Epiphone Valve Junior Head with BitMo Trio Mod

Sweet little head. Sounds amazing with Trio mod. Mod pretty much gives you 3 channels: clean, not so clean and Blues. Turning volume obviously results in more or less tube distortion. The Boost knob, yea it adds a little or takes away a little but mainly i saw it as a tone knob, treble vs bass etc. the Short of it, Trio mod is worth it. if you are contemplating valve jr 5w vs a blackheart 5w, blackheard wins because of its features. But valve jr with trio mod makes it tough competition.

Its amazing for the price. Im no guitar master...yet, but i have been playing music for about 15 years and can hear the difference between dirt and daimonds. This little amp with trio mod is a daimond.<br>
Playing through LP with Pearly Gates. Style everything from reggea, ACDC, Stevie Ray Vaughn, to punk. Sounds amazing. Prob not a distorted enough sound to get metal straight from the head. If that is your style you may need a pedal.

Same as a non moded VJ, but with more wires... how well do you solder?

Voided the warranty!

Probably an 8 without Trio mod. but a 10 (Fantastic Value) with mod.

Rather versitle. Get good Fenderish tone, plus an added Marshall sound to boost. Overall, you need to solder about 8-9 points. Once you get started, its self-explainitory. Just need good steady hands near the circuitboard. Make sure you have a wire stripper for this, teeth aren't going to work. The gray cable included is THE cord that has all of the color cords INSIDE.

I know Bitmo is raking guitarists for $ with this product and similar ones, but you would need an engineering degree to figure out this mod. The extra $5-10 you pay is very well worth it in tone. And it probably pays for the advertisement, etc...

Basically an Ibanez 540 S, 1987 is my main axe. The Bitmo really opens up the tone to an amazing degree, probably too much for my taste.

I am an amateur electronic guru. I've soldered about 5 things in my life. I am borderline moronic. I was able to figure it out in no time. I find leaving the knob around 9-10:00. That's it.

Now that I've done this mod, I could put it together again probably without instructions. It's that easy. But first time is kinda stressful figuring out how everything goes together.

Now I have a Fenderish sounding Amp. I am hearing sounds from my strings that have been buried. Sounds that normally you only hear on CDs from recording artists.

I hope it's reliable. Instructions were forthcoming. You just need to ensure that you secure the knob on the faceplace really good before you mount the amp to the chassis. I made the mistake of tightening it was mounted; and I pulled the solderwork off and had to reopen all over again.

Manual self-explanitory.

The Brat should be called the Beast. It took tone from zero to one hundred. No more "hoping" it had a tone knob. It took out the bass thumpiness that is inheritant to the amp. It is almost worth the $ just for that.

I don't know how many more mods I am willing to exchange with this amp. I am assuming the amp still needs an OT, outer transformer.

#1. I could ruin something, and it'll cost more to repair than the amp is worth.

#2. I could alter the sound to the point of disliking the amp.

Single channel class A tube amp. It has a single volume knob without the mods. The Bitmo mods add a tone control with a push/pull boost, and a three position mini-switch for tone/drive settings. It is a great 5 watt practice/basement tube amp with the mods.

I play mostly blues/rock music with a Fender Strat, G & L ASAT classic, and PRS SE One(single P-90 pickup). The EVJ is a great practice or basement jam amp. It suits the Blues-Rock music perfectly. It can go from a bright clean tone to hard rock distortion. The tone control adds the needed bass push; and with the pull feature, boosts the drive in the mid and bass frequencies. It produces a good overdrive tone. The 3 position mini-switch provides three voicings from clean/bright to lower-mids Marshall tone to a pushed mids/highs rock distortion. This switch is great to get a driven tone at lower volumes. I am impressed with the variety and quality of the tone from an inexpensive 5-Watt amp! If you have an Epiphone Valve Jr., you might want to try the mods. This was my first mod attempt inside an amplifier. It took me a couple of hours with no real problems. I love the new tone and drive controls!

I have owned the EVJ for over 2 years with no problems. I feel it is reliable though it has stayed in my home most of the time. Again, for a practice/basement jam amp, it is great!

I have no experience with customer support.

I have played off and on for 35 years. I own several other guitars and a Frenzel Deluxe Plus amp(terrific amp). I would have no problem buying the EVJ again. It is so inexpensive and fun to mod. It is a great EL84 class A 5-Watt amp to drive hard at lower volumes.

Version 2 (green board). Class A. 5 watts. One 12AXZ preamp tube and One EL84 power tube. Unmodded amp has input, volume and on/off switch. Mods ad several capacitors and resistors, a push/pull tone pot and a three position switch. The tone control is very useful and really gets rid of a lot of the muddiness from which the stock amp suffered. The pull boost function adds considerable girth to the sound and seems to boost the mids a bit. Nice. The three position voice switch permits three types of distinct sounds, all pf which can be further modified using the tone/boost control previously described. Once sound is reminiscent of a fender amp. It can get very clear and thin or, with the boost engaged, fuller and great for blues. The middle position gives you more of a Marshall type sound. It can still remain fairly clean but it has much more low and mid presence. The third position is a much more overdriven sound (especially with the boost engaged. I find that you need to turn the tone control down to about three o'clock with this setting otherwise the top end is too shrill. This position is a much more modern sound. Effectively using the volume, tone, boost and three position voicing switch yields a multitude of exciting sounds. I found the mods easy to do and this was my very first mod project. The mods a relatively cheap considering the amount of time that probably went into figuring out which components to use. I run the amp through the Epiphone Valve Junior extension cabinet and it sounds really nice. I also run my THD Univalve through that cabinet (among others) and it sounds great too. Granted the BitMo mods don't give the same bloom to the notes that the THD imparts, but heh, the Valve junior cost me $110.00 including the BitMo mods and the Univalve cost me $800.00. I love the BitMo mods. It is a great little amp for practicing, jam sessions and small gigs. Cranked you get that great power tube overdrive. The amp can get pretty loud but will not compete well with a heavy handed drummer and bass player pumping through a 4x10 cabinet. You can't beat the price and with the BitMo Mods, you can't beat the tone (at least for not for this price). I especially like the sound of single coils with this amp. The Valve Junior sounds absolutely ethereal with a nice chorus or reverb pedal in front of it.

See above

I have not had this amp long enough to give an opinion as to reliability.

I have been playing on and off for twenty five years. I own several amps: a couple of vintage Traynor tube amps, a THD Univalve, a Tech 21 Trademark 60 (great amp), a Tech 21 Trademark 10, Basson 2x12 cabinet and a Line 6 Flextone II (the amp that does everything, except sound good). T play mostly blues and bit of jazz. This amp and cabinet make a cheap killer combination that you would be crazy not to get. The amp (used on ebay) and the cabinet (new from a national chain)came in at $280.00.