Epiphone Valve Junior Head with BitMo Spanky Mod

Amp is a 2007 Bought it new to modify as I like to use low powered amps for recording. I contacted Bruce Hutcheon from Bitmo through Ebay and asked him if he would do the amp mod for me along with the 10Uator.I asked him to do his favourite mod and that included a Bitmo Brat top boost. The mod circuit was towards a Brit tone
The amp now sounds great and immensely improved. The tone control adds versatility and really helps when going from a LesPaul to a Tele and then to a Heritage semi acoustic. I have played live with it and I love the tone.I am also using a stock cabinet and a vintage "rat"which enhances the tone even more.

It works well with all my guitars but I prefer it with my humbuckers as opposed to single coils. I find the tone voxish. On its own it has some nice deep bottom,when recording I find the "rat" gives me some smooth thick creamy distorted leads.

I have had this amp for just over a year and everything is fine

There is no warranty because of the mod but hey I only paid $110 for the head so who cares

I have been playing for forty years, I actively play and gig. For big concerts I use a fender prosonic with a mesa boogie V Twin. I also have an american made tweed blues junior which I also use regularly. I have 2 custom shop Zion Guitars, Strat and Tele with lindy fralin pick ups, an Electra MPC and a Heritage Millenium semi acoustic.
The amp is great for recording and is very light. Sometimes I just don't want to carry the heavy 70 lb Fender prosonic up the stairs so this is a great alternative depending on what I am playing that day. It is what it is. It is a fun made to rock amp with no reverb. If you play jazz this amp is not for you as it begins distorting after 3. Without the Bitmo mod I would not have been happy with this amp as the mod elevated it from being just a toy to a weapon I can use in my tone arsenal for specific jobs.

Push in you get Fender, pull out you get Marshall. Simple as that. For the price of a distortion pedal, $39. I'm a living room legend guitarist of 25+ years. The Valve Jr. was an answer to my dreams after not knowing why no one built a dollar-wise low watt Amp.
(now they are starting to come out of the woodwork after decades of neglection)

I play mostly an older 1987 Ibanez shredder through Boss ME 50, Aphex Excieter and Roctron Nitro. Also DOD Stero Crossover which works well as an EQ.

I am no guru with electronics at all. I put off installing it for 3-4 months. But once you open the amp and get started, you'll find you have to do some thinking. It takes less than an hour once you start soldering. Probably 30-40 minutes for the complete amateur. I've never soldered much in my life and upon completion I felt like a pro. It's that simple. Seemingly very complicated upon inspection (without experience) but once done you can easially Master it over and over without instructions.

None. Instructions were rather thorough.

Pros criticize the living hell out of this mod. It is probably $5 worth of components.

But if you are an amateur you don't know what components work, and what don't. Plus an amateur has zero guidance.

This kit helps the amateur save about 20-30 hours of investigating, and that is what makes it worth $.

theres one volume knob which is kinda simple. i installed a standby switch to conserve the tubes a little bit. i like how whenever i put it on standby for like 20 minutes and then come back it sounds better then it did before. i think the switch kit was luike under 10 bucks, and took a good 30 minutes to install.

it sounds great clean, and great turned half up and gerat all the way up.
not noisy or anything.
i got a gold pin 12ax7 by groove tubes which i like better then the stock tube. but even the stock tube is decent.

i would defenetly depend on this amp for anything. never broken down or had any problems with it

never had to deal with them

been playing for 4 years or so, i love this amp. you really need a good batch of pedals to go with it if you like tog et different sounds then distortion. an awesome amp for a wicked cheap price, yano

I will give it a ten here for one reason. Simplicity and the feature every amp should have, the option of 4,8,or 16 ohm cabinets. I have not bought certain head units before because I didn't want to have to go get another cab as well.

I bought mine with the mod already in. The cleans are decent but maybe a little dark, and it starts to break up after around 12 oclock.
It's not doing any hard rock on it's on.

It does love pedals. I brought this to jam with the band to see what it can do. Left the dial around 12, ran a hot head > bad monkey > digidelay > into the amp and it sounded so smooth with nice chunky distortion to it. It was going into a Crate VC410 cab which helped balance out the lows, because this cab is voiced for the high end clean stuff.

It's loud though. I was hoping to use it more at bedroom levels but this setup to really get it sing is pretty loud. It still sounds good at bedroom levels but not like when you open it up. I even had an old variac I used at the jam and only ran it at 100V's. It was loud enough to keep up with the drummer in a garage,but you would probably want to mic it if you played a show.

Chinese built but who knows, too early to tell

I have dealt with them before, when I had the Valve Standard which also sounded awesome (with some help from pedals) but the damn thing kept cutting out after about 2 weeks,

Been playing around 12 years, I play through a Epi Les Paul with EMG's, or a few backup g'tars on occasion. My main rig is a Peavey XXX, but also have a Crate VC50H and cab and a Peavey VK 100 H. This thing sounds very nice, a definate staple in the rotation especially practice. It has a sound of it's own, like my other amps. If it was 25 or 50 watts, maybe I would use it at gigs, right now I would have to mic it, and our PA system isnt very good. But it's so light and compact that I might carry it as a b/u who knows.

Not really much to love or hat about this amp. Alone, if you play hard rock it needs help, but that was expected. With pedals sounds killer. Would buy another in a heartbeat. I waited long enough but finally gave into the hype.

I had to laugh reading the above review. The guy says the first time he played the stock amp he was "impressed" but "not enough to buy it". WHAT? The amp sells for a HUNDRED BUCKS and he was'nt impressed enough to buy it? LOL!!!! An all tube class A great sounding amp for $100? and he decides not to buy it? I would have kicked him out of my store for being an idiot. LOL!!!!

You know the deal, 1 knob, 5 terrifying watts.

I have so far just installed the 1st of the 3 mods (chaining 2 resistors together one from the kit and the existing one in the R1 position. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!! Really perks up the tone and now when cranked, all the muddiness is magically gone! I use it to boost (or by itself) for solo's mostly, rhythm on a couple of tunes, hooked up to half of a stereo 4-12 cab. IT HONKS!!

No trouble so far, been gigging a month with it. My bandmates dubbed it the tiny terror. IT IS LOUD! I have in an average club the vol set about half and have a wah and distortion in front of it.

My band plays covers from 70's - 00's and in conjunction with the Vox AD50VT on the other side of the cab (I use Strats, Tele's (and a new AMAZING Squier 51 into the dist/wah into an A/B box and switch or blend to taste) got a helluva 'lil rig happening. To hell with paying 3k for a boutique, I bought a SUV to haul it around in instead with that bread! Would definitely but another stock and add this mod. Records on my crappy 8 track very nicely also....check it on 'Volcano' at www.myspace.com/projectxtheband . That track is the full 4-12 @ 16 ohms, Boss DS-1, Strat and a tad of delay, miked w/ a 57.

This is a new 2007 head with a volume knob and 3 speaker outs.
I like the simplicity and the spanky mod can be easly tweeked.

I just installed the spanky mod w/new JJ EL84 power tube and a better EH AX7 tube. This is a "must" mod. I would say the sound was a 4 now an 8+ for cleans and a 9 for overdrive. Running it thru my Fender Deluxe Reverb amp's Jenson c12k speaker, it is quite loud for 5 watts. My wife said the neighbors may complain. W/o the bitmo mod it was much muddyer and dark with no zip of kick. The volume is much louder and clearer. Compared to my black face, not as rich sounding and as clear, but still very good. The amp is a lot louder than my 30 watt solid state Crate.
The over drive is great, even all the way up it sounds musical not muddy or fuzzed out.Even better than a tube driven pre amp. ( I have a real tube 901 with a au7 nos tube.)

This is a "must" mod, the instructions are easy to follow and you even get insight on how to change things. The amp is a fantastic bargan if you buy the bitmo spanky mod.

The lack of features is a big feature. I play mainly roots type rock and country, and blues. The amp is perfect for those styles. It wouldn't have enough power for most gigs, although it is loud for a five watt amp. I have a Weber Mass attenuator that has a DI out, so you could run it through the house PA, or mike it. I'm experimenting with using the amp and the attenuator as a pre-amp, to run a larger amp.

I bought this amp online (E-bay) with the BitMo spanky mod pre-installed by Bruce Hutcheon.. I'm running it through an open backed cabinet with a single 12" Emenence "Texas Heat" speaker. In terms of how it sounds, it certainly has the tone (chime)I associate with traditional class "A" amps that use EL-84 tubes with a bit of tweed Deluxe thrown in. I tried one of the stock heads in a Guitar Center, and it sounded a lot more generic. Still, I was impressed-but not enough to buy one. THIS amp is inspiring, with an amazing variety of usuable tones available by turning up the volume. The "window" from clean to meltdown is HUGE, with lots of semi-clean compressed harmonic-rich sustain available in between. I'm not going to trot out the wine metaphors or compare it to "boutique" amps, but I will tell you that this will likely become the amp you play the most at home, and record with. Along with a power attenuator, you can get better and more "organic" tone at low volume than anything (PODS, Hughes & Kettner Blues Master, a zillion pedals) else I've tried. Most more powerful amps sound strangled when you attenuate them down to conversational levels. You have to get this one down to a whisper before that happens. All the pedals I've tried with it sound great, and I use a Holy grail reverb to add so dimension.

I've had one week. If I manage to find a way to use it at gigs, I'll buy another one.

It no longer has a warranty, as it's been modified.

I bought my first Telecaster (A 1963 Custom and I still have it.) in 1965. I have a 1952 Goldtop, An Ibanez AS-100, A homemade parts strat Clone, a Squire 51. I have a 1968 Super Reverb, (Blackfaced) a Tweed Deluxe clone, and a 1961 Lectrolab.

I love this amp. Not only does it make noises that my other ones don't, but it's FUN to play at non-eviction volumes. If you want a true "bedroom" amp, get a good attenuator and this amp. You'll be happy you did. (So will your neighbors/Significant Other)