Traynor YCV20-WR 112 Combo

I've had this amp one year now, you all know the features as in other reviews. Retubed with JJ's as often recommended in this column.
"8" for features because it doesn't have built in everything. So what.

The tone was pretty interesting before the retube, lots of promise, if somewhat edgy or harsh distortion and floppy bottom end from the Sovteks. The full set of JJ's was 50 bucks. DAMN GO SPEND THAT 50 BUCKS! Don't wait, pass go or wind, change those tubes! Go easy on the gain and hard on the volume. Man this is the sweetest amp I've ever played in the past 40 years.

Strat into cry baby - tube screamer - delay - amp. Canare L4E6S cables with open ended shield for highs complexities. We play Hendrix, SRV, Santana, ZZ Top, Doors, Bad Company, Van Morrisson, Micheal Buble (big band jazz from us?... go figure, our singer nails it), Stones, Beatles, Cranberries, CCR, Neil Young etc. The amp handles it all. (Never tried country) Our bass players eyes popped, he keeps looking for the stack and the fender combo. I've played this little fk'r OUTSIDE, unmiked. It just gets better the more you crank it, and people don't run away from the volume. They come to you. Just keep fiddling with the buttons, your touch, use your ears, not the previous experience in your head with other amps. Treat this as something new.

This amp does seem more sensitive to pedal quirks than my '68 Fender Pro Reverb. Haven't been able to dial in the cry baby yet to my satisfaction. For that matter, all the pedals react differently with the Traynor to some extent, so expect a learning curve.

no failures

Never needed them. Great warranty!

I love this thing so much that I've stopped using anything else. Part of the reason for that is the same as for the pedal sensitivity thing. Switching over to my PRS or old Dean requires resetting everything and I just want to play. So they'll have to wait 'till I get my fill.

When the night is over, it's amp in one hand, guitar and case in the other and home I go! Easy. Get the cover too, the wee amp is soooo pretty. Would definitely replace if lost.

The features are listed below. Under 30 pounds of kick ass. yeah it's only 15 watts, but it has a line out, so run a cord to the board!
Greenback speaker, a great application for this amp.
2 channels but I only use the clean and overdrive it if necessary . Yeah 15 watts makes that simple. It is tube too so dig in a bit when you want to accentuate something.
It looks boo teek!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I use it with a G&L as well as a rickenbacker 360. The rick is exceptional through it, spanky and on the edge of breakup. I disagree with others, this amp likes effects, at least it likes the delay I use with it. One tip, keep it super clean for delay. i appreciate the o/d channel but don't use it depensing instead on the tube breakup at manageable volumes. That is what started me on the 15 watt journey. If you see an amp as an extension of your tone, and not something to break your back on and have to play too loud to get a sweet sound, go listen to this beautiful little gem.

Its a traynor. Best warranty and customer service I have ever experienced. I love the el84 tube sound with a ricky as well as with other single coil pickups. A nice combination indeed.
I am no gear head but have had no problems in a year of working it every day.Hooked it up to a 2 twelve cabinet with a celestion 70/80 and a GH 100 for added pleasure.

They set the standard I wish others would aspire to. Made in canada and canada rocks hard. eh?

Buncha shit otherwise.

Chose it over the competition, since once you listen to it, there isn't any. A bit more expensive than a fender pro junior or whatever, but hey made in the great white north and the controls can be read from the front. Better speaker, 2 channels, better tube compliment, better construction, better sound, line out, seaker shut off, headphone jack ( why bother with that?). Enough already!!!!!

This amp has one input for two switchable channels. You can use the footswitch (or panel controls) for channel selection and "Boost" on channel1 (the "lead" channel). There is also a panel-only control that kicks "brightness" into channel two (the "rhythm" channel).

There is a DI output, plus a TRS post eq line out that is half of the included effects loop. In my opinion, this amp is made to conform to about any situation. You won't need to make queer cables.

The speaker is a Celestion G12M "greenback". This amp is the ideal application for this speaker. Perfect.

15 watts class A. It gets hot; component life may or may not be an issue. I have read some other reviews, and a new pair of 6BQ5's may be a semi-annual event. We'll see. This amp is used hard.

This YVC20WR is princpally used with a USA Strat, playing R&B, funk, country, and rock. The greenback is just superb, and the amp does everything really well. Dead quiet. The reverb works nominaly. The overall sound is a little bright (makes the bassist happy). With a competent player using some pedals correctly, the amp is just amazing. You probably don't want to try this box for "AC-DC" sounds alone, but you sure could in the studio. If your drummer is a real musician, you can use this amp for small- to moderate-size rooms full tilt. My experience with this box is that it works fine up to about 3200 sq ft. Best to elevate and reinforce with the PA. Stage volume is fine on a 16'-wide stage complete with drums. Never heard it, but I suspect this amp would be killer on CH2 with a RIC360-12 and the bright switch engaged. Both channels have gain controls, and thusly one can adjust the sound individually; the tone controls do both channels. There are users who replace the stock Sovtek tubes with JJ's; this review is of a totally stock amp.

This amp is getting used hard, but there is not enough experience with it to form an oppinion.

2 year unlimited warranty on everything except the cabinet, which is ten years. My experience has been that when gear gets really old (10-15 years) and has been used hard over that time, you have probably gotten you money's worth out of it. I have no oppinion or experience yet on the YVC20. In fact, I can't remember a Traynor amp failure.

35 pounds and kicks Marshall's butt. I like it good. I also have a Supro 16T and a Sound City 120 Mk IV. The Supro's a keeper, but this Traynor puts the Sound City on the block. I've been playing since '66.

This little Traynor amazes me. I have found nothing yet to hate it for, except that it was made in Canada. If lost or stolen, I would instantly replace it with another one.

My only 'druther is I would like to see the amp shipped with a cover, and a separate bag for the footswitch/cable/AC cable.

This is a follow-up to a much earlier review by me. I gave this amp a strong rating for sounds, and I still do. The trick is to understand that this amp is designed for certain things, and it does them very well. New tubes (EH 12ax7, JJ Tesla EL84) help a bunch, but also, this amp behaves like old amps. It likes guitars and cables, maybe a little OD pedal. Don't run your 6-piece FX board through this amp and then wonder why it sounds no good. This amp does not seem to like FX very much. For nice rock sounds try gain channel as so: Gain 2-3, Vol 7-8, Verb 0-1, Mid 5, Treb 3-4, Bass 3-4. Then plug an OD pedal in front with just a little bit of clean level boosting. Superb. For good overdrive sounds, remember to turn up volume, not gain. It's likes power amp crunch like VOXs, not preamp gain like a Mesa. This amp requires you to work it for sounds, but if you do, there are lots of great tones inside.

Still a tank. Like all class "A" amps though, it uses power tubes kinda fast, but can just pop them in/out once you remove the silly little tube cover. If you're driving this amp hard, change your EL-84's twice a year!

2005 model bought new a few months ago from MF. Features are plenty and well documented by other folks. The features and form factor are what attracted me to this amp. I was hoping that it would be a convenient rehearsal amp and fill in when my Twin Reverb was overkill.
Sorry to say it's not to be...

1997 American Standard Strat (stock), 1977 Gibson Les Paul Standard with Burstbucker pups and 1984 Alvarez/Yairi acoustic with Fishman Rare Earth pup. Pedal Train pedal board with Ernie Ball Volume Pedal, Fulltone Clyde Deluxe Wah, Fulltone Full-Drive 2, Line6 DL4, George L cables.
Initially, I thought the sound with the stock Sovteks was decent but the bass was flabby and overdrive unusable.
Installed some Eurotubes and immediately noticed a tighter bottom and clearer overall sound. Unfortunately, even with the Eurotubes the bottom was still flabby. The sound while tighter just wasn't smooth and musical. There's also a pronounced midrange that can't be dialed out. The amp also has a sensitivity that?s hard to describe but I hear a lot of pick and string noise, not good.

Does seem well built. No complaints on build quaility, no rattles, looks good, good warranty.

Yorkville did respond promptly to email.

Really disappointed with the YCV20-WR. I had high hopes for this amp but have run out of patience. Perhaps a speaker change would help but a Celestion Alnico Blue is more $ then I want to invest right now.
For now I'll stick with the Twin Reverb, try to sell the YCV20 and keep looking for the amp I hoped the Traynor would be.

I own a year 2005 model. I play bluesrock and classic rock like Allman Brothers and ZZ Top stuff in a cover band, just for fun, so we don't do many gigs. Features are allright for this.

I use a Heritage H-157 and a Heritage H-140, both Les Paul "copies" which I consider superior to the Originals (at least the ones that can be paid).

The YCV 20 WR is not noisy. No problem. Clean channel starts do distort at higher volumes, which is no problem for me because this is the sound im going for. Play hardly clean sounds. Those from the amp sound good to me. But I am no clean-sound-pro at all.

Well. I took my H-157 with SD Seth Lovers, turned up the distortion channel. It sounded disharmonic. No "singing" sound possible. I took the h-140 with Schaller pickups. Same problem. Ever since then, three months ago, I tried to get an usable sound and failed.

I owned a Gallien Kruger ML 250 before and consider very strange that the solid state GK sounds very much better on distored, singing sounds than the Class A Traynor Tube Amp.

I will try a retube now and see what happens und if I can come from muddy, disharmionic and non-inspiring sound to something decent.

"3" is for the good clean channel.

Amp seems dependable and solid, as far as it is possible to decide after 3, 4 months.

Don't know.

I have been playing for 25 years now, all kinds of Les Pauls. Used Gallien Krueger amps, Ibanez amps, Marshall Amps and Peaveys. Never - not evven as a beginner - sounded worse than with this one. Disappointing.

Features package is one reason i purchased this amp; unlike some other 15-watters in its class, the traynor has effects loop, standby switch, line out, phone plugs, and internal speaker override. 15 watts is a very nice level for home use, as you can start to get the amp cooking without blowing down the doors. seems loud enough for jamming with a drummer, so long as in a smaller room or mic'd. Features was not a problem.

Here is where my problems with this amp started: the sound is not very impressive at all. As some other reviewers have noted, the stock tone is rather flat and lifeless on the clean channel; no real sparkle on the high-end, low end okay but a bit loose, and overall a lack of dynamic content or coloring. And the high-gain channel does not sound very good at all. With on-board gain set high or boost engaged, the distorion is decidedly unharmonic and fuzzy. Really not useable at all. There seems to be consensus that a re-tube (and perhaps speaker change) makes a big difference. Well, I think an amp of this price should sound good with stock tubes. If I have to buy new tubes (which might make the amp unreturnable, by the way) and go through the hassle of prying off those steel covers to get to the tube sockets, why bother? I considered getting JJ tubes, but I thought, "what if I still don't like the sound?" then I'm stuck with the amp, can't return it, and $600 down the tubes. So I decided to pull the plug and send it back. oh well...

Didn't have it long enough to know.
One note to Traynor/Yorkville: a re-design to make the tubes more accessible would be a good idea.

N/A

I will say one thing about this amp: it is beautiful. One of the best-looking "suitcase" amps I've ever seen. The wine red tolex is great, the oatmeal grill is slick, and I love the retro Traynor logo. However, at the end of the day, I could not justify keeping this amp with its flat and lifeless tone. If different tubes indeed make a big difference, I strongly suggest Yorkville start improving the stock tubes. Guess I'll never know, and that's too bad.

I am posting this follow-up to my original review. I said in my first review that I had had just purchased it and that I was dissapointed in the tone, but that I would retube it and reconsider.
Since that time, I have gotten at least 4 requests asking me if the retube made any difference, so I figured it's time to post this.

Well, as I had expected, a retube did make a big difference in the tone. Where it lacked any balls before, it gave it plenty of punch. The reverb sounded much deeper and fuller, clean channel was bright and I could do the AC-DC thing dead on with the dirty channel.

You can not buy this amp without counting on replacing the tubes.

I don't know why the stick ones stink, but they do. I replaced mine with a set of Eurotubes.

You can't beat this amp for the versitility it has, considering the size and price.

15 watt class "A" .2004 model with the D.I. XLR out and headphone jack and Internal speaker defeat switch. 2 Spring accutronics reverb, Two foot switchable channels, independant gain and volume on both channels. "more gain" switch for gain channel (footswitchable also), Shared treble, bass, mid controls. Effects loop, 12" Celestion Greenback speaker. LED lights on chassis AND on footswitch to let you know what's going on. Wine red "leatherette" covering with "oatmeal" grill cloth (has a sturdy steel grid behing cloth to protect speaker) Small, lightwieght and loud enough for small club gigs. Very quiet amp in regard to hum and white noise, the DC filaments on the pre-amp tubes must be more than a salespitch because this amp is VERY quiet with respect to unwanted noise. I tested the XLR out into my Yahmaha aw16g and what you hear at the XLR is very accurate to what you hear at the speaker, also if you record at 3:00 AM in the morning when inspiration hits you you can turn off the internal speaker ( must get switched to a dummy load of some sort...I'll check the schematic. Perfect recording amp.

I was a skeptic until I tried this amp. Plugging in My Les Paul or Tele or Strat, for anything from country to Jazz, blues, and classic rock all you will need is the clean channel. With the gain control and volume knob alone I can dial in more tones than I could with my Peavey classic 50 (that has a nice set of JJ's tubes in it) and this is with the stock Sovtek tubes in the Traynor. When the gain is rolled back and the volume is not cranked you get a very Fender-like chimey tone, rolling up the volume produces a nice creamy syrupy? valve overdrive.With the gain channel I can easily get the heavier tones, pretty much anything short of Nu-metal/death metal. First band practice with this amp I used the clean channel 90% of the time, (we play classic rock/blues)plenty of tubey grit and a good dose of sustain and this is the clean channel I'm talking about.. Outstanding, I really can't say enough, I hate to give glowing reviews but honestly right now I'm tickled pink.

Don't know it's brand new. But I am a real stickler when it comes to build quality. I found the cabinet very well made,sturdy, solid real 3/4 birch plywood. I removed the chassis and saw all solder joints were neat and wiring was neatly dressed and arranged, nothing sloppy inside. My only concern is the heat, 2 of the 12ax7's are inside the chassis and there is no fan like the Peavey had. But after 3 1/2 hours of hard play the chassis was only "warm to the touch" I still think a small DC fan would work well at the outlet vent on the rear of the chassis to draw air out.

I have not had to deal with Traynor yet and feel I may not need to. The warranty is 2 years on everything 10 years on the cabinet. "even if you break it" and it's transferable. I had to read that 3 times when I bought the amp to be sure I wasn't halllucinating.

Im 35 have been playing since 1976, I have owned many many tube amps and even a few solid state amps (ok not proud of that but I was young) This is the best amp I have ever owned. Compared to any other amp in the tube/compact catagory this amp is hands down a better performer and has more features than you can ask for. I would have paid much more for this amp, if I didn't know the retail price and was testing this amp out in a store I would expect it to cost over $700 easily. Now I'm just waiting for my set of new JJ's to arrive so I can compare to the stock tubes. If you are looking for a loud small lightweight all tube class "A" amp I owuld strongly suggest checking out the Traynor YCV20 or YVC20-WR. If it were lost or stolen I would replace it with another one of the same model. The logo plate is my only real gripe its a bit flimsy and cheasy.

brand new and beautiful. It is versatile with chanel switching , reverb and seperate gain switches for each channel.
I agree and don't use the headphone jack. Nice tube amp. Not cheap but great tone.

use a les paul and a tele with it. it is very quiet unless full out. I love the sound using 11 strings, a heavy pick and the clean on half gain half volume. Can use the guitar volume pot to clean the tone up, or put it on full to get a nice edgy and full slight break up distorted sound.

The OD channel is pretty modern sounding but i don't use it much live .

Built like a brick, well a pretty little brick. Build quality is excellent with traynor amps. No particle board of MDF or whatever the hell that is here. Blows away my old Marshall combo for reliability build quality and sound. Looks better too!

they're legendary. the best in the business that I have dealt with.

Been playing for years. recently returned to rock after a long period of folk that forced me to listen to guitar tone. This is better than anything i have used, great for country, and old time rock. Very full clean sound and sounds killer with a delay pedal. It is a beauty and light with all the tone i could ask for. It has a line out for those who want to use it live. A little pricey but in this case you get what you pay for. makes my other gear surplus, so as I place some ads, I'll actually end up paying for this by selling the other stuff I've collected. No need for pedals through this if you like or need just rhythme and lead sounds. Play through a large cabinet for some real fun!A classic in the making!