Traynor YCV80 212 Combo

I have Bought my Traynor YCV80 212 from Long & McQuades ( the Yorkville store)about two years ago. The tone is warm. I rarely use the distortion channel.
I play traditional country, country rock and rockabilly.
I wish they made the head separate so I could use different speaker configurations and I could make two trips carying it. Also, it would be nice to have the choice of different speakers.
I would like a digital reverb with delay and tone control.
I want a clean a sound as possible for my steel guitar. I use this amp in bars. I mike it with a shure 58.

I play a 70's Musicman stringray 2 guitar and a single ten MSA steel guitar. The tube sound makes me happy. i usually set the mastervolume on ten and then adjust the volume on the channel. I don't play that one over six.

I depend on it all the time. I have also bailed out a fellow steel player when his Peavey amp bit the dust one night.

I have dealt with the very first Long&McQuades store since they first opened up. They formed Yorkeville sound in Toronto in the sixties. I was one of their very first customers. They've never let me down. I deal with their Edmonton store now.

I've been playing since 1960.I have a Fender jazz five string which I play through a Yorkeville 400b Bass head. My next bass amp will probably be a Yorkeville as well. I don't compare them with other products; I just use them.

Features-

this amp has a lot of features that are necessary for the modern musician-XLR output, speaker defeat switch (good for practicing without killing the neighbors), brightness switch for enhancing the highs (although read more on this later), effects loop, headphone output. Read more below for better descriptions. . . the importance is proper tubes and speakers. Read on for more. . .

I use a Hamer Artist (beautiful guitar which I love b/c it's not in many catalogs, and it simply looks and plays beautifully. Ahhhh). This amp will suit any style of music you play from clean tones to slightly heavy metal (note quite death metal or that complete shit, but the guys at Traynor know what good tone is).

The point- Traynor has produced a fabulous amp once the right components are added. I'll be honest, at first I didn't like the sound overall and considered taking it back. I realized that the options and construction were all very well crafted and thought-out. But the tone I wanted was not quite right. With a little more research, I realized that the tubes and speakers that come stock with the amp meet or are below par with what I was looking for (but how can you beat an all-tube amp for this price??)
So I changed out the stock cheap tubes with Electro Harmonix (better sounding) tubes and the amps response/sound increased 1000X. So I'm glad that I didn't take it back!! You can spend the 1000 dollars on a Marshall or Fender all tube amp but realize you are paying for the brand name, not necessarily the quality. Do yourself a favor and swap the tubes for higher quality (not groove tubes please, these are just manufactured tubes given the groove tubes label and they charge you 3X as much) tubes and you will realize the full potential of this amp.
I also swapped out the speakers for an old Fender special speaker and a Vintage 30 and the result was awesome. (it comes stock with Celestion 70/80s which are okay, but you can always upgrade.
Once I made these changes, I came to love the tone and response of the amp. I was happy with the stock configuration, but now it is just rediculous.

The only complaint I have is that I live on the 5th floor of a Boston apt. and it is really heavy to get up the stairs. But I will soon have a dolly for that. But what the hell, nice amps come at a nice weight, right?? Nice price too.

Anyway, I am giving it a 7 for the stock features, but once you upgrade, it's an easy 9.5 (~$100 upgrade at that) still less than those BS Marshall Half Stack Suck Machines.

I heard you could drop this thing off your own roof, and they'd replace it for you due to their warranty. Not only that, but I read that if you were to do this, it would still perform the same night at a gig!!

The guys at Traynor are awesome. I emailed them three times about tube questions, speaker questions etc, and they got back to me within 6 hours!! Try that with Marshall or Boss or Fender!!.
These guys know that they have a quality product and it takes this kind of service and product to place them above the competition. Well done Traynor. Just give us the option for a better tube and speaker upgrade!!.

OVerall it is a great, well built amp that will last a long time. The only problem I had was with the stock components. Once you replace these, it will be an amp that sounds and reacts like one twice as expensive.
Do yourself a favor and try one out today.

if you have read the other reviews then you know the features. I just wanted to say that this amp has as many or more than most of it equivilants. There are some improvments that could be hepful,such as footswitchable reverb and scoop and theres probably more depending on who you are as a player,but you are not going to get them on any other TUBE amplifier either,especially in this price range. i paid about 700$ about 2 yrs ago.

i have a mexican strat,japan heavy metal semi-hollow w/to gibson classic pups,dean evo,stock agile 2500 lp. there is nothing comes out of this amp that doesnt sound 10xs more musical than any piece of solid state crap,sorry for the hostility. It takes some differnt control tweeking depeding on mostly single coil or humbucker,but if your familiar w/your rig that shouldnt be a problem, and amust for this amp is a tube job. The other guy was right when he said the traynor techs are proud of there 7$ sovtec tubes. my recomendation is slvetna(probably not spelled right)6l6 for the power section, you will need 4, this is the heart to this amp. you must always push the master volume as much as possible,and adjust the channel volumes down if have to. you will need 3 12ax7, i use elextro harminex. the 6l6 are about 25$ and 12ax7 15$, so its agood 160$ but its worth every pennie, remember you still have to replace them in any other tube amp.In comparison to my buddies fender deluxe,it is pretty well superior in my opinion all the way around. some green back or vintage speaker can only make it that much better.with alittle upgading a top of the line amp.

its pretty dependable, i will gig it with out a back up.i have had problems with mine.it developed a good hiss and crackle in it,i got ahold of atech finally and he said sounded like a cold solder joint. said to pull power tube section and re heat solder on power tube section. so i did and it didnt help and some how along the process the standby quit working, completley seperate board from power section.

as someone said before i had a bit of a problem getting a response from tech support. i finally took it by the dealers, he gave me a replacment a marshall dfx50 i think no comparison.sent mine off. idont know how many of you have never had a warranty worth a s***, but let me tell you the only warranty that has ever done wat it said. no shipping to or from and no questions asked, just fixed with a wole new set of tubes(sovtecs of course but they work in a pinch)even after i probably tore it up worse than it was and they knew i had been inside of it. GREAT WARRANTY.

ive been playing about 5 years,ihave very close to a coplete home studio not the pc based stuff either.fender deluxe.fender bassman. i would replace it.keep in mind that you will never get every sound out of one amp just like a strat doesnt sound like a lp. If you can get every sound out of yor amp its a digitally natural sound robbing bandit ,and im sure you will agree if you plug in a tube amp of any kind.remember i said musicall,not louder,not crunchier,just simply more musical.i love this amp. as said ther are still others a man would want too. the gear dilema will probably never stop. anyway hope this cover somethings newto the reviews. thanks

80 watts into 2 12's--loud enough
Spring reverb--sounds like a slinky going down stairs
2 channels--must have
Seperate volume/EQ for each channel--excellent feature
Scoop switch on distortion channel--fun, but gimmicky
Expander switch on clean channel--nice EQ preset
Bright switch on clean channel--too bright for me, but with a really dark sounding guitar it might be useful
Effects loops, parallel and series--unimpressive

I play in a rock cover band that plays everything from early Beatles to Staind. I need an amp that can go from squeaky clean to the most oversaturated distortion. This amp is pretty good in the versatility department.

With single coils the clean stays clean no matter how hard I play, and with humbuckers I can get a good, smooth crunch going if I like. It has a nice Fender-like quality, but doesn't hurt my ears the way Fenders do.

The distortion channel has two levels of gain (footswichable), which is good for rhythm vs lead. I wish that the volume increased more when you hit the boost--I have to walk over to the amp and turn up the volume when it is my turn to play lead. That's rarely much of an issue, however. I also run a Boss Blues Driver pedal through the clean channel for more variety (great pedal--gives everything from just a little dirty to that Staind super saturation). The distortion channel is also very noisy, creating lots of hiss. But it still sounds pretty good overall. Between the Blues Driver and the built in distortion, the amp has distortion covered.

The amp is a little tubby/muddy. I changed the tubes and things improved a lot. In fact, one of the original pre-amp tubes was defectcive--I figured that out when I switched them around and the sound improved. But there is still room for improvement. I am considering a change of speakers. Some of the previous reviewers have gone that route and claim good results. If anyone reading this has made such a switch please post your results here.

So far so good. Zero problems in 2 years of steady gigging.

This is a good amp that needs a little upgrading. I think that the price is average for an average sounding amp. Comparably priced amps of equal quality exist in the 2X12 arena, from such manufacturers as Fender, Marhall and Carvin. I shopped them all and went with the Traynor because I thought that it was the best overall for my needs, but I wouldn't call it a super bargain on a super amp.

Again, I invite anyone who has modified a Traynor YCV80 to submit a review and tell us what you did to tap the unfulfilled potential of the amp.

2 Channels/80 watts/All Tube/ see others.

I use a 2002 Gibson Les Paul Standard and a 2004 Fender Floyd Rose Strat. I own a YCV40 that I love as a practice amp and just bought this because I've played 2 x 12 Combos (Marshalls, Fenders, Peaveys, you name it) my entire life. I was very disappointed. When you stood 8 feet from the amp on the left hand side and walked in front to the right hand side, the entire tone of the amp changed as you moved. It would sound too bassy, from one angle, perfect at another, and too middley at the next. Never before had I noted that on a 2 x 12 amp. I also hated the trim on the effects loop. Too many bells and whistles. Just want to set up, put my effects (Boss GT-5) through the effects loop and play. I got rid of it and bought another YCV40, this time the Wine Red.

Have had no problems so far with the YVC40s.

Don't know, never tried them. But, best warranty in the business. Was able to transfer the warranty to the next buy.

The YVC40 is a much better amp, and plenty loud enough to gig with.

I play lead guitar in a modern/alt rock band that plays mid sized clubs in Upstate New York. I recently bought this amp for a side project that I had started to play more jangly "Brit-rock". I found that it has everything I need (although not everything I want) for my main band. I end up using it mostly as a head rather than for the combo amp, something I hope they'll add to their line soon. I run this amp on top of my 4x12 cab w/ Celestion Vinatge 30s which really add the tight bottom end this amp needs for the kind of music I'm doing.
This is a 2 channel amp and I'm really impressed with the quality of both channels. The clean is very sweet sounding and very useable. The "bright" switch baffles me a little. If there is one thing the clean channel doesn't need is more brightness.
The dirty channel is awesome. Although I had to crank the gain to 10 to get enough gain for my music, it does it. The draw back is the hiss that comes with the gain. It's a really loud hiss. Sure it's nice and quiet if you're jamming in your bedroom, but I just used this amp this weekend at a club in Utica, NY and when I would finish a song, the hiss was noticeable to everyone.
The scoop switch is a little cheesy in it's attempt to get that Dimebag (RIP) sound, but I end up using it because I need all the low end I can get when playing with a band.
The worst part is the "Boost" switch. What is this supposed to do? I haven't discovered a way to get the boost loud enough to make any difference. I kick it on for guitar solos, but it's all but pointless. My solos don't stand out any more. They could put a boost knob on the back like a Messa Boogie so you could dial in the amount of boost you want. That would make it worth the extra footswitch button.

I use a Mexican Strat with a Duncan JB humbucker and a Dean EVO with the same pickup. This amp gets a great "british" sounding distortion, although a little darker or woodier sounding than some amps. I love the sound of this amp. It won't do the Tripple Recto sound very well, but it's great at what it does. I gets plenty of gain for a more "AC/DC" kind of sound, but you can forget Pantara.
The clean sound is beautiful. Very useable, unlike some Marshall's I've used. I haven't had a problem with keeping the clean channel clean. I also use a pedal on the clean channel for my "crunch" sounds which works out well. I find that turning down the volume on my guitars on the gain channel doesn't give me a very good crunch sound most of the time. Not what I'm looking for anyways.

This amp seems very solid. I've had mine for a few months now and take it to every show. No problems yet.

I have only emailed the company once and that was to recommend a head version of this amp. They answered my email the same day and were very pleasant.

I've been playing guitar for about 15 years. I've been in working bands for 10 years and in a semi-pro touring band for the past 2. I really dig this amp and I would probably buy another one if it was stolen.
I love the value/price and the versatility. I've recorded a few things with it and it sounds great on tape. I wish they made this amp with a little less wattage. The YCV-40 doesn't have the same features. It's too loud to get everything out of this amp at a club or in the studio.
My opinions here have been focusing on the negative because there are so many posative reviews that I want to give people a true picture of the amp rather than try to gloss everything over. It really is a great amp. You couldn't ask for much more at this price. I highly recommend it.

The features have been covered in the many reviews below.

I have gigged with this amp for a little over 2 years. I like the amp for the most part, as it is versatile and dependable, but I will not go into detail on the good points of this amp as they have been amply covered by most of the reviews that follow. Rather, I will point out the defects/imperfections that most other reviewers have glossed over.

The distortion channel is extremely noisy. The noise is drowned out whle playing, but the amp hisses very loudly when I am not playing, even with my guitar volume all the way down (this happens with my humbucker-equipped Brian Moore as well as with my Strat).

The distortion channel can be rather muddy and unpleasant. Changing the original Russian pre-amp tubes to Chinese Groove tubes helped a lot, but certain chords still produce very ugly, indistinct harmonics--the guitar almost sounds out of tune. The other guitarist in the band uses a Hot Rod Deville, which is way too bright for my taste, but when I play through his amp the nasty harmonics are not there. Is muddiness the price for thick distortion? It shouldn't be.

The Accutronics spring reverb is crap. The fake reverb in my little Crate practice amp kicks its butt. The Accutronics loses all definition if turned up past 9 o'clock with any sort of volume. It sounds like rattling chains or something, not at all like a lush reverb. Some reviewers revel in the glorious sound of the spring, but it sounds crappy in my opinion.

The effects loops are useless. The "parallel" loop only allows half of the effected signal through, so if you want half an effect I guess that is OK. The entire effected signal goes through the "Loop Through" effects loop, which uses a stereo-to-2 mono's cable. Trouble is, it removes all the clean head room. I was running a Boss EQ pedal through it during a gig and it worked fine until I hit the strings hard while on the clean channel. Then a harsh crackle came through the speakers. I tried a digital multi-effects unit through the loop and there was hardly any volume. These effects devices work just fine in line between the guitar and the input jack. A good effects loop could be a convenient thing if it worked.

The brightness switch is unusable. It makes the sound waaaaaay too glassy. A knob would be much better.

The scoop switch increases the mud factor of the distortion channel. It is a little addictive and I had a hard time not using it for a while, but I feel that my tone is now much better without it.

I bought a nice acoustic/electric guitar to gig with. Not having an acoustic guitar amp, I tested many guitars on electric guitar amps until I found one that sounded really good on a electric amp. Unfortunately, even this guitar pushes the Traynor amp too hard. I have to run my acoustic through the PA (which is probably for the best, but I am a little disappointed that the Traynor couldn't handle the signal).

It is too loud for normal sized venues. At extremely high volume, the sound is very sweet. Unfortunately, I can seldom turn it up into the sweet zone without being too loud for the bars that we play in (the other guitarist has the same problem with his Fender). Fewer watts or a wattage selector switch would be good. I know that this is not really a fault of the amp, but it may be a lesson to anyone who thinks that more is always more.

I have had no breakdowns with this amp. It seems very reliable and well built, although I took the precaution of tightening all of the screws after reading some of the earlier reviews. The chassis screws were, indeed, loose.

When I was first considering changing the tubes I emailed Traynor tech service to see if they had any recommendations or suggestions. My questions were answered in an indirect, condescending manner. I got the impression that the tech guy thinks that most people are just stupid and don't deserve a polite answer.

There is much to like about this amp, which is why I still use it. But it might better with fewer bells and whistles and more attention to the things that really matter, like good cabinet design, quality tubes and top-notch speakers.

All you need from a valve amp. For a full list,check out the Yorkville website and take a look at the specs for this amp.

http://www.yorkville.com/products.asp?id=170&cat=18&type=32

Just about all the sounds you'll here anywhere else. Obviously there's going to be some variations between Fender or Marshall and the like,but it gets so close to either,it doesn't really matter. Maybe not ideal for full blown metal,but other that that,it copes with any style,and does it very,very well.
The only fault this amp suffered from,was a distinct hum when not in use,but just left standing and switched on,however, after contacting Yorkville,they sent out a set of new valves straight away,and recommended changing around the ones that were fitted before the new ones arrived. Not sure why,but it worked a treat. From what I've heard from other amp users,this isn't an uncommon problem on any make of amp.

Time will tell,but after using a YCV 40 for a good while,I don't see any problems arising. Having said that,I've only had one amp break down in 25 years,and even then,it had to put up with some serious abuse at the time.
Rating is based on owning a previous Traynor.

This is where things just don't get any better. Their after sales service is second to none compared with other manufacturers I've dealt with. I contacted them via email about the humming problem,and they replied within an hour,and offered all sorts of advice and spare parts. Very polite,and VERY efficient.

After playing for over 25 years,and using all sorts of types of amps and guitars in that time,this is well and truly one of the best amps I've owned or used,and that's including Fender,Marshall,Carlsbro,Laney,Mesa etc. Yes,it is that good.
If it were stolen,I'd most certainly replace it with the exact same type,as soon as possible.
Anything I wish it had?,not really,apart from maybe a cover included,but that's just so trivial,I don't care.

Tube 212 combo with two channels (clean/dirty) with footswitch. Has a great effects loop with trim controls and headphone outs so you can practice in your own little world where no one has to hear you... This amp has so many features do yourself a favor and check them out at musiciansfriend.com or yorkville.com

This amp truly is built and has the sound of a 60's amp. It's clean is so amazing, it's so versatile with the extra switches they give you you can mold it into anything you'd like. It also takes pedals very well. I'd say it sounds very jazzy and has a lot of headroom before it breaks up. It so moldable it's worth buying this amp just for the clean. The distortion is just as awesome! It can do both the power amp distortion (AC/DC stuff) to preamp (Metal, Van Halen, etc.). With the boost you can get this into major metal territroy. I was looking for an amp with a vintage clean and a metal distortion and this delivers. Take the time to try it out it may be the tone you've been looking for like me.

Haven't had it long enough but with the great warranty (2 year even if you break it warranty and 10 year cabinetry warranty) you should be set. It's build like a tank and has some weight to it, not your typical flimsy amp that would fall over at the slightest wind.

Never dealt with them.

This amp will be my main amp for many years to come. I went throught countless amps looking for an amp that could go super clean to super distortion. This amp is great for everything. Traynor will become huge if they keep this kind of quality throughout their products. I've been searching for an amp to retire my Ampeg Reverberocket 2 for over a year and a half, and after trying countless hype amps (Marshall, Mesa,) I found this one at it's a keeper. Anyone looking for quality must try this amp!

I just got this amp a few weeks ago and let me tell you, after tuning it in to my tastes it made one hell of an amp. This amp does it all from rock to country to blues to jazz. I use it for everything. It is 80 watts and 2x12 configuration. This amp sounds good at low levels and gets even better at higher levels which makes it a class A amp.

I got great sounds from both channels. The clean reminds me of a Twin Reverb that meets an AC30. The gain on the overdrive channel gets muddy when you turn it up, I found to run the amp with the master all the way up and the gain about half way for the amp to sound good on both channels. I am using Strats and 335 style guitars.

The cabinet is made of solid birch plywood. The circuit board is hand wired. The only thing I see causing a problem in the future is the cheap buttons especially the standby button. If it were to break, I would be able to test the 2 year unconditional warranty.

I work in a music store and met a sales rep from the company, Yorkville and he taught me a lot about traynor amps before I bought one. I haven't had to experience calling for service.

If you are tired of going through amps looking for "The Sound" then give traynor a shot and you will not be disappointed. You definately get your moneys worth. I am laughing all the way the bank with the money I had left over from selling my Twin reverb.