Epiphone Valve Special Combo

It is what it is.... Maybe I got a better amp than most of ya but frankly the DSP isn't noisy com pared to what I read here. Then again, I use only tubes. Give it a good kick, maybe that will help.
Needs a beer holder on the side or somewhere.

I have read all the reviews and I respect their opinions. The DSP is fine with me, I only use two effects anyway: Boss Overdrive-vintage yellow one and a vintage Harmonix stereo chorus, the one everyone wants. Now for the rip... I play 90% of the time thru a 75 Twin-rewired by Doug Anderson at Tone Zone in Pasadena so I have a good sound I Think? Very Nice... The contrast between the two is this.. NONE. lol
Basson 4x12 X 2 bottoms. That is what I use for speakers with that dinky little 5 watt. No bs... now the Basson's is 101 Db efficient but so what. It is unbelievable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I meant to put all those bats there too. There is nothing else like it for my 69SG. NOTHING.. I needed a little amp so I went with this dink, got it new for $120.00 when they first came out. DEAL.. It is a joy to play and plenty for most small gigs. I can't even turn it up. Well there ya go. Give it a try. I also was playing a 67 Marshal in the same room. No it ain't no Marshal but it didn't cost 5 grand either. thanks Dave M.

I thought that I blew it out. Try plugging it in... DA me

not yet...... better not after my rating here..

playing for 45 years, it ain't gonna get stolen! I wish that it had better tolex. like a Fender or Marshal. put together very though.. no blemishes.

This is a fairly well featured amp....

It has lots of built in FX, most of witch are completly useless.... the chorus and phaser are okay.... but add so much noize into the mix there hardly good, the delay is complete useless with the limited settings.

The reverb however is very nice

The amp has just one channel, so is a bit limited on stage and the little 10 inch speaker included with it is quite noizy

The sound is very nice for a small amp, if your looking for metal gain.... get something else, if your looking for a nice warm tone with a warm well balanced overdrive, this is perfect, it lights up the sound and has a nice warm tone, though the included speaker is very very bassy

Ive been using it with strats, telecasters and the occasional les paul, i once borrowed a rickenbacker, and it lit up with a very nice jangly sound

Because of the way the gain is handled, the clean sound is about 12 o'clock for a strat and has a tiny bit of overdrive, but its pretty good overall

Awfull...

i did get it used, but i got it from a pritty good music shop, who said that the previous owner barley used it becuase they sold there guitar with it so i assume they never got into the guitar... and it looked new...

Had it for a month and it started having intemitent startup problems, witch i think were related to the Digital FX

After about 5 months it was knackered completly, i only had the chance to gig it once...

i removed the DFX and bipassed them using a schematic i got from epiphone and it worked for a wile before the power transformer for the output went out giving it a classic "running on a lower voltage" sound... and its just not worth replacing...

Not fantastic realy...

Never managed to get it repaired, epiphone were quite helpful sending me a schematic

Ive been playing for, well ages, and this is a fantastic sounding amp for the price, but the reliability is very questionable


Ive played through some fairly good kit, from vintage valve marshall stacks to AC30's and for the price this is fantastic in comparison to the awfull solid state things you can get for the same sort of price, but make sure you get a good one ;)

10 inch speaker, I think Epiphone uses some specialty speakers for their amps. It's all stock. 5 watts Class A. 3 band eq reverb and DSP effects. Gain and master volume controls. Chicken head knobs. Covered back. A 12AX7 and an EL84. Gave it a 7 because it's pretty basic.

First off let me say, the DSP FX are useless. It's not very responsive to its eqs. I turn down the Mids all the way down and use the treble and bass all the way up and play around with that. But that's with an all stock Dot Studio. I played a Squier strat (I test gear with crappy guitars to see how good it really is) and the eqs worked fine. It mostly depends on your guitar. The drive becomes use less at around 2 o'clock (5 watts can only take so much) After that there's this "fuzz" that appears. I play a Digi Tech Valve Distortion through it and it's pretty freakin' awesome. It handles is well. Again, as others have said, this amp loves pedals. I played a Boss ME-50 through it as well, a few adjustments, and there is it! It can even sound good with a digithech RP 250...couldn't believe it either. But, here's the magic, I plugged this amp, all stock mind you, into a Marshall 4x12 and WOW! That was awesome!!! Incredible tone. I played it through the Peavey cab for the Valve King, it brought out the high-mids, the Mesa/Boogie 2x12 was neutral, but the Marshall...now that was something.

It been good so far...I've had it since Christmas...heavy though. It seems sturdy.

Overall it's a good buy. It has a great tone, clean and driven. It's my standard for driven stuff. Basically, it's my overdrive pedal. Great value!

5 watt, passable reverb, cheap digital effects, heavy, nice vintage look.

Quiet, even with single coils. Loud for its size. Nice warm overdrive with gain a 1 o'clock. Muddy with humbuckers. Good sustain. The eq controls can't brighten up the treble enough, but use an old Boss ME20, and can clean it up. As other reviewers have noted, this amp loves pedals. The Boss ME20 works wonders with this amp. One day I might try a better speaker, or switch out the tubes, but for $165., I can live with it.

It's a nice blues/rockabilly amp.

no opinion. seems solid.

no opinion

I've been playing for 5 years after a thirty year hiatus, and I wanted to try a tube amp. I've been using a line 6 pod 2, and wanted to get the feel of the real deal. I bought this used a year ago, and while I'm not crazy about it, it's a lot a bang for your buck.

This is a BEAUTIFUL amp. I recently purchased this at a local music store, and was really blown away by it's warmth. I will say, the stock 10" doesn't quite handle everything it's got, so I put a 12" Celestion Vintage 30 in it. I play in a soft rock band in Des Moines, Iowa, and with the new 12" it'll cover a drumset with the gain and master straight up at 12 o'clock. For the price, this is a great amp!

The tonal variety of this amp is absolutely AMAZING! I play a Gibson Les Paul and a MIM Tele, through a Cry Baby, a Keeley Modded Tubescreamer, a blues driver, a DS-1, and Line 6 DL4. This amp just eats these pedals right up. It'll go from blues-y, to punk, to soft rock, to Journey, and pretty much any other tone you want to throw at it. One thing that isn't so great is the DSP effects. They're basically useless.

This is one of the most reliable amps I've ever owned in my 17 years of playing. It's never given me any problems. I don't even feel it's necessary to bring a backup rig to shows.

Never had to deal with it!

Epiphone Valve Special combo purchased new from Guitar Center in 1996. I gave it a 6 because you have to know what you are getting...which is a single channel, 5 watt, class A blues and rock machine. If you expect more, you will be disapointed. The digital effects are worthless and it would have been better to have left them off the amp. Its a one trick pony but for the $$$'s it does that trick well.

I bought this amp when my kids began playing so that I could jam with/teach them at reasonable sound levels, which I can not do with my Marshalls. I did two things to the amp flat out when I bought it. 1. I built an exact replica of the combo cabinet and loaded it with a Jensen P10R to broaden the sound. I also replaced the stock Epihone speaker with a Weber Signature 10. The Jensen is bright and the Weber is midrangey, very nice!! I am considering having the digital effects removed from the circuit.

So far so good. A lot of home studio use and no problems. I dont expect any. I also bring it with to gigs as a hot spare. It is built very well.

N/A

I like to record using different amps for differnet sounds. This one has some of that old Chicago Supro tone to it, a.k.a. first Zeppelin album vibe. It really does like pedals, too.

Construction, admitted that is a well built amps.

i think the amps is best for blue, jazz music and maybe some classic rock. i tried metal-zone and sorry, just not right for me.

DSP is a real crap and noisy. But, agreed with you guys, the reverb is surprising good and sound natural which make my Behringer reverb RV-100 sound digital.

Used only in room, so although has just 5w, but LOUD.

before any mod: I like the clean sound (12'clock Gain & 12'clock Volume). EQ knobs not quite responsive.

After changing the speaker to Celestion T10 and swap JJ 12x7U, the sound has improved. However, the real improvement is after done the DSP bypass from the PSB circuit. Tone/sound becomes bright, EQ knobs more responsive to setting, and no more 'muddy' sound.

i'm using Fender Strat with bridge pickup setting and able to get a good tube tone with 1'clock Gain and 12'clock Volume. Great sounds!

No at the moment.

Appearance: lovely boutique amps looks
Sound: Good after changing speaker & tubes. Great after DSP bypass mod.
i think if Epi just stock a better speaker and get rid of the crappy DSP, this is a real good amps available in the market at that price!

my rating:
before mod 5 pts
after mod 9 pts

I've owend this amp for almost a year now, using it almost exclusivly with my Nashville Telecaster. Overall, I'm fairly pleased with its performance, a difinite good buy for the money. Specific cons would fisrt and foremost include the 16 included effects. They greatly amplify background noise when being used, and with no adjustability I haven't found many of them "practical", rather they seem kind of gimmicky. I supppose not much more can be expected of builtin effects on a budget amp, but I would rather have a nice tremelo, etc than 16 lousy effects. The amp produces a nice tube tones, especially when overdriven with the gain maxed out (which is usually where it resides for myself). Tone control could be a little better, as the EQ seems a little flat at times. The extension speaker option is a nice feature, as ive heard good things about the amp when hookup up to an additional cab. All-in-all, the Valve Special represents a great practice amp at a considerably low price.

Same as the others

I use with SG and Strat with Lace Holy Grail PUPS. This is a reveiw of the amp as purchased from the store, I have not modded or made any changes to the amp at all. My style of music is blues and classic rock and this guitar suits it perfectly. It is not noisy , in fact there are no problems with the sound at all, just a little dark. I am hoping to clear up with new speaker and new tubes. I do not think it needs any further mods because the sound is so close, just a little dark. The speaker change may be enough.

Amp can pull off the same sounds as a Hot Rod Deluxe, just not as full sounding, and not as loud. Same sounds, just better in the Hot Rod. I would call that not much variety, but if you have a good guitar, you can make a good variety of sounds. This amp LOVES PEDALS!! If you are just wanting a good basic tone to color, you cant go wrong here.

Dont know.

dont know

20 years playing, 5 years professionally. Faded SG, Stratocaster w/Lace Holy Grails.

If lost, I would replace with the exact same model. I want to say here that the other small amps sound really small. Because of the larger cabinet of the Special, it sounds like a bigger amp to my ears. Valve Standard sounded even better, but I didnt need that many watts. The only amp I have heard that comes close to real guitar sounds in this price range. I bought this only because I jammed with a guy who had a Junior that I thought sounded great for home use, when I went to try one out at the store, I heard the Special and it was just as good, for me, as a Hot Rod Deluxe, and I would much rather have this than a Fender 600 or Blues Junior.

Class A, 5 watt valve combo amp (3 valves) with built in effects (delay/chorus/flanger and reverb) and a 10 inch speaker. 1 channel.
Equaliser: gain, middle, bass, treble and master volume. And has a stand by switch to keep the valves on when your not playing and a external speaker jack. Nice 50's style Retro basket weave cab.
(Made in China).

Firstly, this is a blues amp, not for metal and is basically a practice amp with it's own tone. The stock speaker is muddy and farty and needs to be replaced, I replaced mine with a celestion g10. When you do replace it with a good speaker it will transform the amp.
The cabinet itself is fairly large for a 5 watt and so it does not suffer from a 'boxey' sound like some other small valve amps.
The reverb is certainly usable, but the digital delay, chorus and flanger are not, but you get what you pay for digital effects are never good, i didn't buy the amp for that, i had my own pedals, also when using the effects, it hums, but is barely noticeable.
As for sound, the amp is good, clean is good fairly clear and a little chimey and it gives good bluesy overdriven/crunchy sounds. I play British stuff, Stone roses and Oasis, it is fine for that, very good with a speaker replacement. The clean channel breaks up quite nicely. Rating: 7 with a stock speaker and 9 with a G10 Celestion.

The amp is fairly new, so no opinion, seems solidly built though.

No opinion, never needed to contact Epiphone, would they respond to a guy in England about his valve special? Doubt it.

You have to replace the speaker and when you do you will have a really nice amp. It is good value and has good features, the digital effects are not great, are digital effects ever great?
I replaced mine with a Celestion G10 and it sounds nice. I can now play harder stuff, more distorted, using my Boss ds1 it sounds great. I have been playing 10 years and needed a practice amp, I wanted a Fender Blues Junior but didn't want to spend ??400 on a 15 watt amp. I would say over a laney lc15 I would still buy this as it sounds good with a speaker replacement and not as 'boxey' as the laney. Instead of adding digital effects they should have just made sure a decent speaker was used. I love the look of the amp, the basket weaving, chicken knob controls, equaliser, fairly versatile, good value for money for a true class A valve amplifier for home use. No complaints. Recommended.

Pretty well explained by other reviews: made in 2007, 5 watt tube amp, 10" speaker, built in digital effects and reverb.

Mine has been modified, though. I replaced the generic 10" speaker with a 12" Celetion. The cabinet is just barely big enough but a bit of routing the new speaker fits perfectly. I have also completely bypassed the digital effects and reverb so that the sound chain is as analog as possible. This makes the amp basically a single channel tube amp with low, mid, treble controls.

I wasn't going to bother writing a review until I read the one written by "David." No offense, but my experience is completely different from his.

With the new speaker and no digital effefects, the amp sounds amazing! The tone is pure and sweet. The EQ controls have minimal impact, but adjusting the Gain and Master Volume controls gives a pretty impressive range of tones.

This is easily the loudest 5 watt amp I have ever heard. Last night I played played bass with two guitarists; one used my Epi with a Strat and the other a Vox AC15 with a Tele. My Epi blew away the Vox!

This amp also loves pedals. I have an assortment of the Danelectro mini pedals even these "cheap" effects really shine through the amp.

Some have complained about how heavy the amp. Well it is and I'm glad! A large part of a combo amp or speaker cabs sound comes from the box itself. Rather than going with lightweight (usually = cheap) materials, this box is as solid as they come. That stability really adds to the speaker performance.

I have been inside the amp itself and was impressed by how clean everything is. Nice and tidy. Makes it easy to modify or fix.

The tube sockets and spring clips are a bit flimsy, however.

Never had to use.

To my mind, this is the perfect amp. Every signal chain starts with a good guitar into an amp with the best clean tone. Then you can add whatever you want to get your sound. Starting with a crappy clean sound is just asking for trouble.

This amp only does one thing but it does that better amps costing 4-5 times as much.

This is a brand new amp. At first look you think this is an amaizing amp. Master volume, Reverb, Efx. plus bass, mids, and treble. Class A amp. If you look schematics the first tube its on parallel like some marshalls. A knockout for the price...but..

I Powered up and 15 min later the play button. Hum. I plugged my PRS and the sound was ok, nothing to celebrate. i connect the speaker from my 66 pacemaker and the tone comes alive. The stock epi speaker its lifeless. The clean tones are ok, but the strong point of this amp is the overdrive because you can crank all the stages of this amp at low volume. You will never get metal dist, or some high gain with out stomp box. The reverb and the DSP are noisy and below the average. The construction is ok but HEAVY for a 5 watt amp. I dont see the point of a 44lbs. 5 watt amp. I weighted all the parts and the most was the box. Wood press is so heavy and too thick, thinner wood or ply wood could be great for the weight.

I will never gig with it. Too heavy and low wattage even for small clubs. If you plan to play in starbucks its ok, but for the size and the weight i rather a micro cube or a behringer amp. I'm too close to get my money back. Maybe I will. i dont know.

The amp came with small tear in the back tolex. I blame UPS in the first place but the box was not beat in any way. I was not aware that the amp was dancing inside the box in a plastic bag with small pices of carton. VERY POOR PACKED. I think this an epiphone fault. not ZZounds

Playng for +20 years, own a PRS Cu 24, a ES 335, Fender Bassman 10, Epi pacemaker, acoustic and nylon guitars, Custom Made Bass

Fairly versitile amp, I mean unlessyou want to play metal this amp will probably help you out with clean and low gain sounds, one channel, i use this amp to practice in my basement, its got enough power to jam with an average volumed drummer,(loudest 5 watts ive ever heard,) but i definetly wouldnt use it at a show, i dont use the delay much unless im just messing around, the flange is ok i guess,the chorus is your typical built-in-to-amp quality, not perfect but usable, i could use a footswitch, but as for tone control i couldn't ask for much more. I play mainly classic rock, blues, and occasionally a little modern rock and this amp suits me well.

like i said before, i couldnt ask for much more tone control for my style of music, its got incredible tone at low volumes, cant be beat.
the overdrive is suited for blues, if you turn it up all of the way i guess you could make a sad attempt at metal but i doubt it would be any good. no humm at all, a except for a fait buzzing when the master volume and gain are at their most.

one time i thought it was breaking down but it turned out just to be my guitars input, easily fixed, so no issues.

no opinion

if it was stolen i would buy it again the next day, i compared it to another all tube 10 year old peavey, a few kustoms, a g dec, and a tube hybrid 20watt marshall, this one had the best tone.

Basic stuff with some cheap effects. The effects do what they're supposed to do though. It's a home/practice/recording amp.

This amp is dark. Rather that tweak or mod it, or change the speaker, take it for what it is. It's a musical instrument, a class a 5 watt tube amp with it's own distinctive sound. This ampmade me rediscover my strat bridge pu. Plug a twangy tele into it and yin meets yang. Kinda like Pages tele/supro combo (use the bridge pu).

no problems.

Haven't been there.

This things got Character.

Single channel, single-ended Class-A amp, with Volume, Gain, Treble, Midrange and Bass controls. 5-watts output, powered by a single EL-84 and two 12AX7 preamp tubes.

The DSP effects (Delay, Chorus, Flanger) are really really bad, but the reverb is surprisingly good.

Also, the Valve Special has a standby switch, which is a plus, but it lacks an extention cab line-out and an effects-loop.

Note to Epiphone: get rid of the incredibly cheesy DSP effects, add an effects-loop and an extention-cab line-out, and you've got something to crow about.

Unlike so many amp manufacturers who falsely advertise "Class-A" operation with two or more power tubes, the Valve Special is a true single-ended "Class-A" amplifier, with only one EL-84 power tube.

I play mostly blues and early-70s rock. My axes are Strats and Lesters with Lollar pups, and I'm able to get a big fat tone out of this amp without a whole lotta mud. Bass is set at 9 O'clock, with the Mids and Treble maxed-out. But the trick is to max-out the Volume knob, so you're pushing the power tube, then dial in the Gain knob to between 9 and 12 O'clock, depending on taste. The result is a very nice bluesy sound with just a bit of crunch on top. The stock 10" speaker is mediocre at best, so I'm going to up-grade to a Jensen Alnico 10' rated at 15-watts. Also, the stock tubes sound a bit lifeless, so a tube up-grade is called for as well.

On the plus-side, the amp handles stomp-boxes very nicely with only minimal singal noise or microphonics. For only $375 (Canadian Dollars), the Epiphone Valve Special is a very pleasant surprise.

Only has it for less than two months...

I've been playing for 35 years, and this "true Class-A" amp is defintely worth $375.

Great for practice, rehearsal, and small club dates.

The serial indicates a 2005 mfj. date. I originally purchased this product because I wanted to tear it apart and see if I could add some embelishments or refinements. Also there were no Valve Jr. heads available. The amp is versitile and has relatively good tone. The features are nice and the reverb sounds better than in my Roadking I. I was intrigued by the price I expected crap and received quite a supprise. I will use the amp for practice and if I go over to a friends house. Its quite full featured for the price.

Variety is not strong point of a single ended amp, however, with the reverb and the DSP more sounds are available than expected. The amp will distort with the gain on full and the tone stack in the right posotions. It is most likely that the tone stack eats much of the voltage going in to the second 12AX7. It is most likely a tone recovery stage and also a unity gain amp for the DSP. A schematic will quickly tell. I tried it with Humbuckers however it sounds real fine with single coil. With a neck pickup (either) it dumps most of the highs, however is great for Jazz. I still prefer My Twin or a solid state for Jazz styles. The distortion is edgey and is embelished by reverb and the lowest delay setting. The amp is noisy only at full volume.

The amp appears well constructed , however I do not have the time in to make that qualification

I have had excellent response from Gibson in the past and they have done nothing to reverse my opinion.

I have been playing 45 years. If it were stolen I would buy another. If I lost an object that large I would commit my self to some form of rehab. I love what it is not. The amp is not pretentious and dosent promise the moon and give you squat. This is a true case of less being more. This is a lot of amp for any money. I was not comparing because I was going to tear it apart and experiment because the internet cult for this amp said it was noisy and lacked tone. I like it just fine , however I may experiment on its younger brother and see if those miods are worth incorporating in the Special. I beliver that many of the mods that were made by the cult followere of this amp were incorporated by Gibson labs. If you want sonething in this line that is not lacking for anything buy the Boogie 5:25 Express. If you don't want to drop $1,100 this the amp for you.

This is an usual review in that my purpose for purchasing this amp was not traditional. The amp was purchased because no one had a Valve Jr. on hand,. especially the head. I stumbled upon this amp while checking the internet for EL34 circuits and info. The salesman said try the the Valve Special. I wasn't expecting perfection , in fact, the exact opposite. I had read about mods for this amp (Valve Jr.) and some of the short commings. I figured a couple hundred for a chassis, tubes, Xformer,case, ect. I could mod it to my hearts delight and have no guilt. The exact opposite of modifying my Road King.
I hooked up a single pickup guitar and eh, hooked it up to a humbucker equipped guitar and maybe we have something here? I played with the tone stack mid level and the preamp 3/4 for what it is it performed well enough for me to plunk down $250.00. The digital reverb with the addition of the delay can sound quite deep. In any case the reverb is still better than the reverb on the Road King I. With all applogies to Mesa Engineering the new 5:25Express's reverb is as good as it gets. Perhaps they can upgrade my reverb? Well one can dream. It must understood that many of my numbers are based on the value at such a low street price, especially, a five year warranty.

The amp has many sonic deficiencies. I must say that most of the problems that have driven an almost cult like, mod craze, I have not experineced in my amp. The hum is there, however is very low level. I may add a cap to the power supply and may not have to. However this puppy was purchased for experimentation. As it stands a bridge pickup seems to give very nice highs. However when you switch to the neck pickup it goes from bright to flat, almost a dampened Jazz sound. This with the trebble at max mid at 11 o'clock and the bass at nine o'clock.

This may be because of the tone stack gobbling up energy and possibly a non optimal operating voltage range. Further a class A amp will not be as bright. Other factors may be choice of speaker and cap values attached to the tone pots and or coupling caps. I need to open up the amp and schematically represent the circuit.

None the less I compared some of the tones I got to those on the Sixties recordings by Mike Bloomfield and they were good enough to use for practice. The effects were cheesy,(don't want the effects, don't push the switch) however used in moderation with the impressive reverb they can be sonically pleasing, just don't over do. If you want incredible go out and buy the new 5:25 Express Boogie you won't be sorry! This amp sounds nice if you are not comparing to the likes for the former, however a lot better than my first amp (a Univox 45)for which I payded the same thing, however in early 1960's dollars. My Univox did'nt have reverb!

No reason yet, just purchased. I am impressed with a five year warranty.

I will ask for a schematic. I have had good luck with Gibson in the past.

Playing 45 years. This amp would't be a blip on my deductable. If you are loosing objects this big I would be reading Phych blogs. I love it because its such a bargin. The fit and finish are great and the look is just retro enough to come back into style. There is nothing I hate or dislike enough to talk about. I really did not compare because it was not my initial reason for purchase. I wish they would up the price to cover a foot switch or include it. Most foot switches I have ever tried to get are made out of unobtainum unless you mail/E order.Based on the footswitch function it may not be worth the twenty bucks. May make my own? This is a kick ass peice of gear for the money and I will inform this page if I do any mods which make the thing killer. It is most likely that I will change the speaker. I may just collect all of them. Sometime one gets more than they bargain for, however in this case it may be a good thing.

already covered in earlier posts. i've had mine for almost a year and still love it although the effects are crappy and useless,the tone is dark,and the worst speaker i have ever heard. it is versatile on its own for those that dont have pedals.

i use this amp mainly for practice and recording. i also own a valve jr head which has a much better overall tone than the special, but i but i can get more overdrive at less volume than than the 1 knob wonder so i still prefer the special. i orgionaly swapped a celestian tube 10 which seemed better,but then put in a 12" celestian seventy eighty that came out of my crate palomino v32 (which fits by the way) now it has a much bigger sound. i also put in some j.j's tubes. it still is a little dark but i found that the digitech screamin blues is the perfect dist pedal for this amp because it is really trebely and compansates for the darkness. now i can nail the stones "can you hear me knockin?" sound. i play classic rock covers,and origionals and this amp is much better than the vox ad15vt i used to own. i can record with it in my apt without pissing off my neighbors which i cant do with my crate palomino v32. oh.... i also tried the valve jr through the special's speaker for $@#%s and giggles and it does have better clean than the special, but i like reverb which the jr doesnt have. the digital reverb sounds good to me as it doesnt get to tanky for recording.

no humm,too small to gig, ive had it on for hours at a time recording and have never had a problem.

i've prabably voided the warranty by modding to fit the 12" celestian.

i've been playing for 23 years and i own a fender hot rod deluxe amp, peavey classic 30, crate palomino v32, valve jr, valve special. my axe's... schector c1 classic, american standard strat, 1980 iceman.
if any body from epiphone is reading this...LOSE THE CRAPPY EFFECTS and SUBSTITUTE A BETTER SPEAKER!!! although the reverb is ok. this amp is dark but very warm and with a few upgrades can be really great.the sovtek tubes must go......so does the farty speaker.but thats fine none of my amps are stock. if i had to do it all over again i would still pull the trigger but i would give the crate palomino v8 a hard look as i love the v32.

read past reviews...could use a footswitch for the DSP and or the reverb, not bad though

Couldn't agree more with the one of the other reveiwers, by itself it is realy muddy and farty, with no treble...worse speaker in a combo that I have ever had but the chasis is the same size, I am pretty sure as the standard, so I put in an Eminence Texas Heat 12" speaker, and now it's night and day. Things sounds awesome. Breaks up nicely, twice as loud, yada yada. Still doesn't have brutal distortion, but hook up a pedal and man, just plain awesome. My pedal is a korg hyper distortion that has a cabinet resonator so this thing sounds like a half stack and at reasonable volumes. The speaker change balanced everything out. With issued speaker a 3, with speaker change definately a 10

Owned the Valve standard for a while and that kept cutting out, but found one of these cheap and couldn't resist due to the tone (with a few upgrades). So far so good with this one, but who knows it's a cheap chinese built amp

anwered emails in the past so kudos

Been playing 15 years, and for the price and upgraded speaker price it's still worth it as long as it holds up. I also own a Peavey XXX. The Special can hold it's own against the XXX, but not in the volume. Different tube sound which can be attributed to the Class A vs Class AB tupe setup, love em both, but the Special is better for home rockin. Also the XXX doesn't need any help in the distortion department. Wish it had a foot pedal. Would definately buy again at this price.

By now you know the features, horible speaker though, very loud 5 watts, has a bad speaker, unusable DSP....no depth control a bad speaker, dual speaker outputs, a bad speaker, gourgous looking/boutique level fit and finish and did I mention a bad speaker???. could get a nine or ten easilly with a stock quality speaker and then ask 4 times the price, kinda glad they didn't wake up to this though. Marketing messed up big time. For having to dish out big buck for a good speaker and unusable DSP, another 5 or 6 bucks at manufacturing level could have also included an effect loop and this amps would be highly sought after.

Ok here is where it gets interesting, I am going to use a deluxe super strat on this almost exclusively with a Zoom GFX5 and I put in a 12" in Celestion V30, yes, it fits snug hight wise but it fits and makes the amp very heavy, (used in many boutique amps). The speaker is ultra efficient and it has doubled the percieved volume of this amp. It brought up the treble big time, I had to pin the treble,run the mids 2/3 and almost no bass before with the stock bad speaker, now with the replacement all I can say is wow, It breaks up a lot earlier now so where I used to set the gain at about 1-2 oclock now it's at only 10-11 oclock maybe cause the cleaner speaker is not masking early break up by being so much cleaner, now I have the treble set at 2/3 (full out is way to much), mid about half and bass about half or less. The difference is outstanding.I play mostly blues and rock with some Satriani and Vai thrown in for good mesure. Well I thought that it was "Da Bomb" for blues and it is but it shines for that trebly country twang and surprise of my life, it is the best sound amp I have ever hear for full out rock/metal with my GFX5 in front of it.......holly crap, metal type distortion set with compression and I set my effects board for a bit of cabinet resonance and you can feel the thump in the floor on power chunking rythms and the best part?....wholy shit is it loud, I had a marshall AVT50 head with the matching cab and this little sucker is as lound if not more with a tighter more bell like top end kinda like a Mesa Boogie but with tons of thump......ya need pedals or a processor but, WOW, and properlly set it's dooing a real nice clean with enough head room for a drummer at clean as long as the drummer isn't pounding, but kick in the distortion and rock&roll and especially metal, well let the drummer go nuts 'cause there aint no way he's gonna bury you......5 watts...imagine. Is this a vesatile amp?, no, on it's own it's a one trick pony, clean to mid break up and does it very well and that deffines 70 percent of radio music, with a decent processor and a speaker change? It does it all and does it with ease and it's one of the best sounding amps I have heard in my life. Is it perfect, no, it hums and go figure I put in a more efficent speaker and the hum got louder....DUNH....but really it's not any worse than my Fender Vibrolux's snap, crackle and pop not to mention hiss and look at what you pay for that on trick pony....by the way, with the speaker mod this amp is getting a higher rating than the Lux!!

I haven't had it long enough to judge long term reliability, but five years waranty and a output transformer that can handle ten times the wattage and everythings seems overbuilt on this amp, ok, it's not p2p wired but sometimes that can be good and the build quality is excellent.....so far so good. I deppends more on your dealer that anything else, five years waranty?, I don't think it would have come with that kind of a warantee if they were gonna be in the shop all the time. Power amp tube will have to be changed often enough but a price to pay for class "A", preamp tube should last a good long time and the tube are prety common so that's far from expensive, time will tell.

5 year warantee, the dealer is superb, the company ?, I don't know 10 for my dealer tho.

I have been playing 42 years now, started as a little kid so I think I know my stuff, I have owned it just about all and can sing the praises of many amps and guitars. This is only the second amp I have ever swapped out a speaker on, most good quality amps come with a pretty decent speaker. The first speaker swap was because the coil seized up so I tried something else and it changed the tonal character of the amp, not better or worse, just different. The speaker swap on this one was a necessity, I thought this amp was going to become a great little practice amp to preserve my Vibrolux and the Vibrolux is also a little louder than needed for practicing, I didn't think this amp was going to become my new main amp and that I'd put the Lux up for sale !!! All I can say is if you buy on the get a better speaker for it, the amp cost does not reflect the extra coin for the speaker, so it ran a total of about $500.00 Canadian, was it worth it?, yes, every penny. Would I replace it?, yes and swap in another speaker again too. I hope that Epiphone comes to their sense and offers this amp without the DSP and with an effects loop instead and I hope they don't come to their senses and upgrade the speaker and start charging $1000.00 plus for this amp wich is what it's really worth. I say that any one being leary about this amp should give it a try, if you got a good delear the he'll take it back, they are easy to resell.

My Amp was mde in 2005. For a bedroom practice amp at its price point, it is fine for my needs. 5 Watts Class A all Tube w/ 10" Speaker. It has one channel that can go from clean to blues overdrive. Use an Ibanez Tube Screamer if you need more gain. I like all of the features: Gain, Master Volume, Bass, Mid, Treble, Reverb, 16 DSP Effects with a bypass, Master Power and Standby (Nice). Footswtch for the DSP Effects and an 8 ohm speaker out on the back. For the price, an amazing combination.

I have collected an army of guitars and amps over the years. But with this amp, I have tried/use 3 different guitars: a Fender Telecaster, a Gibson SG w/ P-90's and a Fat Strat (The amp seems to like single coils better than humbuckers. So I don't bother playing my Les Paul Custom or PRS Custom 24 through it). In my opinion, this amp sounds best with the Gibson SG w/ P-90's. The amp suites my style just fine (classic to hard rock), but it would be nice if the gain was a little hotter, then I would not bother with my Tubescreamer. As stated above, for the price, it is a GREAT Practice amp. But don't plan to gig or record with it. See my reasons below.

Here is what I don't like:
* The amp at idle is pretty noisy. To be expected with a single ended Class A amp I suppose. But this is not a big deal because once you are playing, even fairly soft, the amp hum gets covered up.
* The DSP Effects are fun, but when you kick them on, you add even more noise. Again not a bid deal, just accept that it will be noisy at idle and turn up the amp loud enough to cover up the noise.
* The tone controls don't seem to vary the tone very much. But this again is liekly due to the Class A design. Class A have less high end sprekle than A/B. Class A is "warmer/creamier".
* The stock speaker did not seem to like it when I turned the gain and master full up. This is not really a problem for me as I intend to use it as a practice amp in an upstairs bedroom, so I'll never be playing it "pedal to the metal" so to speak.

Overall, a decent tone at clean through blues gain settings: for low to medium volume practice.

I've only had it a month, so it's too new to tell. But it seems pretty sturdy. As with anything electronic, time will tell. I hope I don't have to find out.

I doubt I will gig with it. I have several other amps of much higher quality that I would gig with (and I have a big collection of effects pedals for different situations, so the low quality DSP would not be used live by me, so...).

Again, I've only had it a month, so it's too new to tell. I hope I don't ever have to deal with Epiphone Customer Support. It comes with a decent Warranty though: 5 years.

I've been playing for 40 years now (practicing, gigging, recording, touring, etc., since the age of 5), so I have more gear than I need. Gibson, Fender, Mesa, Marshall, PRS, Martin, etc., all love me. If this amp were lost or stolen I would probably get another because of the features/price point combination. But I have to say that I liked Epiphone's Galaxie 10 better and was about to buy one, but Epiphone discontinued it-bummer (now folks want too much for one). I also like the Gibson GA5 Les Paul Junior Amp for it's simplicity, but not it's high price.

I love the Epiphone Valve Special Amp for its features, cool retro look and price. Overall sound quality could be better and the noise could be lower, but what do you expect from a Class A Tube that cost $200 bucks? Many folks have replaced the stock tubes and speaker and have seen a big improvement in the sound quality. But I'll probably leave it stock. If I need to play something that sounds better (for practice with the band, gigs or recording), I'll play my main rig (Mesa Nomad, Marshall DSL50/1960A cab, Peavey Classic 30).

Bottom Line: For a small practice amp with decent tone, this amp is great! Flexible, great looks and low price. A combo Class A Amp with OK DSP: that's hard to match for about $200 bucks. For what it is (a practice amp), I give it a 9. I'd give it a 10 if the DSP Effects were quieter.

What can you say...Sexy ass little 5w class A amp. The DSP effects that come onboard are garbage, with the only ones that get any use are a couple of the delay presets.
Not many feature, but I give it an 8, just becuase its such a sexy looking amp.

Out of the box, the thing sounds ok, but nothing really special about it. The stock speaker that comes with it is total garbage, but thats nothing I didnt already know going in.
In stock form I would give it a 5.
After some upgrades though, this thing is easily the best sounding amp I have ever played on under $400.
I replaced the speaker with a celestion tube 10 speaker($40), and replaced the tubes with JJ's($30).
Now I get sweet smooth creamy OD, that breaks up at the absolute perfect time. I couldnt be any more happy with the sound!
I own around 12 guitars, and I cant honestly tell you that it prefers single coils or humbuckers. I beleive that it loves them both equally.
While I can get some decent bluesy type tones out of this amp, It really excels at vintage rock tones.
I dont get why people say that its not loud enough...maybe they bought shitty tubes??? You can always Mic it....DUH!
Giving it a 10, becuase after the upgrades, it cant be beat.

Have no clue..... Seems sturdy enough, but the tubes plug into the PC board, so maybe some issues will arise?
Everything else is rock solid!

Altogether a great amp(after the upgrades) for a great price.
Bought it new at GC for $185, after taxes it came out to $201. $40 for the celestian and $30 for the tubes. $271 total, and beleive me there is nothing that even comes close at that price(new).

Heres the dirt. The honeymoon is over and the verdict is in. Specs are in my previous review and others.

This amp is a good choice for a cheap coffee shop gig tube amp. It will not keep up with a drummer unless run out to a cab and driven to the point of sounding like a swarm of bees being rubbed against a washboard. It's flexible in that it has gain and master volume controls, but it's also limited in the tones that you can get. It is best used with single coil pickups and is decent sounding after speaker and tubes are swapped. This amp sounds very much like a fender amp without the treble. I think an EQ in front would be a good idea to give more flexibility since the onboard eq is dog poop. The effects included are ok, there may be at least one that you can use although you probably have something outboard that does the same thing only better. I can live with the reverb at lower gain. At higher gain the reverb distorts in a way that is not acceptable. It seems as though it is inserted before the preamp! I think that there is more that can be done to improve the sound of this amp, but I don't think I'll buy another amp with the intention to modify it to get what I want out of it. Ths was a $219.00 lesson learned well. So at the end of the day I've got an amp that sounds pretty good but not great and held together accross a 2,000 mile move. Not bad for $219.00. I dont feel bad dragging it around, I dont feel let down when playing it, I dont create to much stress on the neighbors when playing it.

The amp has a *pop* that sounds every once and a while when it's fully warmed up (which takes 25 minutes). That pop is the only issue, but I do reccomend shopping carefully as this is an amp that varies alot from unit to unit. I always use this amp as a baseline for testing guitars at music stores, i've played them from Arizona, to Illinois, and Ohio. They were all different.

Here a rundown of my present/past gear and preferences:
Seymour Duncan Convertible: 9 (see my review on this great amp!)
Gibson Goldtone GA15RV: 9
Peavey tubefex preamp: 8
Acoustic Control Corp. brown tolex 2x12 model 160?: 8 (this is good old stuff!)
Ampeg Rocket Reissue: 7
Peavey 50/50 classic series power amp: 8

5 watts, 3 tubes, 10" speaker, 3 digital effects with multiple settings for each and mute button, digital reverb, gain, volume, 3-band EQ, speaker jack and footswitch jack (for digital effects), and standby mode. The only thing I wish it had was an additional channel. (Curiously, even the Valve Standard lacks that.)

I'm using an Ibanez Artcore 335 copy through a Digitach GNX-1 (which I use on a clean setting with no cab modeling) and a Boss OS-2 Overdrive/Distortion pedal. I play mostly modern and classic rock and pop, and it sings through it all.

This thing sounds ten times better than a $200 amp has any right sounding. On an absolute scale, the sound is about an 8 (it certainly isn't as good as a Mesa), but on a relative scale it's a 15! It lacks some treble on its own, but you can buy gear to compensate for that. Other than that the tone is unbelievably delicious. Everything from clean to raunchy to mean. Plug in a distortion pedal and it's smooth as silk. Breaks up beautifully at just the right moment. I LOVE this amp!

Sturdy construction. Although I just bought it recently, I don't see any reason it shouldn't last a long time. Still, I can't say for sure, hence the N/A.

Never dealt with them.

Pretty loud for a 5-watt amp, but you can add a cabinet if you need more. You won't hear a better-sounding (new) amp for $200. In fact, I think it sounds better than the $400 Valve Standard. A must-buy for players on a budget. Grab it before they come to their senses and double the price.

Gain and master volume, reverb, dsp effects, 10" speaker. I gave it a 7 because the effects are pretty noisy. Reverb is ok.

play Heritage hcm150,stock pickups. I play anything that's on the harder side, classic rock, punk, some alternative. Not really heavey metal but I like loud overdriven guitars. Fairly quiet with stock tubes, speakers farts when pushed. Changed out tubes for mesa 12ax7 and a electro harmonix el34. 12ax7's sure improved the sound but I think the stock power tube was quieter. Also put in a Vintage 10, 80th Anniversary Celestion speaker. Couldn't believer the difference in sound. Sounded great playing Am I Evil. It's a keeper now. Love the overdriven sound I can get now. Not sure why Epiphone didn't put even a slightly better speaker in it, the one they use is garbage. After upgrades it's a different amp altogether, I'd give it an 8 or 9 but stcok I'd only give it 7.

had it maybe a month, only played it for an hour or so today after speaker/tube swap so can't say at this point. Seems well built, fairly heavy. Had a hell of time getting the back off, hope it's easier second time as will go back to stock power tube for now. I had an older boss distortion pedal and just got a hum trying to use it on the amp. It does however seem to like my boss gp20, haven't tried that with the new speaker in it yet but I'm glad it likes that pedal because I like it. On a side note I think the gp20 is an awesome pedal, I can't understand why it didn't catch on better.

n/a at this time

played 9 years off/on, still amatuer. Have owned several amps by this time, Peavey 60 watt tube amp, too loud for what I need but sounded great. Think it was a Triumph model. Just got rid of a Marshall avt50, nothing but trouble with noise switching channels. Sounded ok otherwise but just didn't do it for me. Have had other peaveys and fenders, crates, a randall, but all ss. Got this to get back into the tube sound. God I missed it. For the cash I spent on this and about $130 to retube and replace the speaker I'm pretty happy with it. IF it lasts a few years that will be even better. The clean sound isn't the best but useable. I do like the bluesy sound and with the new speaker I can push it pretty close to a vintage 60's sound. I like it.