Traynor YCV40T 210 Combo

This is my 2 year report. Same features as the other guys. The only thin g I'd like is foot switchable reverb, but for the price, good amp.

After 2 years, I still like this amp. I did swap out the tubes for JJs, which was a big plus. Cheap fix. I use a MASS 50 attenutaor to tame the volume but it still gives me lush fenderish cleans on the clean channel,and good blues and rock crunch tone on the lead channel. 2x10 configuration has a great 3D sound that the 1x12 hasn't got. Bass is still great, though. I use a Robert cray strat and the two were made for each other. I have a ES 335 clone with flatwounds and this amp delivers great smoky jazz ala Kenny Burrell. I tseems to take pedals well. It has all the volume you need in an intelligent band. The only negative is I think the boost is about 6db to hot but some like the kick in the pants.

Warranty is up this month and it still is flawless.

I've had support on a Yorkville Bass amp (same company) and it was fast and efficient. Out and back in 2 weeks.

I this was stolen, I doubt if I could find another amp in this price range that does what this does. I think youneed to break the $1600 CDN threshold to find a comparable amp. And I'm not a pro so I'd never spend the bread. It is a great amp for Blues, classic rock, country, jazz, funk, R&B, gospel. I think it might do as a metal amp with a decent pedal (I use a Zoom HL 1) but that tone that metal guys dig requires a lot more brute power than a 2x10 combo can deliver.

the features on this amp are as basic as it gets. 2 channnels: 1 clean and dirty with boost as aformentioned in previous reviews. each has it own volume,bass,treble and mid with a shared presence and a bright switch for the clean. it also has a standby to keep those tubes warm when not in use. pretty "no-duh". no master volume but i didn't think it needed it. also an accutronics spring reverb.
the amp is very versatile as long as you keep you music out of the extreme distortion school. but we'll get to that next.
it's all tube and has pretty much all one can ask for i think. it's a no frills 40 watt tube amp. not a lot of bells and whistles but dosn't leave you begging for more at the same time.
oh! and 2 10 inch celestion tube 10 speakers.

i play a lot of different things but a blues based sound would describe me best and this amp deivers where pretty much all others fall short in the price range and some that cost hundreds more. for metal is just barely makes it there. by that i mean no nu metal as others have said as well. i've played a lot of amps that are comparable like the peavey tweed 112, a blues jr (under powered but a nice 1 trick pony), a carvin bel-air 212, and of course the venerable deville from fender. this amp smokes all of them! the clean is worth the price alone and is crisper than a cracker and as warm as your mom. i loved it. let me also say that i was confident this amp would deliver as i hadn't even played through it and had only heard audio bytes and read reviews on it. so a gamble for sure, but so worth it!
the distortion is pretty tame but kick in the boost and it roars like an old plexi marshall or an orange. i would describe it as ac/dc and guns n roses-y. very bassy too. the mids are tame but with them rolled up to 10 they come out a lot (duh) which i like. the whole eq is pretty responsive. the boost further enhances the bass and treble and seems to cut the mids a bit for a more modern sound. but this is definately old school hard rock sound. i'am fine with the distortion but am going to add a pedal for boosting the leads more with an eq pedal. the reverb is also kinda tame but i don't use a lot as i rarely play the surf sound. the presence adds just the right touch but isn't the most effective presence i've heard. anymore to me, an it'd be too much and distort at high volumes. again, very bassy. haven't tried a tele on it yet, but i will.

this amp also stays pretty clean and clear cranked which i did right out of the box and let me say it's VERY loud. definately a gigable amp. need more volume? your overcompensating-just mic it!

i've read everything on these things and with the exception of 1 review saying it buzzed to hell-they seem bulletproof! i've only had it for a week so i can't offer much more than that. i did look it over from head to toe and it seems very well made. you just can't beat the warranty-even if you break it for 2 years! nice!

haven't dealt with them but again-from what i've read they seem pretty good.

i've been playing for 16 years and only have owned fender amps as i love fender. but a friend of mine said "tube is the only way to go" and so being outpriced but fenders name i looked elsewhere and am not sorry at all. fender can't touch this amp (not for under a grand anyways). the distortion is far better than the deville and the clean is as good as any twin i've heard. i do wish they stick the celes vintage 30's in it but they (the tube 10's) sound good just the same.
i play a fender mexican strat with a hum/sin/sin pickup layout. and the 2 go perfectly together. i also use some effects which i haven't tried on it yet like a dunlop rotovibe,dunlop fuzz and a dunlop wah (i have a yen for dunlop). i keep it old school and simple as it's far cooler to do more with less.
as i said before i tried other amps tube and solid state/hybrid but everyone has a marshall or fender or peavey and i want to sound like me, not everyone else. this amp is a great step toward that. it beat out the carvin i was close to buying because i really wasn't happy with the distortion on that amp even though it was a bit more "extreme" (now there's an overused word nowadays!) and it was noisy. if you want to set yourself apart from the crowd without selling your soul trying to do so, try this amp!

Here's my suggestion to those of you who are considering this amp. It is a great amp for the price. Yes there are better amps out there but not for this price. I have been playing for 25 years and own some incredible amps. I was curious about this amp. I am glad that I decided to make the purchase. I needed something small and affordable and Traynor has fit the bill.

Replace the tubes with (2) NOS JAN Philips 7581A's and (3)GT 12AX7M's and the amp will go to another level. These tubes have brought this amp to life. It is a bit of an investment but well worth it. You can order these tubes at www.kcanostubes.com Mike will take good care of you.

Get this amp! It is worth it.

Best customer service that I have experienced in this business. Carl at the USA headquarters has answered every question that I have thrown his way. He has been patient and helpful.

Incredible clean tones. I am not to crazy about the distortion sounds. They are good but not great. The clean tones are worth the price alone. Run some good overdrive pedals with this amp and you will love the tones that you get.

Made in Canada, Very versitile for many different styles, 2 channels (clean) and (dirty w/ boost) Channel switching, comes with foot pedal, Effect loop built in, no headphone jack though..., I wish it had more than one input so that i could play on it when my friends come over. I rarely use the presence knob or the effects loop. 100% tube power!!

I use my ovation deacon which has mini humbuckers. This makes awsome sounds come from this baby. This amp is perfect for my style of rock. The amp is only noisy when i plug the extension speaker jack into the computer for recording. other than that, no noise. The distortion is perfect in my opinion. I wouldn't want it much heavier than this. Its perfect.

This amp seems very durable. The rough covering seems very reliable. I haven't had any problems with it damage wise. i haven't had to replace the tubes yet and I never neglect my amp...

I have never had to deal with Yorkville. I'd imagine that anyone who makes such fine quality amps would be very nice to work with though.

This amp is incredible. I think this will be my main amp for a long time, if not forever. It gets very loud. I never put the clean channel past 4 and I never put the dirty channel past 2.5. I would definately buy it again if it were stolen. I will never go back to solid state amps. I got a great deal on this amp. A local music store was selling it "used" when it looked and played brand new! Thank you, parkway music!

I bought this amp in July 2004.

I use an Epiphone Les Paul with hot rodded pick ups, nothing spectacular but extremely effective for what I play. Lots of volume and tone and the distortion or second channel is enough for me. I had noticed that the volume knob does rub against the channel select switch but it doesn't surprise me for the overall price of the amp. It is not a Mesa Boogie...

I havent had the amp for long, and have primarily used Fender amps. I had looked at many different manufacturers but Yorkville came up as the winner in sound and price.

I've been playing for 20 years and tried so many amps. Mesa is way overpriced, Fender is way over merchandised and old school, Gibson is too light and way too overpriced, And most others have too much fuckery in the electronics to provide good sound and simplicity in thier engineering. Yorkville is simple, loud and clean with a good price range.

Simplicity !! Finally a quality built tube amp made with quality components that doesn't have digital effects, modeling or MIDI.
It has 2 channels, an effects loop/line out, external speaker jack that DOESN'T turn off your internal speakers-you can unplug them, Boost, Presence and Reverb. If you need more by an RP80 or RP200 pedal
Of the three speaker options I like the punch and coverage of the 2x10s for rock and blues I find this a great combo.
About the REVERB; I find it is noisy 'boing' when the amp is being carried around, that's it. The verb is very subtle at low settings and grows slowly to a mid-Fender type sound. Want more? get one of the RP's
Footswitch is provided.

I use this with a long list of guitars My favs are an ESP MH200 LTD, a Dean Boca and JR Beck WPS2500. The hollow body Dean has an H-H setup and sings in a creamy, slightly mid-heavy way. The ESP HH screams on bridge and shacks on neck, very smooth sustain. The JR BeckS-S-H is a little thinner on bridge but growls nicely onthe single coils.
For blues I set the gain at 2pm and the presence at4 and switch channels between clean and distorted as needed. With the volume at 3 this is quite loud and you can 'feel' what's going to happen as you increase the volume-this get louder, creamier and more compressed. Play with the boost for a heavy bottom end or up the mid and treble for hi-lead and/or feedback.
I wouldn't call the distortiond brutal by itself but a TubeScreamer will overdrive this thing over the top or a Hot Tubes will cause some metal punch that will knock you over.

Had Traynors for years and they've always seemed bulletproof. Giging shouldn't be a problem and thanks to the autobiasing, tube changes can be done only as neded.

2 year no questions asked, transferable warranty. You must take it to a dealer with your reciept-save it!
I've talked to Yorville sound while investigating this amp and they seem friendly enough.

37 years playing. Had a stroke a while back so I've sat out the last few years.
I wanted a new amp that would give me what I wanted in the way of sound without costing too much and was looking at 15-25 watt all tube amps. When I found this one I had to narrow my choices down and they came to: Traynor YCV20-20watt version of this, Epiphone Galaxie 25 or Traynor YCV40t. The Epiphone wins the $ competition but was TOOOO clean sounding. The little Traynor sounded good but didn't have the "presence" of the bigger one so I purchased this one and would again.
Funny thing, mine doesn't rattle.
Love the look, sound and the case quality.
Don't like the location of the ext speaker jack. BOOST can get muddy , especiall with Single coil PUs. Wish it were 10 lbs lighter.
Purchased at Music Castle, Royal Oak MI

1/2/04
Look Below

Sounds great . . . but rattles like a baby toy . . . Reverb needs to be turned to 10 to hear it . . . the "presence" is a joke, I'm not even sure it works . . . oh and did I mention the horrible rattling . . . you windows should rattle not the amp . . . I have owned a 2002 Twin (Super Amp), a hotrod, Cybertwin, and a couple of SS Marshalls . . . and none of them rattled and buzzed like this sucker . . . The metal grill rattles, the reverd rattles, and the electrical housing rattles . . . EVERYTHING ON THIS AMP RATTLES . . . but it sounds sweet (WITH NEW TUBES) ha ha ha . . . go figure.

Here a Rattle there a Rattle . . . Every where a rattle rattle . . .
Tolex was mis-cut in the back of the amp . . .

Yorkville was very fast in responses . . . very kind . . . but this doesn't help the fact that these AMPS RATTLE . . .

VERY GOOD

RATTLES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a follow-up to my previous post. Over the time I've had this amp, I've needed to change my setup to find what the amp really "likes". I used to run my axes into a Boss GT-3 floor multi-fx with an Ibanez TS9 in the GT-3's external OD/Dist loop (the GT-3's distortions suck bad), then out to the amp. I've set up this way for years, using different amps and would usually get some great tones. Setting up this way with the Traynor though, I could get some good-sounding tones but not what I really wanted from this amp. After trying all kinds of combinations, I've finally hit on THE ONE...and I guess it makes a lot of sense considering this is a modern version of an old technology. This Traynor amp sounds incredible with the guitar plugged straight into it (thru the TS9 too) and the GT-3 inserted in the amp's fx loop! With this setup, the amp is way more responsive to dynamics and the overdrive has a sweeter tone, crossing more over into old Marshall JCM800 territory while still keeping a firm planting in the Fender zone. I don't know why...maybe the resistance values between the guitars' pickups and amp's input match up better than into the GT-3. All I know is this setup sounds great!!!

A couple further notes:
1) Traynor, don't change a thing on the clean channel...it's beautiful! Very Fendery and dynamic.
2) The overdrive channel without the Boost engaged sounds fine, just as I described in the above paragraph. With many other amps, the overdrive channel has a very different tone than the clean channel. Not here in the Traynor! This amp's overdrive sounds like the clean channel with more gain. I personally like that feature...it allows for a smoother performance over a broad range of musical styles.
3) Traynor, I've decided I don't like the Boost...at least not as-is. Sure, it adds gain and volume, but it also loosens the overdrive by adding too much bass. Low notes get that "farty/flabby" tone I originally noted in my first post. I guess so long as you stay above a low-B or C it's not bad, but I'll bet the amp is just a capacitor change away from having an awesome high-gain tone as well. I highly recommend a circuit change to reduce the lows in the Boost preamp stages. I've downloaded the amp's schematics and may try some modifications...I'll let all of you here at Harmony Central know what I discover.

Fairly basic...2 channels (3 if you count the boost switch) with independent tone & volume controls, series fx loop. Nothing fancy here, but it's all you need. Nice touches are the 6L6 retainer springs instead of the normal flat-metal "beartraps", steel grille behind the cloth and a solid footswitch with an output jack instead of a hard-wired cable.

I play a Carvin Bolt and an American Strat, both fairly stock using the original single-coils. My styles range among funk, r&b, old rock, country and some newer rock, though I don't bother with the hyper-distorted new stuff. I've only had this amp a short while, but already it's won my respect! The clean channel is very "Fendery" and punchy...exactly what I want when playing country and funk. The lead channel takes a lot of fiddling, but that's only because Traynor has given it such a broad range of tones! I'm finding my favorite is a gain level around 4, which gives me a tone very similar to the clean channel, but with a touch-sensitive overdrive. This lets me stay on the lead channel even during soft parts of songs and use the volume knob or dynamics to vary the overdrive! For solos, I either kick on a compressor or the boost switch...the compressor lets me get a wonderful medium-gain lead tone suitable for country, funk and light rock stuff, while the boost switch seems to add some gain and a little volume for an even more driving distortion. Moving the gain knob higher gives more crunch and a heavier tone, though the boost seems to have less effect at higher settings, only boosting the volume and not adding more gain. I guess this makes sense though. Like Nigel Tufnel said, "When everything's on 10 and you want a little more, there's nowhere to go." Overall, I'd say the tone of the amp leans more toward the Fender/old-Boogie side of things with a round, full tone and dynamic feel. Oh, and the reverb is like others have said...nothing much below 5 or 6, but very sweet-sounding when you dial it in. The stock Celestion twin-10's sound very good, though the tone gets a little "farty" at very loud volumes and playing bass notes. Really though, that's only at an unreasonable volume level for this amp. Players who need that much volume and like the general great tone of this amp should move up to the 80-watt versions for a little more money. Me, I like medium-volume with hard-working power tubes...it suits my style better. I haven't had a chance yet, but I'll try this amp out with my Marshall 1960A cab with the stock Celestions. If it has a big effect on the tone (which it probably will), I'll post a follow-up review and let you know how it sounds...

Seems to be built very well...time will tell the story.

Haven't needed it yet, though I hear very good things about Traynor/Yorkville support.

Overall, it seems to be a great little amp for the working musician playing in normal clubs, playing normal music. If you want the Metallica/Limp Bizkit/Evanescence kind of sound, look elsewhere. But if you like smoother music like R&B and older rock, this amp is probably one of the best deals on the planet right now.

This amp is a 2003 model. I have always been very honest in submitting reviews on equipment. Even though I have only made three previous gear reviews I will tell it like it is, and I ain't no beginner. This is a two channel ALL TUBE amp and is built very well. Tolex covering, chrome corner pieces, steel grill with a silver fabric covering the grill. Channel selector switch with a booster switch will give you a good gain when going into a lead part.
It is 40 loud watts to cover just about anywhere I'm playing right now. Effects loop, external speaker jack, and chicken head knobs. It also has a real nice Traynor logo on the front. Two 10 inch Celestion Redbacks give it a nice tight sound.

I have a Carvin TL60 and a Carvin Bolt-t guitar that I play through this amp. They both sound excellent!! The noise level is low considering it is a tube amp. On the lead side you can get anywhere from a nice mild crunch (1-3), a high quality overdrive (4-6)and a real nice solid tube distorsion (7-10)(gain control). I have played several amps over the past 25 years of serious playing. I've used Marshall, Peavey, and Carvin as my main amps. This Traynor has a sound all its own. The clean channel isn't as nice as a Carvin amp but it is a sweet clean. The gain channel has a Marshall type distortion, but it is a very crisp distortion not a fuzzy, muddy type. When you get the clean channel turned up to about 6 you can hear the clean breaking up just a bit, and that gives it a nice growl. If you get the gain turned up past the 7 mark you will hear a small amount of hiss, but nothing like my other tube amps. The two 10 inch Celestion Reds are a perfect match for this amp. After the speakers got a good breakin period, they came alive just like a Celestion should.

I've owned this amp for two months. I take good care of my equipment, especially my amps. If you play a tube amp you should always have a spare set of tubes, just like you should have a spare set of strings for your guitar, or a spare battery for you effects. This amp is rated very high, guitar player magazine gave this one an award. I would use it without a backup.

Never used them. But I talked to some Traynor amp users before trying out mine and not one person had a bad word about the Yorkville company or their Traynor amp. I think they would take care of me since they have their 2 year unconditional warranty that states (Even if you break it we'll replace it) You can't hardly beat that.

I've been playing guitar for over 35 years. Nine years of that was full time for a living. If this amp were stolen I'd buy another one in a heartbeat. The only down side to this amp is the chicken head knobs move easily do to smooth pods, also the presence control doesn't seem to add alot to the sound. The reverb is good but is weak until you get it up around the 6 mark. Other than that no complaints. If you play one you'll hear what I'm talking about. This is one fine guitar amplifier!!