Epiphone Blues Custom 30

I assume this amp was made around 2006, the blues custom is great tube amp and plays almost all music, from jazz, country, blues, classic to hard rock. Although I would keep away with the metal, 2 channels are great, first one is very clean warm and organic, the 2nd channel is sweet ass overdrive, to almost enough distortion and still hear ever note picked in a chord. Simple knobs and very basic to operate, this also has 30/15 watt switchable which is a cool feature. I manly use this amp at home, and maybe one day gig with it.

I use a Gibson Les Paul Custom, w/498 alnico & 490 Alnico and it sounds real nice, getting juicy crunch tones from the tubes. All I have to say is I bought this amp because of the tone and sound. Out all the dozens amps I owned, this one has sounded the best, At high volumes the 1st channel is clean till you get around 11 o'clock mark and it starts to break up nicely. 2nd channel is a juicy thick overdrive to almost distortion The EQ is fantastic, which work interactive or independent with a push of a button.

When I got this amp I only had one issue, the fan in the back was making a lot of grinding noise, till after a minute warm up it went away. I didn't want to return it for warranty cause it would take 3-4 weeks to get it back from the music store as it was there only one left, This was an easy thing to fix which I did myself and no more noise :)
All in all it seems pretty solid to me, build like a tank. and had no problems with it.

Didn't have to deal with them.
1 Year Warranty.

Over all this is the best tube I have ever bought to my ears, I had Marshall's and peaveys fenders and Line 6, None come close. the last amp I had was a Pod XT inside a atomic amp, I got sick of modeling and was looking for an amp that had the ultimate tube sound/tone and found this amp staring at me at the music shop. I was playing it for an hour to make sure it was the one. I went home and was thinking about it, next day couldn't wait and bought it. Just for the record, I always check the reviews at Harmony Central, as I never wrote reviews before on other Equipment. But for some reason I had to do this one.

I'm glad more people are reviewing this amp more now. This is a follow up for a review I wrote a while back. I bought mine soon after they came out in... 2006 or 2007. A year or two later, I still love the amp but I do wish it had an effects loop. I would like to put effects after the nice tube distortion but since it doesn't have an effects loop, I end up using my DOD 250 overdrive before the other effects and using the amp's clean channel instead. I love the DOD 250 so that's not much of a problem but if I have a tube amp, shouldn't I be using its distortion? A headphones jack and master volume would be nice too. Not a big deal though.

The "interactive" equalizer option is a nice feature where changing one band affects others. Supposedly that is a feature seen on some higher end amps. Enabling the interactive equalizer makes the output LOUD though - not for late night practicing.

Great sound. The distortion channel is kind of bright but not overly bright. Nothing that the treble knob can't take care of. Still sounds good.

I play with a customized Les Paul with Duncan SH-2 Jazz and SH-4 JB pickups. It sounds great. The amount of distortion/overdrive on this is just about perfect. It's responsive and "touch sensitive" with enough distortion to cover a variety of sounds. Noise hasn't been an issue, even when it's turned up.

Mine has never "broken down" but it did come with a scratchy treble pot and the light in the power switch didn't always come on - maybe once every 100 times I turned it on. Both were pretty minor issues and a Gibson repair shop fixed both under warranty. Great guys. Read on.

As I mentioned, when I got this amp, the treble pot was scratchy and the light in the power switch didn't come on once every blue moon. I emailed Gibson's customer support about the two issues but never heard back. Both problems were minor enough I wouldn't have bothered getting them fixed but one day I thought the reverb stopped working.

As it turns out, I was using a single button footswitch and it actually needs a two button switch - one for switching the channel and one for turning reverb on and off. That was why my reverb "stopped working" but since I didn't know that yet, I brought it in to a local music store in Omaha, NE that sells Gibson/Epiphone. Their store in Lincoln does repairs for all three of their stores but they recently stopped selling (and doing repair for) Gibson. The Lincoln store was in the process of becoming a Gibson repair center again (so they could still do service for the Omaha store) and after talking to Gibson and the store's repair guys, everything got hurried along and the repair was taken care of under warranty. They really went above and beyond.

Overall, I great amp. I considering some new speakers but honestly, I'm not sure why. I think that might have more to do with wanting new gear every so often.

If this were ever lost, I would probably buy a new one but I might look for something with an effects loop too. An AC30 would be nice :-) but I wouldn't consider that as much of a value.

Features as described in other reviews below. They are well thought out and very usefull for all guitar-applications.

A decent basic sound, comparable to my Fender Blues Deluxe. It most certainly is not a boutique amp, but for the low price I didn't expect it to be. I was looking for a decent working horse to back up the Blues Deluxe. For my taste it is voiced way too much to the treble site, so I find myself turning the treble all the way down. Same goes for the bass. The mids I turn up all the way. I then get a very usefull sound for my playing which is mainly jazz (Grant Green is soundwise my dream-tone) and some old school rock'n'roll also (I like Scotty Moore's tone). For the latter I do overdrive the amp, but never more than a slightly over-the-edge-crunch a la T-Bone Walker. For jazz I sometimes use al slight edge a la Grant Green at the end of his career. Depending on what volume I need the amp to break up I fiddle with the 15W-30W switch or use the OD-channel. There's little difference between the two channels, but if you dial in more OD, you need to temper the treble.

The amp does what I want convincingly with enough tube-characteristics. I think the Blues Deluxe is soundwise somewhat better, but I had to swap the speaker in that to achieve the sound I like. I actually played the Blues Custom through the twin P10R's I placed in my Blues Deluxe and found it sounded a lot better, even at low volume, so if I decide to keep this amp, I might consider replacing the speakers by some P12R's of P12Q's (I like AlNiCo's).

The interactive EQ-function I do not use, sounds to compressed and blown up to my taste.

Hmmm. I intended this amp as a back up for my Fender Blues Deluxe, or to use it together with that on the larger stages since I play more and more and can't afford an amp to break down anymore. But..... as with some users below, the fuse in de AC-cord sometimes blows for apparently no reason, which is very frustrating. It always happens when I switch from standby to on. Epiphone/Gibson claims to be unaware of this problem in response to my email. When the amp is playing, there seems to be no problem at all. I will have to bring it back to the shop while it's still under warranty, but I find this sort of thing to be very anoying. (anyone with tips on this: please email me!). If I can't get the amp to work reliable, it's of no use to me as a gigging musician.

Hmm. I mailed the company (you are automaticly forward to Gibson Europe if you want Epiphone support in Europe through the website). Got a friendly but not very helpfull mail in return: go to your dealer was the answer and no, we are not aware of this problem. But it happens a lot I see on the internet. I asked for a schematic and the directed me to their site, that actually contains a lot of schematics, just not for the Blues Custom.

I'm a gigging musician, professionally enough to need an amp that's reliable. I hoped this amp could be a cheap back up amp. Well, maybe after some service from the shop I bought it, it will be. Or maybe this is a lesson for me not to be cheap and leave the Chinese-made amps alone and finally go for a professional and thus more expensive product.

I do think soundwise this is not a bad amp though, and overall it's constuctions seems well: sturdy made in an attractive retro-design. If the fuse-problem turns out to be a simple problem, than this can be a lot of amp for the money.

I have read a lot of good reviews on this amp so I ordered one from a very trusted online vendor. I recieved the amp on 6-30-2008 at about 3pm and plugged it in right away to start messin' with it. I turned on the power switch to let the tubes warm up for a few min. and plugged in my Gretsch 6120 DSV and began to play at a low volume. Then after about 5 min. --fizzel--. It went dead on me, no lights, no sound, nothing. I pulled out the large fuse in the back and it looked fine, and I could not figure out the problem. I quickly called Gibson and they told me to send it back the the vendor for an exchange. I called my vendor and they emailed me a return slip (free shipping, which is great) and was going to box it up when I noticed a small fuse located under the power cord socket.

I pulled out the little fuse and it was blown. I have the same amp in minature (Epi. Valve Jr, great amp) and it uses the same fuses and power cord socket assembly (250v fuses), so I took out that fuse and put it into the Blues Cutome 30. Everything lit up again and I was able to play the amp for about 30 seconds, then --fizzel-- again!? I then found the spare fuse with the Blues 30 and put it in for one last try. Everything lit up again, but this time when I went to turn the play switch on --fizzel-- again!?

I looked up on some forums to see if this issue has been wide spread, and found that other customers seem to have the same issue, including the review below (see next review) and all the issues have been posted within the past 45 days. I called up Gibson to see if this was a widespread issue, but they said they have not heard anything. So I boxed it up and sent it back, and still waiting for the next one to arrive, I will then give my full review on the Blues 30 (if I don't have the same problem).

The guy I talked to at Gibson was pretty cool, but they could not help much (I did not expect much from them anyways) and the nearest Gibson tech center is a 2 hours drive, eventhough I live in a rather large city.

The online vendor I deal with is great, they shipped the amp originally for free, I sent it back to them for free, and they are shipping another one for free. The amps is 79 lbs, so the shipping would be about $150 if I would have paid for all the shipping charges myself. I am very happy with their customer service.

I bought the amp a week ago and ad first was in doubt. But after turning the level upwards a bit I was convinced. The amp has a very good basic tone and the rest is very well handled by the drive, the level dials and the extra mid and eq dials, which take some getting used to. It's a bit odd coming from a fender pro 185 ;-)

An effects loop would have been a nice extra for this amp.

1 word: Great. Sounds super. Only thing you really need a stompbox for is metal. But when you're in to metal, I assume you'dd be lookin' for others amps all together ;-)

Since I bought the thing I played on neighbour friendly volumes. No gigs or whatsover. This afternoon I switched it on, put it on standby and went out for a bit longer than planned.. like 15 minutes. When I came back I was ready to play. Switched the amp to play and then it happened. It went down. Power lights off. It's completely dead. I checked the fuse, but it's still ok. I guess the powerplant has given up. I'll bring it in tomorrow to see what we can do about it. Assume it's not a big thing though. It looks solidly built. no loose ends or other flaws.. so I'll have to wait 'n see. When this happens on a gig this is a big issue, so I rate this very low.

This one's comin' up tomorrow.

The sound is so gooed, I'll have to give it a secnd chance..

I just got it from the Guitar center and had it drop shipped to my home, so as far as I know its the latest model as of 4/14/08.
This amp is just what I was looking for, nice tube sound and basic 2 channel front end controls. onboard tremelo/vibrato would have been cool to kind of finish off its vintage styling. I use this amp primarily for recording tracks for video and animation, so the A/AB mode is very welcome here. I also like the Interactive eq option.

I have a '79 Les Paul custom, '76 Strat and new '77 Epiphone SheritonII and it sounds nice with all of them.

I have only had it for about a week now but when I first got the amp it hummed like a bum on D street, but only in class A mode. So I figured I may have some bad tubes, I changed both 6L6 output tubes and that took care of that problem but I was occasionally getting a loud zap sound from the speakers and found that to be a bad rectifier tube, so I changed it and it took care of that problem. Then I noticed that there was no reveb. I called gibson and got a schematic and located a bad 12AX7 reverb tube and it all works fine now.
By the way this amp now comes with all EH 12AX7 preamp tubes, sovtek 6L6 output tubes and a shuguang 5AR4 rectifier. This may be the reason it sounds as good as it does. I replaced all of the bad tubes with groove tubes exept for the rectifier which I replaced with a Mesa 5AR4. I won't give an opinion here because this may have been a shipping issue, you know how UPS (United Parcel Smashers)can be.

They were ok on the phone when I called about the tube issue, but wanted me to take it to a certified repair shop. The closest one is hundreds of miles from me and I wasn't about to make that drive for a tube swapping session. So I ended up having to eat the cost of the tubes I replaced.

Beyond the fluke that I encountered I think it is a very nice amp and I will eventually replace all of the tubes just because.

The most verstatile amp I've ever owned. In fact, it's so versatile I don't even use half of it. It has channel switching for two completely different types of tones, (basically dirty and clean), and I only play clean. EQ is really interesting to play around with, with two different modes to mess with.

It's really unbelievable how good this amp sounds for the money. Is it the best amp I've ever played? No, but the best amp I've ever played would cost me close to 2K. For the money, nothing can touch this. I play mostly hollow bodied guitars with P-90 style pickups, and these guitars sound incredible through this amp. The tone isn't harsh or brassy at all, but full and round. This amp is a rockabilly/blues machine on the clean channel. I played this amp against my Fender Vibrolux Reverb, and this amp smoked it! I also play strats and teles, and they sound fantastic as well. This amp is the ultimate gigging amp for the styles that I play.

I don't know how reliable it is yet, but it's built like a Sherman tank!

Haven't used it yet.

For the money, you absolutely cannot beat this amp. You could pay twice as much and not get an amp as good as this, and believe me, I've payed more than twice as much for amps that I didn't like half as much as this one. If this got stolen, I'd replace it in a heartbeat, no question about it. I still am in shock over how good this amp sounds for the money. Again, I played this amp against many models, mostly Fenders, and this blew them away. My Marsh is the only amp I own that sounded better, but it's only 10 watts, so this amp will be my live go to amp.

2 channel switchable 30watt tube amp with class A A/B operation 15/30 watts. very basic controls (volumes, bass, treble, middle) for both channels - independent and interactive eq control - smooth tube driven reverb

i play a variety of styles & not every venue needs/wants to have 100 watts of Marshall power - but a hot tube twin fits smaller clubs nicely. the BC30 covers that ground perfectly; even if i need to drive my external 212 Genz Benz the BC30 has the power and range to get it done properly.

imho this amp has superior sound quality with a retubing, but sounds plenty sweet stock after speaker break in. what you put in is exactly what you get out - i've now played the BC30 with a variety of guitars and this amp does it all! keeping that in mind the BC30 will not make a cheap guitar sound vintage - it will sound good, but it will expose it as an inferior instrument. plugging in a high end LP, Fender or PRS and you will be rewarded with vintage and modern tones as you feel the soul of warmth that only tubes will provide. with a few stomp boxes this amp can also rock out pretty heavy and loud - it's not a metal amp, but it can still crunch along with my Marshall and Peavey

i've not owned the BC30 long enough to determine this - it weighs a healthy 70 lbs - hopefully that's part of the reliability

i've been playing guitar for about 20 years - trust me when i say the BC30 is a great purchase. i've had my opportunity to attend a few NAMM shows and try out all the newest gear - this amp is a perfect sleeper pick. i brought this amp to a jam session and the tone and power of this amp made everyone want to play it. the BC30 is destined to become a classic. the only negative feedback i've heard is from people that are not experienced enough to take the time to LEARN how to use this amp correctly - each guitar has a unique voice and you will need to take that into consideration with the BC30. this amp now proudly sits next to a Vox AC30 in the studio room (the Marshall and Peavey have their own space in the garage for pure sonic destruction).

Been 0ne year since I submitted a reveiw on this amp... Things are pretty much the same..love / hate relationship. I love this amp.. isn't a one note pony, is a chamelion if you got time to do some serious experimenting. I hate that my memory isn't reliable and writing down the settings isn't reliable altho this will get you in the ball park. I wish it was easier to dial in what I want, I do like that in the interactive mose it is heavily connected to the guitar..

Sound quality, when you hit the spot its a 10+ if you don't can be a frustrating if you know what your after.. here is an example. My deal is a solo performer of mostly northern Mississippi players tunes. One tune I dig is a tune by R.L. Burnside.. Black Mattie, not complicated except in its simplicity. He gets a very strong treble that is not going to make your ears bleed... The guitar I use for all of Burnsides tunes is a Burns Bison, especially the Wild Dog in the "A" mode. In order to emulate this sound I roll off all the high freq the pot will roll and in the intereactive mode eq mode a little tiny change can make your ears ring for a week, but hit the sweet spot and the sound is eerily close to Burnsides. When i gig, i have to open with these tunes because its a bitch to get it exact, don't want to drive em away with bloody ears, then from there on my list progresses parralell to the ease of tuning in the tones. What a frigin hassell but what a success. I end with a few tunes by Jessie mae hemphill using a hollow with 57 pat. Gib Hums.. the humbuckers are great and easy to tune in basically class A no interactive and mid on all tones, really a geat primitive sound with the early Gibson chime. O' I use no pick, not sure this amp is a pickers amp.. but I know from nothing about picks.

Had a power supply go down... after the warranty was gone.. evidently this prticular supply was a weak link on some of the early models so i received a spankin new amp.. Nice huh? I think my situation was a fluke for 2 reasons.. 1 is my volumes are low, 2. I haven't heard of others with this problem, I'm glad it happened for the Class mode has a barely audible infamous class A hum

GREAT

I took my 2 "go to" guitars around a month ago to diffeent music outlets and worked out quite a few amps. Some great sounding amps to be sure but for the most part each amp sounds like the same amp with different dialed in tones.. I had and still do like the re-issue Fender Deluxe, if not for the amount of volume to bring forth some distortion i would go back to it, I'm not one for the attenuator that reduces the volume by disippating volume with heat. As I mentioned in my early review, if your into early electric blues, even electrifying Robert Johnson, this amp is verstile but if your in a hurry or your guitars are single coils best try one out, in fact you should play thru any amp you are interested in. I'm still hangin in with this amp, I've had many starting with a tube VOX Super Beatle many moons ago, this amp is not utopia, but is any amp?

Just got this amp yesterday, so I'm limiting my comments to the footswitch...

It doesn't come with a footswitch, which is a minor bummer... I'm thinking that most people that buy this amp will have a switch or two laying around anyway; I did.

This amp wants a 2 "button" switch; one for channel switching, and one for 'verb on/off. 2 button switches require a Tip/Ring/Sleeve (TRS) cable; if you use a one button swith with a standard guitar cable, the verb will be shorted "off."

The cheapo Crate 2 button swich that I had did NOT work right off the bat.It seems ad though this amp requires less than 1 ohm resistance to trigger the relay, and the Crate measured 1.3 ohms. I snipped the leads to the LED's and all was well; worked as designed. After snipping the leads off the LED's, I measured .89 ohms at the end of a 25 foot cable (Canare Star Quad). YMMV.