Ibanez Valve Bee VBG Combo

The ValBee has two channels - clean and overdrive. It has a master volume, presence, treble, middle, bass and gain control knobs. All eq (treb, mid & bass) potentiometers are active, so adjusting the amp should be done with a very little turns.

It has a headphone jack input (6,3mm), which may come in handy if you need to play at low volumes. It also has an effects loop, but I have never even tested it.

The amp has a single 6,5" speaker, and 5W of power. It has a 12AX7 pre-amp tube, and a 6L6GC tube. I haven't replaced them yet, because I have owned the amp just a few months.

I use this amp in my apartment (read: my little room), and it has just enough of power for my use. I usually keep the volume (scale 0-10) at 1, when playing.

Although the ValBee definetly produces enough sound when playing in an average bedroom, it doesn't have enough power to be used in a band rehearsals, for example. You can actually turn the volume at full, and sit right in the front of the amp without ear plugs (Well, it's quite loud, but you won't be feeling any pain in your ears).

The sounds of the ValBee are far more better than I expected from an amp of this price. I use a Gibson SG Special with stock pickups (currently).

The clean channel sounds really good, at all volumes from 1-10. I play with full gain all the time, because the amp just sounds best that way (You would never believe the amp had only 6,5" speaker, the sound gets really fat and full when you use full gain). If you need to soften the sound, lower the volume and tone from your guitar. The amp's clean suits really well for blues and jazz, and you can get a crispy funk rhythm guitar sound by adjusting the amp a bit. In my opinion, they could have added a reverb, although the amp sounds very good even without it.

The overdrive channel is a little drawback. It's quite noisy and muddy, and I think it should have more punch in it. You can make a lot better-sounding distortion using a clean channel with a separate overdrive pedal, for sure.

(I'm giving this amp an 8 in this category, because the cleans are so good. Overdrive would be... maybe 3.)

Well, it's very cheap, so I don't expect very much from it, but I can't give an opinion about the reliability issue.

I have never dealt with them, so no opinion.

I am a semi-professional musician, who plays a big variety of styles, including blues, funk, jazz, rock, 80's heavy metal, neoclassical and progressive rock & metal, just to name a few. I purchased the amp because my old 100W Fender combo with two 12" speakers was too big and loud for a small apartment, where I moved recently. I have been playing for a bit over nine years. I use this amp with my SG mentioned earlier, Boss DS-1 -distortion pedal and a Dunlop Crybaby -wah.

The best thing in this amp is definetly the clean channel. Fairly low hum, and the sound is really good. It makes you smile when you play.

The worst thing in this amp... is the overdrive channel. This can sound a bit funny, but the channels are like the opposite. The overdrive channel is pretty noisy, and it doesn't have the depth of the clean channel. I'll avoid using it, and if I need distortion, I play through my boss pedal, with clean channel. At least it sounds a lot better than the amp's own overdrive.

If I had to add something to this amp, it would be a spring reverb. Lacking the reverb is not a big matter, but it could make the amp a bit better.

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So, the amp has it's pros and cons, but I'm very satisfied in it. This is one of the cheapest tube amplifiers you can buy, and it performs really well for it's price. If you need a cheap practise amp, which sounds excellent at low volumes and is small and light, this one is really worth trying.

china made all tube mini amp, 5W, active bass, middle, treble controls, presence, boost channel switch, gain, master. line out for headphones, direct recording or other amp/cabinet. fx loop

due to the active controls there's quite a range of tones this little thing has to offer. very useful is the effects loop, i connect a digitech rp50, a pod II or one of my boss/ibanez effects to add reverb, delay or modulation.

i pplay mostly rock, punk but also blues and jazz.

i use it for playing in my room or for recording with my boss 1180 digitracker - i plug it straight into the recorder and just use the cosm cabinet simulation, amp modelling or effects turned off. by that i get practically the same sound as from it's own speaker. i'll try to mike it too one of these days

for these purposes it has all i need and it is definitely loud enough. cranked up fully it could get me thrown out of my flat. i have no idea if you could use it for band practice or live, i rather doubt it.

the ValBee produces a very nice tube sound. the clean channel needs some gain before the tube character comes out, further increasing gain starts to compress the tone. with single coils i don't get much crunch on the clean settings even with full gain, but a nice warm tone with good sustain. humbuckers can produce some crunch even on the clear channel.
the overdrive channel gets fuzzy very early and fully cranked up it produces really fat distortion. and noise. more gain more noise, that's how it is. but not so bad that it would bother me in any way. it might not be the right amp for death metal.

the tone controls are active so, it has been mentioned before here, turning them up fully doesn't give you a nice sound at all! you have to tweak around a bit before you find your tone.all controls in the neutral position is a good start!

this is great for ROCK! and Blues! but you can play jazz on it too - everything you like a good tube sound with.

as mentioned, yes, it can be noisy esecially with overdrive settings

i hope i can depend on it...don't have it for long. so no, it hasn't broken down so far but that would be a joke after a few days...

i once ot in touch with the local ibanez distribution, they answered my request in a competent and constructive way

i play for 33 years. i own a few guitars and usually play at home with my Pod II. i'm not naming every piece of gear here as i have quite a lot and i don't want to bore you. my main axes are a fender tele and a Ibanez 1978 Performer

the ValBee is the perfect vehicle for me. i can play in my room and still get a true tube sound. in the shop i compared this thing with a Roland Microcube. the cube is not bad at all. but the ValBee totally blew it away.

Price paid: 15o Euro on eBay ("used" showroom model bought from a shop)

A low budget single channel all tube combo amp and a rather new Model (On the market since about 10/2005), I purchsed mine in May 2006. It has an effects loop (very good - > 8 Points), three active (yes a c t i v e !) tone control knobs (more effective than anything Marshall ever made) plus Presence knob. Of course there is Gain and Volume and a boost switch (clean<->distortion).
Construction is solid but the nice blue tolex is more a kind of patchwork than one piece. I guess it will fall off.

Personally I think my amp is faulty, that is why I returned it and got my money back. Why?
1) There was a constant buzzing noise, even with nothing plugged in at all, even with Gain and Volume at zero.
2) It was so low volume - it was probably about 0,5 Watt not 5 Watt.
I own an all Tube recording amp with a one watt Tube Poweramp made by Hughes and Kettner. If I hook that thing to a 12" Celestion and turn it all up - my goodness, what a difference to that whsipering buzzing named Ibanez but made in China crap.

I tested it with an Ibanez SZ320 (old model) stock pickups and a superstrat with two noiseless EMG select single coils and one Carvin SD22 humbucker (a real screamer).
IF YOU IGNORE THAT UGLY NOSIE
You can get a decent jazz tone (fingerpicking, Neck humbucker, highs a little off, amp on clean), it has a very good bass response for 6,5" speaker (which is crap imo btw). A REAL PLUS is the fat metal sound (bridge Humbucker), but you have to tailor it very carefully because the tone controls are active. Attention everybody BAD CRUNCH SOUND, NO REAL CLEAN SOUND for strumming that is, fingerpicking is ok.

I want to see if other models are that noisy too.

I receieved it broken I think. Perhaps the final control before shipment was not so good.

No idea. Returned it to the shop.

I play guitar now for about 16 years, from shred to jazz and back. I have owned several amps and still own a Hughes& Kettner Crunch Master (great Vintage clean and crunch sounds) and a Roland Jazz Chorus 120 which are both keepers. Now, that JC 120 is a loud (!) and clean (!) amp that absolutely sucks if you want to use the built in distortion. I like the sound of a Hiwatt Custom 50 very much but could never buy one. :-(
As I returned the ValBee to the shop, I will check out the small Orange and Vox Amps for home use. I just can't use the JC120 in the living room. It simply is too loud.

It got what it needs. Input (5mV), output (5mV), input and output (20mV). That is quite nice if you are in for home recording or if you like jamming with friends. The standby switch is a nice feature making your tubes last a little longer + allowing you to plug the guitar in and out without having to turn te amp off (and thus making your tubes last longer).
It got a active eq on it, at first glance I couldn't get the right sounds out but after a while I found out it is a very sensitive tone control. The prescence button does the job nicely. Ok no reverb or other special effects. I don't need it since I got enough multieffect pedals to get all that.

Aria pro 2, no other pedals, just the amp. I have compared my guitar with many other (much more) expensive ones concluding that my guitar has the same sound as the joe santariani form Ibanez so I can't blame the guitar for any bad things. furthermore the manual+ website has lied about the power tube claiming that it is a 6L6 but in reality it is a more rare 6L6GC

Ok lets pu the thing on. Yep it is a tube amp thats for sure. Needs about 60 seconds to warm up. The bad thing is (hey what do you want 170 euro!!) that the internal electric suply is not fully stabilized so after putting the volume up to over half the tubes started buzzing. I have tested some other amps amongside with stabliziled electrical suplies and you could hear the difference. Maybe if you ground the amp properly the minor problem may resolve but lets be fair.. It is a practise amp for those who want professional sound for cheap ;) Also interesting to notice is the fact that when I tested this thingy in store it didn't make as much noise as it does now. Propably the tubes start degrading quickly causing the humming.

Started with the clean channel. After some fooling around with the settings I can only conclude one thing. The clean channel sounds phenomenal!! Authentic tube sound, loud in a small room ;) but it sounds like it should be, no his no buzz no fake clean here.
What I really like about this thing is the kink you can hear from the power tetrode. Especialy on high gain the tetrode starts releasing that weird high tone when picking hard on the strings.

The distortion is also not dissapointing. Ok it doesn't sound like a metal zone (I compared it!!) but it can be used for metal sounds. After some tweaking and tuning I managed to release a sound very close to that of the metal zone with the difference being caused by the fact we are talking about tubes here!! Haven't managed to get things like slash or van halen out but things like bbdady and jimmyx has proven succes. Though I must admit that my fast soloing technique still sux so maybe I will be able to create such sounds in the future ;) Strangely the distortion channel sounds alot more quiet. I don't know why, maybe some security to make sure we don't blow the power tube up?
I compared this amp with an 100 watt engl amp and can conclude that this amp cannot produce powerfull sound without having the volume open completely. This is more a tube technical problem caused by the weak output of the power tube causing therefore less distortion on the end. Can be resolved with high open volume but don't look strange if the neighbours drop by to finish you off as it makes enough sound.

Long story with some conclusions:
1. Definetly no stage amp by NO means. It simply doesn't have the power to do that and pushing it to its limits may prove fatal to this amp since the 6L6's maximum output is 6,4 watts.
2. Very tube authentic sound. The clean is perfect and the distortion can do, In fact the distortion is good but the output of the amp is to weak to get that real fat sound you hear on the radio.
3. if you play at home, if you are a poor student but still want to have a very good nearly professional sound. This is one of the amps that are worth your money. There are more tube amps available (behringer) for cheap and even cheaper but I couldn't find them in store.

Recording may also prove worthless as the sound also gets nice warm and smooth becuase of the acoustics of the speaker box.

Definetly no 10 for this boy but it sounds hell better then many of the price ranged crappy solid state amps. (also tried all the solid state amps within the same price range with good expensive guitars, let them be played by pro guitarist and they all suck).
I didn't believe all that tube talk at first but after some days of extensive playing I am convinsed for sure.

Final words to say. This amp is not cheap. I have seen cheaper tube amps for sale. 150 euro for 20 watts. 200 euro for 10 watts etc. So look around for those if you can. Maybe they sound better. But definetly go for tubes!!

Solid. Haven't tried to drop it from a flat building orso. I bet it won't break apart if you let it fall from lets say 2 stories but it is a tube amp. Tubes amps can die quickly if exposed to shocks.
I allready made some mistakes like putting the wrong plugs in the wrong channels and the boy still works :) (lucky me) Looks like they secured some of the channels. I don't expect this amp will blow up easily since I also found other bariers of security inside such as fuses and special voltage relinks.

It gets a 7 because the 10 is only for the boss pedals (I have trown those things from 20 stories on hard stone and they still work). the 8 and 9 is for the rest of the indestructibles and I bet this amp can die easier. It is a home amp no on stage metal thingy.

Haven't dealt with the costumer support. Though some remarks.
2 years warranty (nice)
Horrible, sad paper to whipe your ^%&* with as a manual. They could have put some more effort into that manual. I have heard some stories from friends Ibanez doens't even sell the schematics of this amp which is a very sad story. I respect the fact they want to keep the sound secret but hey come on.. It isn't a world famous marshal JCM like amp. And so what anyway, schematics will come available over time as electronics freaks like me will open those things up and start figuring out how they are put together. Sad story indeed. Ill give them a 5 for that.

Actually you can rate this thing from three points of view.
I play about everything except for country muscic.
It is really a good amp if you like to play at home with a pro sound for very cheap. If you have a very small room (like mine) this i the solution (8).
If you play death metal or black metal you maybe may consider to put a metal zone in front of it. You can get the right sound but it takes a long tweaking which may prove irritating when playing together with friends (then ill rate it a 7).
If you play life, gigs or you jam along with powerfull instruments (drums) then you can forget about this thing. The 5 watts are simply not enough to be heard (rating in this case 3)

If have compared this amp with some engl, marshal and fender amps. With different guitars and different players and it doesn't sound bad at all. Thos who say that the sound sucks simply don't have technique and should practise more!! ;)

lots of features: powerful active EQ,effects loop,a nice recording output/headphone,it's cute and small

sounds great ,very 'pentode' like,macho distortion...I have hooked it to a 1 x 12 and kicked ass

seems very well built

this people at Ibanez are very unhelpful,and their UK support is crap as well

serious little amp,beats the hell of virtually all similarly sized transistor or modelling amps

Well - I think we are all capable to check the specs on Ibanez's homepage so I won't waste any time here - only lack - the missing reverb unit!

I use a gibson LP special with P90 and a Les paul Standard with this little fellow for home practise. Being 34,playing mostly a blues and jazz, I am totally happy with its warm and dynamic tube clean tone - it is true that the distortion is not as loud as the clean channel - but boys - THIS IS A PRACTISE and RECORDING unit - not a live amp. So for me it makes totally sense that Ibnaez handled things this way - due to that loudness differnece it is possible to play high tube gain in your sleeping room without making your neighbour getting his chainsaw... It has a little steady hum /sizzling sound which is natural for a class A amp -owned a fender pro junior before - same thing
The active equalizer is very sensitive - so please take your time to play tenderly around with it - otherwise you might be disappointed and won 't recieve the great results this little thing is capale of.
The only definite minus for me is a missing reverb - truely - nothing fancy - but a neat little spring reverb unit is all it needs to make this amp the ultimate friend for the road.

Well - after 6 weeks I guess it is not appropriate to judge anything in this department yet - time will tell - looks pretty solid and well built to me

-never had to contact them

Wonderful rich warm clean tubesound - I truely would recommend it anytime before any hybrids - had them all - microcube -VOX DA 5- Cube 30 - AD 15 VT - close but no cigar... A tube will always stay a tube !
That's a fact, as males won't give birth on this earth for the next couple of decades too....

yeah not too bad on features....however they dont work too well,the drive 'channel' is far lower on volume than the clean channel (very weird!)and the recording output is good but far too loud...you could damage the input of your recorder if you are not careful. I prefer the Crate v58,amazing little amp

it has a thin a buzzy distortion...quite noisy also

this is the real problem here. My amp was damaged due to negligence.I happen to repair amps. Ibanez Japan refused me a schematic. Read below

These people at Ibanez sucks! they said that because I am 'general public' they could not give me a schematic.
I was really offended ,because I thought I am a CUSTOMER,I mean,I bought the amp,I gave the serial number,and I said that I want to repair MY amp,what's wrong with having the schematic? They did n ot even offer me to pay for one.
What is this BS,is their amp the best kept secret of 2006?

Buy a Crate V58. It stomps all over the ValveBee and the guys at Crate treat customers as customers,not as 'general public'.

FU ,IBANEZ!!!

there are other little nice amps...the Crate is a brilliant amp,I have bought it and will get rid of the Valve Bee as spare parts amp.

I am not saying this only because of the RUBBISH 'customer support' (ah ah...) but because the V58 it's in a league all his own. unbeatable value and it sounds killer. totally happy with that one.AND, Crate is good with their customers!

2005, 2 channel (boost switch), drive, 4-band EQ (bass, middle, trebble, presence), 5W, 1x 12AX7 in preamp, 1x 6L6 in poweramp. 6,5' speaker. Effect loop, headphone/recording jack.

I use it with Washburn N4 copy by Igor Keller with cutom SBS pickups and with Ibanez AXS32. I play mainly hard rock/metal.

First I have to say is that the speaker along with the closed-back case with small "bassreflex" hole in the back does not sound good enough. Low frequencies are bit muddy and highs tend to be too crisp. Can be managed by EQ, but still not as good as I wish.

Clean channel sounds good only on low-gain settings and not too much volume. It is pretty decent then, but with almost no tube sound in it. When the gain and volume are cranked all the way up, the sound is harsh, with unpleasing highs. But it is quite loud for 5 watts.

Drive channel is the one I like. It gives enough distortion that sounds quite modern. Still bit muddy on low frequencies, but can be sharpened by EQ quite well. For home practicing an playing along tracks it sounds well.

The headphones/recording out does not satisfy my needings. It hums a lot and volume must stay quite low for recording, because of clipping. So recording of cranked power amp is quite impossible at home.

I ended by inserting other tube pre-amp to the fx return jack and I connected the speaker out wires to my Behringer GMX110 speaker. It sounds very well now.

It is built quite well and seems to last for long.

Never dealt with them.

If it was stolen, I would buy just custom made 5W tube poweramp, because that is the main thing I use and it is just loud enough for home use. I also like the distorted sounds, they sound more modern than my other gear. I wish it had larger speaker.

just a last tought....most guys below compare the Valbee with their marshall mg15. There is no point,transistor dont compare with a tube amp(they really think the mg thing it's a marshall because it's called that? it's only a tranny practice amp.They are marshalls as Fiat is Ferrari.)

The Valbee it's not perfect only in 2 respects:yes the boosted sound it's quieter than the clean ones ( I am going to sort this with a tech,'cause it's worth),and,there is no extension cab output. I bet my guitar it sounds killer with a 4x12 for recording purposes.

However,given the fact that nothing is perfect,no matter how cheap or expensive,and given the fact that the Valbee has killer sound and features like effects loop and powerful active eq (people say it's harsh because they turn controls way too much....but remember that this is an ACTIVE eq,therefore you have to add or subtract eq a TINY bit at a time....it's not like passive ,where you have to turn controls all the way to make them doing something at all)....then the Valbee it's killer value. Let's not forget the excellent rec out.

How Ibanez did this for # 139 is remarkable,and even the quality inside is very good,with fixed bias instead of cathode bias (which it's good as well but cheaper) and 6L6 pentode.
Hum it's ok...tube amps are not as quiet as transistor. You cannot really expect a super quiet tube amp at this price,although I would pay an extra few bucks (pounds?) to make it quieter.However to me those are not too bad compromises.

this amp has really excellent features. Many little single ended valve amps like this one usually have an el84 in the power amp (used by old vox amps) ,but surprisingly,this one has a 6l6! Like mesa amps,the bigger peavey heads etc.

It gives a different sound when cranked up,very ballsy as oppose as 'voxy' .
also,6l6 just sounds bigger than el84. I like the latter as well,but the 6l6 too.

This little amp sells for a VERY reasonable price. It has an effects loop (very welcome....at the very worst the Valbee can act as an excellent valve power amp if you put your favorite preamp in it's return loop. You can of course add reverbs,pods,whatever you want).
The only other little amp with a full effects loop I know is a Laney lc15. However I really prefer the Valbee sound-wise.

It has also an ACTIVE eq. Some guys below say that the Valbee has harsh treble when treble knob is cranked. OF COURSE,this is an active eq,therefore is very powerful,if you crank the treble knob you are boosting high frequencies of 12 db!!!
Same goes for the bass and middle. You have to control it more,it's not like those useless passive eq's found on old marshalls etc....if you go too far those frequencies will be too extreme.
However it's an excellent thing to have,because then you can match any guitar with this amp:if the guitar has a naturally muddier or dark sound,or conversely a brittle sound,that's when active eq comes into play.


The first stage uses an i.c. ,but it's rather a clean booster that is used to overdrive the preamp tube heavily.
Hughes & kettner do the same thing on their Tubemans,Crunchmaster etc.
Works well,it's not diode distortion or anything.
Overall,for a little tube amp at this price,it's feature packed!
There is also an headphone /recording out,and sounds really nice,it's frequency-compensated (like a Red Box!).
Very nice!

I get a nice chimey clean sound with single coils and a very respectable distorted sound. If you crank it up it's kind of Marshally because of the 6l6.
I am using this with an AxeTrak,so I am not really using the little speaker there ,although it's good for a 6.5 inches!
I also like to record direct from it's headphone/rec out. BTW this output captures the sound of the power amp as well,like in the Peavey Classic amp.
The only real contender for that amp is the Crate vg58. And I will buy that one as well 'cause it's also excellent.
Why not as they are both cheap!

I modify amps and it's interiors seem very ok!
However I suggest you put a nice 6l6 (electro-harmonix or whatever you like).

I love it.nice little amp and MUCH better sounding than a Cornford Harlequin or an 80's Fender Champ 12.