Epiphone Valve Junior Head

I'll go with n/a here because the amp is intentionally "featureless:" just the volume to worry about.

First of all, I'm using the valve junior with the matching cab. I'm also using a holy grail reverb in front of the amp, which I would recommend to anyone who buys the amp, if not an even better reverb unit. The reverb really unlocks the potential of the amp. Now,

With a telecaster:
Awesome, awesome, awesome. People have complained that this isn't the brightest sounding amp, and that's true. But with a really (overly?!) bright guitar like a telecaster on the bridge pickup, it's a perfect match. You can play some really trebly stuff through the amp without getting the screeching. Just a great tube vibe, great for a vintage soul/motown sound with quick upstrokes. With the neck pickup, it's super creamy and sounds great with a bluesy fingerstyle, very responsive to plucks.

With a les paul: ironically, the amp is a better fit for the telecaster overall. but turn the amp up a bit, use the bridge pickup with the treble up and you've got a pretty great dirtier blues sound. on the neck pickup things do get a bit muddy with amp at a lower volume. turning up the amp seems to brighten the sound up and you get a fat, softer distortion.

So far so good. Seems really solid and well built. The smaller size should keep this guy out of trouble as well: not as many bangs into the doorframe, etc.

Haven't dealt with epi/gibson.

I bought the valve junior after selling a fender hot rod deluxe 2x12. One of the best decisions I've made regarding a musical instrument in years of playing.

I wanted to try the smaller boutique amp thing and the price point of the epiphone made sense. It's really remarkable how easy it is to get this amp to sound good. I can't say the same for the fender. It was way, way too loud, even for a band setting. All of that size and power was useless to me, as were the treble, mid and bass, and presence controls. I never even knew what I was looking for, really. Just wanted it to sound good, but it was always out of wack and too loud.

Just plug in the epiphone, use a reverb and it sounds good at a volume you can use. For $260 with the speaker cabinet, this is a phenomenal buy.

Really the only thing that would be cool would be separate gain and master knobs so that you had a little more control there without going overboard.

As you already know, there's a volume knob. That's it. I kind of like that. It's a great opportunity to get more use out of the volume and tone controls on your guitar.

I run a series of pedals that add greatly to its versatility- Boss Fender '59 Bassman pedal (gives me bass, mid, treble, gain, level, brightness, presence), Boss Tremelo, Peavey Digital Reverb pedal.

I play a 79 Fender Strat, 85 Fender Telecaster (MIJ, 68 pink paisley reissue), 83 Squire Bullet (MIJ, kick arse guitar, not your cheap run-of-the-mill bullet you see today), Peavey EXP Limited. All single coils except the Peavey EXP has a humbucker at the bridge position. I play a lot of Blues, Classic Rock, a little Country and dabble in Jazz. This is a great amp for Blues and Classic Rock. Not very useful for Country and somewhat limited for Jazz.

Is it noisy? That brings me to how I've come to own this jem. I bought a used EVJ combo at GC. Brought it home, found it to be a bit noisy and a constant hum. Read some reviews, realised there were upgrades, etcetera. Took it back to GC, traded up for the head and cabinet version 3. Very clean! I'll admit it gets a tad noisy if you have it wide open, but what amp doesn't?
Stays fairly clean at lower volumes but distorts gradually from about 10 o'clock on up. My fave settings so far are having the volume anywhere between 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock. The distortion is really nice. Haven't found the need to run the amp much past the 1 or 2 o'clock volume settings.
I think the EVJ cabinet is a great addition! The stock Lady Luck speaker sounds great in my opinion. In fact I think the head and speaker both sound great right out of the box. When I first bought it, I had gran ideas about modifications but honestly after playing it extensively over the last two months, I really don't see the need. At best, I would consider adding a stand-by switch. Honestly, I'll come closer to buying a second head and go mod crazy on it. For the price, it seems like the best idea for me and also gives me a back-up. I have a feeling the price on these amps will eventually rise, so I'm thinking of getting the second while the price is right!

Owned it for two months, no problems. Gigging tho, it's only smart to have a back up.

never used customer support.

I've been playing guitar for 30-some years. I also have a Fender Twin, Peavey Classic 30, Fender Eighty-Five. The Twin sounds awesome, of course, but it's heavy and usually more than I need. The Classic 30 has been my main amp for the last several years. It sounds awesome, it's powerful enough, sound great for about any type of music and has been reliable. Since buying the EVJ, it's seen zero use. I'm anxious to gig with the EVJ and see how it'll hold up. I imagine it would do fairly well in a smaller setting. We'll see. To be honest tho, if it never left my music room, it would be worth the price for the enjoyment I've already had playing it.

I got a Rev3 head, so it's got 4, 8 & 16 ohm taps on the newer style OT; input, volume, power up front. Yep. It's not real flexible on it's own, but there's a certain beauty in the simplicity.

Stock, it's okay. In my opinion, Sovteks are a little harsh in this amp. Drop a JJ/Tesla or Electro-Harmonix 12DW7 in V1, the first triode's got a gain factor of 20, like a 12AU7, while the second triode has a gain factor of 100 like a 12AX7. It buys you a little headroom, and makes it a little more useful for playing at home. Get a JJ/Tesla EL84 in V2, and it gets even better - the JJs just have this warmth to them that really brings this amp alive. With a few simple mods, it gets really tasty, but I'll cover that in a minute.

This amp responds well to pick hand dynamics. If you're competing with a loud rhythm section, don't expect a lot of clean headroom. At more moderate levels, it cleans up nicely. I also find it works well with pedals.

I'm not 100% certain of how I feel about the stock speaker in the matching cab, but this review is about the amp, not the cab. I've ran it through a few other cabs, they each add their own element to the overall sound.

This thing eats power tubes and runs hot. After 6 months of overheating, several of the resistors smoked.

Drop R1 (input grid stopper) from 68k to 22k, this puts more guitar signal to the grid on the first triode. Replace R3 & R4 (V1a & V1b plate resistors) with 100k, this gets your plate voltages closer to what they should be. I swapped R6 & R7 (voltage divider/grid stopper for V1b) to 500k, this changes the way the first stage drives the second stage. Fine-tune dissipation on the EL84 by increasing R15 (V2 cathode resistor) to 270 2W, and increase R10 (first resistor in the power supply filtering section) to 1K 2W to lower B+ plate supplies. The Rev3 PT has multiple taps on the primary for international voltages: BLK=0, WHT=100, YEL=115, BLU=230, BRN=240. Stock uses Black & Yellow, switch them to White & Blue for a 130V pair. That should improve tone, bring your B+ down and get the EL84 within specs.

Usual disclaimer applies - it's a tube amp, the voltages in there can kill you. If in doubt, BRING IT TO A TECH!

In terms of construction, they did good. Chassis, cabinet, hardware and such are great It's simple, it's solid, it's well made - the real issues are in the circuit design.

Never dealt with them. Once it smoked, I didn't want it fixed with the same stock values that caused the problems in the first place. Pretty sure I've voided my warranty. :)

I really like this amp a lot, $10 worth of resistors from DigiKey and $25 worth of tubes from the bay really make it juicy. There are other amps I like better, but for the price with some easy tweaks, it's a no-brainer.

Would I do it all again? Yeah...as irritating as the failure was, fixing & fine-tuning it was fun, and it's good at what it does. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, grab a Gretsch 5120, slap an overdrive and a delay in front of it, and you've got blues & rockabilly heaven!

Volume control , thats it .Amp was 1 year old with matching cab .You do not buy this amp for the features

I am using many guitars , and this amp was only passable with an American strat .My Les Paul and other humbuckers sounded like mud .This was a very boring amp for me with nothing but a very plain clean tone .I tried a Vox tone lab and even the cleans distorted

I would never use this unit live so no opinion

No opinion

I bought this amp based on reviews . The clean was passable but It did not do well with pedals .I need to cover many styles of music and thought I could get away with a small amp , no way .I will stick with a Peavey Valve king for small venues

Well this column will be sparse as there is not much to list in terms of features. One knob, should be listed as a plus for ease of operation, but I will only give it a 5 based on no tone control which would make the amp more versatile. One really nice feature is the multiple speaker taps, allowing almost any cabinet out there. A stand by switch would have been nice. But since the amp is cathode biased, tube replacement is cheap and does not require an amp tech.

I have used this with a Gibson explorer and a Robert Cray strat, both sound good, although the Gibson will yield better overdrive, but is darker sounding. Very quiet in terms of noise and with a good cabinet can be quite loud. I bought this to use for practice and for back up should my old Fender showman go south at a gig. Clean sound is not bad, although not a whole lot write home about, cranking it up gives some awesome power amp distortion, but can be pushed even further with an OD pedal of your choice. I use an Me 50 in front of it, so along with some chorus and reverb this thing can sound pretty damn good. Tone snobs who have said its muddy, or lacks bass or too shrill. Come on its only 130.00. If you want to get in on a class a Circuit design with natural overdrive then this is the bargain of the century. You can't hardly buy a better sounding tube amp for the asking price. I know people buy these to mod, but out of the box even with the stock Sovtek's it sounds nice. I am using a 2x12 closed back with vintage 30.s If you have a decent guitar, the simple signal path design really lets you hear it without coloring it much. I would have to say that even though it is only 5 watts, its loud. I used it for band practice in a small room with another guitar player, drummer, and bass player and at half volume was getting the dirty looks. So if you must keep the volume down, prepare to have a good pedal in front of it. I give it a seven only because a tone rating of 10, would just be overstating what this can do. Again its awesome for the money.

No problems as of yet, bought new tubes for it, but the stock Sovteks are not bad. With a 5 year warranty it can't be too bad, although that goes out the window if I take my soldering iron to it. lol. Not sure I would trust it without a back up, but anyone who has ever gigged with a tube amp will tell you always bring another or at least a set of tubes. Even for a China made amp, this one looks pretty good, the cabinet is well made and the circuit is simple enough should not be any problems.

Have never needed to contact them.

I have been playing for about 20 years, currently in a cover band doing mostly classic rock. I have a Dual showman head, a Marshall Dsl 401. I have always wanted a class A low powered amp, but the boutique stuff is just to far out of the budget. try convincing your wife to spend 2000 on an amplifier and see what happens lol. I have grown quite fond of this and it were stolen I would buy another or two for the money its great. For you tone snobs, it is what it is, you can't compare it to a high end amp, but if you desire some great rock and roll power amp distortion at manageable volume levels on a married with kids budget you can't go wrong with it.

I guess mine was made in 09, bought it in june 09. It is a ver 3.
5 watts, a volume,and 4,8,16 ohm speaker outs. A tone pot would have been cool.
I play metal and rock. does not suit metal very well, I hooked up my metal zone pedal and LTD viper with EMG's, it was ok, but I have a mesa DC-3 for that. It kicks *** for rock though.

MODDIFING IS A MUST, YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT!!! sewatt.com for all the info you need to know

I use a moddified fender jaguar HH with it. It has a seymour duncan pealry gates in the bridge and a seymour duncan jazz in the neck. I ripped the stock wireing out(cuzz it killed the bridge tone IMO) put a 3 way selector in, and split the coils.
Now to the amp. It sounded ok stock, was a little farty sounding when the volume was half way up. It did have a nice tube tone, very chimey. New JJ tubes helped quite a bit, but the real improvement was after I replaced about 15 or so resistors and capacitors(just changed the values of them), and 500meg volume pot. HUGE IMPROVEMENT!!!! I can get great tones, overtones, harmonics, overdrives, its touch sensitive. Mine loves my Fulltone Fulldrive overdrive pedal too. If its classic rock this amp will do it. Its very smooth and warm, mine does not get real clean anymore due to the mods, unless you work the volume and tone pots(still not very clean). The best part is the tubes, caps and res only cost me about 50-60 bucks and about 2 hours. I did the mods in 2 rounds, and it was well worth it. Cant wait to get a better output transformer for it.

never had a problem

hope i never find out

Ive had this thing for about 4 months, I would get anouther if it were stolen. I got it to get the cranked tube sound at a resonable volume(still to loud for a apt. with volume all the up). I havnt used it with a drummer yet but it should be loud enough to keep up, especially when boosted. After i modded it i took it to a local music store and played it against a vox night train, and it stood toe to toe with it. only the night train is more than double what i have invested in mine.
MODDING IS A MUST go to sewatt.com more info on these and other single ended amps than youll ever need to know. dont use the bitmo unless you want different sound options, they dont help some of the crucial tone enhancements.

Im not sure why Epi crippled these things but after 60 bucks worth of parts(the caps and resistors i changed were not any better guality just different values) a couple hours, basic sodering skills, I ended up with a amp I love.

Basic one volume knob 5Watts one el84 and one 12ax7

4ohm, 8ohm, and 16ohm outputs

first things first I have to say that this is in fact a very giggable amp if you want saturated sounds simply mic it through the pa and your good to go
please disregard anyone who says it is not giggable my band has played many venues big and small and this amp has not failed it is hard to hear onstage but thats why monitors where invented just politely ask the sound guys to turn it up on the monitors and you should have no problem with it
cleans are another story definately good for studio or home practice
but not live unless its at a coffe shop with no drums but thats it


I can honestly say this is my main giggin amp Im in a post-punk/new wave type band and this amp just rocks i personally dont like the thin high pitched guitar tones associated with the genres we play i love creamy thick vintage tone and this amp delivers i play through a fender telecaster and a Danelectro dc 59 and another telecaster with humbuckers I dont use many effects I stick with the basics bad monkey od and vox wah i use the bad monkey for a bit more gain and eq
so its always on with the amp set to 3 o'clock sweet smooth vintage tone with lots of harmonix is the product its suprisinly not very noisy even with single coils and the bad monkey on

this amp just shines with single coils but is also very good
with humbuckers its perfect for blues,punk,rock almost anything except for anything that requires massive cleans or metal

another quick note switch the stock tubes for jj's or mullards and its sonic heaven

anyone that wants to hear this amps tone go to www.myspace.com/theph1lsophies all the live songs where recorded with the valve jr and guitars listed above

I have had mine for 1 year and a half and no problems so far
also just to show how reliable it is
my band plays 2 weekends out of every month at least, many bars back yard parties and clubs its been hit and knocked down many times and it still works and sounds beautiful

totally road worthy if your not convinced buy a back up its not like
they cost a fortune

never used it

i think its 5 year warranty for electronics and

a 90 day for the tubes

been playing for 3 and a half years not as long as many others but I have played many amps and this is by far one of the best especially for the price

great amp would still buy it for double what i payed

Not sure the year. I play mostly Blues and Blues influenced Rock. Everyone who has posted reviews for this thing has covered the features. You don't buy these beasts for the bells and whistles, I for one went back to the EVJ after realizing that all kinds of knobs and features confuse the hell out of me.

I'm using a rather spartan setup. I play with an Epiphone LP Standard Plus Top guitar (has a gorgeous Ice Tea style burst) w/ a Gibson Burstbucker 1 in the neck position and a Seymour '59 in the bridge. Just gutted it and installed RS guitarworks Superpots for volumes, CTS 500K audio tapers for tones, and RS Caps (.015 neck, .022 bridge). Switchcraft mono jack and short switch complete the electronic. Right now I have just a crap Planet Waves 20 ft. cord going into an MXR Distortion III into the EVJ.

These amps are absolutely amazing. I have been running it in all different settings and especially love the dirty sounds. I have found that cranking the amp up all the way, running the gain on the MXR full up, and using the volume on the MXR as a MV elicits some of the most incredible overdrive sounds I have yet experianced. Just going right into the amp sounds great too, but this amp really needs a little bite from an OD to shine. Cranking it and having good electronics in your guitar lets you control all the dynamics.

I have been using many tubes. I tried a Mullard EL-84 but found out like everyone else has that these things love JJ EL-84's. They are just smoother and creamier than most others. The preamp slot has been floating between a Tung-Sol 12AX7 and a JAN/Phillips 5751. I personally love both. The JAN has slightly less gain and creamier qualities.

These things are very durable as far as I understand. I don't gig but if I did I would trust that with an Identicle backup I would be fine.

These things can't be beat for the price. I plan on getting some mods done to it. Go to turretboards.com and you will find some wonderful stuff. I'm sending it in for a Marshall style turret board, new Output transformer, standby switch, and sag mod.

Lots of luck to all the EVJ users out there. If you havent converted yet you will. Let's face it: Everyone loves power tube saturation. It's the sound of the records you know and love and these little beauties make it possible for all the bedroom players out there.

This is a review of version 3. The features are well known, nothing to add here.

Used with the matching VJr cab and Vovox drive speaker cable. Guitars: early 90ies Fender American Standard Stratocaster, 67' Guild Starfire III and Ibanez AK105SM. Very noisy from 12 o'clock, unbearable noise from 3 o'clock. Didn't matter to me because for home use more than 9 o'clock was just too loud. I was looking for a nice tubey clean sound anyway. It came with EHX 12AX7 and Sovtek EL84 tubes, I changed them to JJs which was an improvement in sound, not in noise.

The sound is nice and tubey but incredibly thin with no body at all. Sounds like an old pre ww2 radio (a good one though). You can get used to it if you don't use any other gear. But every time you switch back from a 'real' amp it will make you frown badly. If you get used to it, the tubes are fun. Lots of harmonics and very direct. For that, as a practice amp it will make you a better player.

Real low volume is possible but the tubes will not deliver their nice harmonics. You need to go to at least 9 o'clock before that happens and depending on your right hand technique this will already be too loud for use in an appartment.

I cannot comment on higher volume settings for I never used them.

I've ordered it online. The first one I received didn't work, I had to return it. The second one did work but after three weeks I sold it again. Therfore I cannot comment on longtime reliability. I probably wouldn't gig without a backup.

Never contacted them.

All in all, it was a huge disappointment. I had fun with the tube sound for a while but in long terms couldn't stand the thin sound. It is called 'Junior' for a reason: young players may have fun with it but if you're a little more experienced and know your tone, go and look somewhere else.

what features? 4 8 & 16ohm outputs
1 input i volume knob

i play metal and put a digitec hardwire metal pedal infront of it
and it's the best sound for home recording/ practice i've found
it can get pretty loud not enough to keep up with a drummer but that's what i have a 100watt head for- but for recoding guitar and lower volume practices this is the best sound i've ever heard.

i just got it time will tell

i bought a 2year warranty from the place i bought it

$150- no solidstate combo amp in this price range comes close
i really love this thing