your an effects lover, is that you can only select pregrouped effects... like reverb, or reverb and chourus, or delay, or compresion and phaser. this really doesn't bug me, as i rarely use them, but it might bug some, so i thought i'd better bring it up.
and the last thing are the channels. 2 savable channels... not too bad, considering that most amps only have 2 channels, but with a modeling amp with virtually 11 amps inside, 2 channels is a bit small. find the sounds you like and save them. i built a footswitch for the amp ($30 to buy one), and you can switch between the 2 channels... with the other button, you can either switch to the 'manual' mode, which turns off all the channels and this can be used as a '3rd' channel... or the same button can be set to turn off the effects. this, to me, is the biggest downside of the whole amp. i'd love to have 4-5 channels, but i'll have to do with 3. oh well.
so, if you got the vox, i know you won't be disappointed with it in tone. absolutely great modeling. effects, while good, aren't most user friendly. and if you need a lot of flexability on the fly, you've got to plan ahead. i really don't know much about the cube models. i've heard good things... and if effects are most important, the cube might be better for you. i've heard its really good in that area.
feel free to ask any questions about the vox. beware, though, i might get a little carried away with how much i type... oh, and the best way to decide which amp to get is probably to go and try them both out, if possible.
Answer:
Is that Vox one of the Valvetronix? If so, I've heard a lot of good things about it.
Answer:
Originally Posted by ApparentlyNothing Is that Vox one of the Valvetronix? If so, I've heard a lot of good things about it. That it is. I have the 60 watt model of that series. Great amp. The Church has a Cube-30, and it's also good, but not quite as good if you need to play somewhere live.
I'd go for the Vox, personally.
Answer:
well, i did a reset on my valvetronix- it didn't fix my problem with the bypass button (which does seem to be the button itself). i thought it might have been an error in one of the circuts, and simply needed a reset... (being in a digital electronics class, i've noticed that things like that are certainly possible.) also, when reset, the amp also sets the 2nd footswitch button to act as a 'bypass' switch, which that worked. so, the problem is with the switch itself. i'll have to contact sweetwater (where i got it from) about that.
one other problem that i've encountered, which was last night: for winter percussion we literally have 2 min to set up. anyone who played guitar knows that 2 min for setting up a guitar is not much. already tuned and on a stand, the guitar and amp are on a cart... along with all the needed footswitches, cables, and extension cords. 2 min to find a power outlet, plug in the extension cord and get it to where you are, get the guitar and amp in place, and plug in everything. well, everything was going great... until i went to plug into the amp. the nut fell off (which is holding the jack in place), and the jack itself fell into the inside of the amp. needless to say, i was extremely aggrevated... with nothing that could be done. so, just a heads up to anyone that has an AD15,30,50 - be sure to check how tight the nut is on top. mine didn't show any signs of comming lose until it finally did... and it did in the worst conditions possible.
relatively easy to fix - simply opening up, putting the jack back through, and replacing the nut. the insides did look pretty well built. the jack, instead of secured to the amp, is only held by the nut above it... no idea why it isn't held more securely, but it isn't. as i said, the rest of the amp looked pretty solid.
well, i'm out of time,
Tom
Answer:
alright, i'm back. used my amp again for the first time since the jack fell in.
the buzz that i had noted before seems to be gone, as well as some other wierd sounds that i was getting at loud volumes. must have all been caused by my lose input jack. i'll definitly be keeping an eye on that. amp seems to be back to normal.
the other noise i noticed when i was playing at loud volumes was that it sounded something like transistors were distorting... or that something digital had to much gain and was distorting. but only when there was a lot of power going through the speaker, not when the master was on full and the attentuator had the volume low (as expected if it was transistor/digital/similar). seems like it the jack was vibrating enough to cause noise to be inputted into the signal. very odd. ever since i did the jimmy page mod to my guitar, something seemed like it was sucking my tone. i thought that it was the guitar... the pots seem to be really cheap. and the guitar was the only thing that i considered to be variable. so, i assumed that it was the guitar itself. now, it seems that everything is back to normal. sounds great again. still have some work on my guitar... need to get the treble bleed cap to the right value so that the tone doesn't get 'duller' or 'brighter' as the pot is turned down.
and now that i think about it, some of the amp models, marhall plexi in particular, were getting extra bassy.... almost unusably bassy (i rarely dialed in anything other than the ac30, but on occasion, i did). weren't too bassy in they beginning, but were now. most likely, seems like a form of feedback. very odd. i would've never thought this to be possible... and now that i know about it, i may as well pass the info on for anyone who is noticing these symptoms... KEEP THE INPUT JACK TIGHTENED!!! (has anyone else had problems with this on other amps?)
i didn't get a good chance to describe the inards of the amp earlier. the input jack is on a very small circuitboard... probably a 2"x2" or smaller. the unit is held by plastic jack and the plastic nut. wouldn't have been hard for them to have attached this tiny board to the casing. 3 wires from the jack go into what looks like the preamp board. i'll call the preamp board the one that all the dials feed into and also has many, many small ICs... microprocessors... something. fairly cluttered board. very little space to work with things if something were to go wrong. directly below this board seems to be the power amp board. the single 12AX7 used for power tube emulation is mounted here, as well as all the transistors and several large capacitors. a giant heatsink is mounted here as well and bleeds the heat to the inside of the amp... seems kinda odd for a closed back amp, but there is only one active tube... probably fairly low powered at that. tons of small 50v, and various values of microfarads. quite a few of the small ceramic disk caps too. very interesting.
all in all, the amp seems to be built very well. still kinda disapointed about these 2 issues... still doesn't change my stance on recommending this amp. great amp, awesome tone, limited effects, extremely affordable.
Answer:
I have the 120W Valvetronic- with the seperate Vox 4x12 cab. I am truly in awe with the flexibility of this rig. Had it for about 9 months now- no troubles at all. The low level outputs are junk- use a mike if you must get into the house mixer. The pedal board is truly built like a brick outhouse. The 2 watt setting is great for practicing in a small room. (yeah- a built in brake!!)

BTW, I am no fan of distortion- I prefer a clean tone for my custom tele- but this can make it sound really crunchy with very little effort. I love the clean tubey sounds for my tele, but I usually just run straight into the house board for my A/E acoustics.
Answer:
No issues so far with my AD30VT. I bought mine used though it was well cared for. I have loved the sounds I can get from this amp.
Thanks for the heads up on the input jack. I will check mine tonight!