Epiphone Valve Special Combo

My latest aquisition is a new (2005) Epiphone Valve Junior, a single channel 5W Class A single ended amplifer with a 10" speaker. The tube assortment is 2 12AX7's in the preamp, and a single EL84 in the power amp. Tone shaping features the usual bass, mid, treble, and other controls are gain, (digital) reverb and volume, and (the thin icing on the cake) DSP effects (Chorus, Flange and delay). There is also a standby, which I've never seen before on inexpensive class A amps.

The back panel has an output for the built-in speaker, an output for an external cab, and a footswitch jack. The footswitch was not included. I'm guessing any footswitch would work, but it only controls the DSP (On/off only).

I am primarily a blues/rock player. My guitar choices are an early 80's (Japan made) Squier Stratocaster loaded with Fender Vintage Noiseless p'ups, and a recent Squier Standard Telecaster (stock). I bought this amp because hauling around my Fender Hot Rod Deville (great amp!)is getting to be a real drag because of my bad back. The Epi sounds very similar to the Hot Rod (but darker), but I have to fuss a lot with the tone knobs to get the sounds I want at that moment...not a complaint, just an observation. Because the amp has only 5 watts, there isn't a whole lot of clean headroom (and it shouldn't be expected), but with the volume dimed and the gain about halfway up, the sound cleans up very well with the guitar volume knob. Don't expect sparkly Fender clean tones here, although the cleans tones really aren't bad! The distortion ranges from slight blues overdrive to classic rock. The speaker doesn't seem to be the greatest, but it's not bad. It will be fun to swap out tubes to see what I can make this little amp do...maybe I'll swap speakers with one from the Hot Rod, just for giggles.

Noise isn't bad. There is a slight hiss/hum whenever the amp is on and it lets you know the amp is on. It doesn't increase when you turn the volume up...it's nothing you wouldn't expect. Turning on the DSP introduces some odd noises, but nothing terrible. The DSP effects are presets and some are usable, some are NOT. The only delay I found usable was the slapback. Nice choruses (but noise when you get into Univibe-like territory). Interesting flanges...they seem more like other types of effects (Chorus, tremolo) than flanging that I'm used to. The range of the tone knobs (bass, treb, and middle) isn't very wide. They don't seem to do much...they're almost as bad as digital amps. I'm thinking a speaker swap might take some of the darkness out of this amp. The bigger cabinet really does a lot for this amp...the Fender Blues Jr would sound so much better in a cabinet like this.

I dunno about this one. I've only had the amp for a couple of days. Epiphone has a 5 year waranty on the amp (90 days on the speaker and tubes). Given the price of this amp ($219), I don't expect much, however the amp is built like a brick shit-house. I doubt PCBoard tube amps will have the longevity of the old P2P wired amps, but you never know. I have no worries.

I've been playing for about 25 years. My playing style has changed a lot over the years. As I said before, my other amp is a Fender Hot Rod Deville 4x10, and this amp seems to be similarly voiced. I've had a lot of amps over the years, from Oddball 70's hybrids with SS preamps and Tube power amps (Peavey Deuce II - Junk), to digital stuff like the Johnson Millenium 150 (too heavy and complicated, not great tone when turned up), J-Station (Broke), and similar amps to this like the Fender Blues Jr (bought online, didn't care for the tone). If it were lost or stolen, I'd buy another because they're so damn inexpensive. I compared it to the Crate Palomino V8 (small sounding compared to the Epi), the Vox ADsomethingorother (Tired of digital amps), and the Fender Pro Jr (not my cup of tea).

The DSP effects are a little cheesy. The amp does just fine without them, but they're there to play with if you're in the mood.

2 12AX7 preamp tubes, 1 EL84 power tube for 5W through a 10" 8ohm speaker. Controls are gain, treble, mid, bass, DSP mute, DSP selection, reverb, volume, standby, and power. Has an input jack, footswitch jack (mutes DSP), and speaker out jacks. Operation is simple and straight forward. Solid cabinet (yet bigger than you'd expect), decent workmanship on the chassis, wiring is a PCB but the trace routing on it is pretty good. Tolex covering, nice grillcloth and a pseudo classic design overall.

Would have been nice to have an effects loop instead of or in addition to the DSP effects. Also, it would have been nice to have a 12" speaker while remaining at 5W output and I've always preferred closed-back cabinets.

Overall it sounds good, it has all the basics in terms of sound and playability that make tube amps so loved. It's a very loud 5 watts, turn it as far up as you can get yet still clean and you could practice with the average drummer. Fully cranked your loved ones or neighboring apartment dwellers will likely be very upset you. Lets just say I'm looking into an attenuator for it in spite of the low wattage.

Pretty quiet unless you turn on the DSP effects or reverb. If you have reverb up all the way with DSP it can get very noticeable. The reverb is nothing fantastic, but usable. To my senses 4 out of the 16 DSP presets are interesting enough to use. Speaker could be better, but it gets the job done.

Clean is quite nice and reasonably articulate, some light grit at 12 o'clock, light distortion at 3 o'clock, rock/early metal when maxed out. Adding a home brew TS9 like distortion pedal to drive the front and I found you can get some good higher gain sounds, like a very convincing Metalica when the mids are scooped.

Nice with both a '52 Telecaster and a ES-335, character of each comes through nicely and it supports down tuned heavy gauge strings quite well. It doesn't shine in a specific style of music, but gives a solid performance through the gamut.

Good weight and it's solidly put together (Beware of light weight tube amps as they should have some heft to them if good components where used). PCB rather than point to point wiring, but I don't think it will make a serious difference in how much life this amp enjoys.

Mainly used for practice and recording so I'd venture to guess it will continue to serve well into the future.

Facts: 5 year limited warranty, except for the tubes and speaker which are covered for 90 days. Only comment here is Epiphone hasn't been too good about turning over a circuit schematic for me to keep on file if I need to make repairs or want to make modifications.

Purchased originally sound unheard simply as I was wanting to build my own amp in this wattage and there was some good buzz around it. Even if it sounded bad I'd save some cash using it for parts. It was delivered about 2 weeks ago and I'm very happy with it.

Still might make some mods to it some time in the future, but this doesn't really reflect badly on the amp at all. You just can't complain about a thing given the price point. It's one of those rare situations where you seem to get slightly more than what you paid for.

I haven't bought this yet, but it's such a good bargain I think I will soon. I tried it out at guitar center because I was surprised at a $200 price tag on an all tube amp. I was even more surprised when I plugged in.

This is not a bad little amp, and it's probably the least expensive way I've seen to get into tubes. The DSP is worthless in my opinion (out of 16 options I only liked one or two) but who cares? For only 200 you can afford some new pedals too. At 5 watts this puppy is louder than you think - maybe not loud enough to cut through (by itself) in a loud band , but you could definitely get kicked out of your apartment with this. For practicing and recording purposes, CHECK THIS THING OUT!

I tried it out with a telecaster and got some rippin' tones. The great thing about low powered amps like this is you get the sought after tube breakup sounds, and your ears aren't bleeding from the onslaught like you would get from a high powered amp.

5 Watts class a , gain, master volume 3 band eq,reverb, chorus, flange, delay, standby. 2-12ax7-1-el84 footswitch out, ext. speaker out. Very nice cabinet

I have a house full of guitars and they all sound good thru this, of course the nod goes to the lespauls. The amp is dead quiet which is quite a surprise. The built in effects are okay, but the amp loves pedals as well. Dime the gain scoop the mids and the crunch is very nice.

can't really say, just got it.

Well ,GC sells them and like walmart they're everywhere. So customer support should be excellent. If you don't like the amp, just bring it back for a refund. Try doing that with any of the boutique tubers. - Ha !

Playing off and on over 30 years. I buy every new amp when they come out , and then ebay them when the next thing comes along. Don't be automatically put off by the epiphone name. Go to the store and play one. I also liked the Crate Palamino , but this is more versatile. I wish the cabinet were a little smaller.

2005 Valve Special. It has a Sovtek EL84 and two Sovtek 12AX7WA tubes, a crapazoid speaker and built in effects selectable from, one at a time, delay, chorus and flanger. There is also a separate knob for reverb.

Rating is jacked up based on price paid.

The 8" speaker gives a lot of cone break up early on. Some might view this as good but this speaker breakup sounds more like torn speaker than a nice breakup. I connected the speaker out from the Valve Special into the speaker of my Lonestar Special that has a Celestion 12" C90. It sounded good and a lot louder too!

I did not notice a lot of hum/buzz or extra noise.

Rating is jacked up based on price.

Can't say- just got it.

Can't say- just got it.

My conclusion is that if you put nice 8" speaker in this amp you have killer deal on an all tube amp. Now, to visit ebay for that speaker replacement....