Vox DA5 Digital Amplifier

Wow! I've been playing this amp non-stop for days and still haven't discovered all the sounds it can make. 11 am tones, built-in effects, noise reduction and everything is tweakable. (you can find a full, concise review of all it does at http://www.imuso.co.uk/directory/reviews/equipment-reviews/vox-da5.htm)

I will be using this for practicing, recording & smaller venue (and outdoor/subway) gigs. The sounds have opened up new arrangements for my old songs and inspired new ones. The line out will make for nice home recording of demos to take to my producer for future consideration.

I especially love the elegant power engineering on this. Yeah, C batteries are not common, but using them means that Vox could engineer the power draw that enables you to use this with batteries for up to 30 hours(!) on 1/2 watt. Even on 5 watts, you can play for 12-15 hours. That is astounding (and why it is C batteries, not AA or 9v).

The controls are intuitive (love that!) and you can edit many of the parameters of the effects. Some are just okay (Autowah), others are just gorgeous (Chorus + Delay or Chorus + Reverb). But I've had fun with all of them and have discovered some effects that I hadn't had much of an interest in using before (Rotary).

The amp tones are terrific. I appreciate being able to switch on the fly, but wish there was a footswitch to help that. I also like being able to use this as a pre-amp to a larger cabinet/amp when I need a beefier sound than this little puppy can produce. It is especially nice to be able to get a good high gain sound without disturbing the neighbors.

Finally, I love that it has a separate line in/mic channel (complete with its own volume control), so you can have an all-in-one amp. It is the perfect amp for busking.

I've put this through its paces with every guitar in the house (Fender Showmaster, Fender Strat, Gibson Les Paul, Hamer, Taylor & two customs) and it is hard to make it sound bad. But it is possible.

It doesn't handle an acoustic guitar as elegantly as an electric. There are feedback issues and I cannot make it sound as good as I can through my Fishman (duh...not engineered for that). High volume/High gain sounds muddy until you take the back off the amp (fine with me...I prefer the open back sound). Yes, it has its limitations - it's just a 6" speaker - but I've yet to find a sound that I just hate.

Wish it had an EQ. That would solve most of the above problems. But I can just plug in one between guitar & box if I really want.

Part of the reason I love this amp is that I can use it for all styles - folk-rock to jazz to texas blues to heavy metal. I can also get effects from subtle color to all-out weirdness. It is great for songwriting & demo recording as a result. Plus, I can change set lists on the fly if the audience at a venue clearly wants something else than I had planned.

Noisy? Hell, no! This baby even has NOISE REDUCTION BUILT IN!!!!

This sucker is brilliantly engineered and is built like a tank. Even the speaker is protected on the inside so it is hard to damage it by putting the plug or a tuner in the back to rattle around (all the same, I wrap them in a small towel before I do so). Currently, I would use it at a gig at a small venue. I'm loath to go to any gig without a backup, but, with batteries, it is its own back up to some extent.

N/A - haven't had to deal with them. Vox/Korg has a good rep though.

Currently, this amp gets played all the time and my other amps (Fishman, Crate, Marshall, Fender, Behringer) are gathering dust. I'll have to tear myself away and get reacquainted with my live acoustic rig soon, though. If it were lost or stolen, I would buy another in a heartbeat. (btw, I've been playing guitar for 31 years)

I was not planning on/looking to buy this amp. I saw it used in a store, liked the features I saw on the top & back and could afford $45.00 for a little Vox. It wasn't until I got it home, downloaded the manual (http://www.voxamps.de/uploads/media/DA5_OM_E1.pdf) and really put its through its paces that I fell in love with it. I cannot believe how much "stuff" the Vox engineers have packed into such a small, elegantly designed package.

There is a sound you will like somewhere in this box. If the presets don't do it, tweak around. You'll find it.

More than enough

Are you kidding..? Probably one of the best sounding amps ive played through!! Great for soloing! Great tone! Rock Blues Country or whatever.

Ive taken this thing everywhere; the beach, mts, shows, camping, you name it. So far, no issues.

No idea. Havent had to deal with them. THats a good thing too.

This amp makes me sick. I have thousands of dollars in rack gear and this thing has a better sustaining lead tone! Pisses me right off. Ive used so much equiptment in my 18 years of playing i dont know where to begin.. This thing really is awesome! My only wish is that they made a 150watt head just like it. I play rock and blues fluently and play in the band Ashes Remain. Im very picky with my tone and know when i hear something good. This smokes the microcube amp! Way to go vox!

It's a little practice amp which mean I'd expect no features. This has many quality ones. Easy access tap tempo is nice. As far as I can tell settings are not saved when you change settings. I would have gladly paid more for saving settings and a reverb control separate from other effects.

For what this is and cost it's absolutely awesome! My main amp is a fixed up old Fender Deluxe Reverb. Though it's doesn't shine like that, I find plenty on inspiring tones from this cheap little box.

Worked perfectly for a month but totally died after a plane trip in a suitcase. All connections seem fine so not sure what happened? Otherwise seemed well built?

I loved it until it stopped turning on. I also play bass and may get the 10 watt DA10 now. The extra speaker will help it work for battery powered bass playing. Nothing compares to great tube amp but I highly recommend this for a portable solid little companion.

I own a 1963 Vox DA5 prototype with a custom 6.5" greenback (silk dome tweeter) that I modded with a WWII-era soviet power soak...

OK, it's a Vox DA5 like you see in the catalogs. I bought it as a practice amp for writing at home that would give me plenty of sonic options. It delivers in spades with a very nice group of amp simulators that run a wide gamut from clean to distorted. The effects included are also really neat.

Sure there are some things that aren't that great for my taste (ex.: I'm not a big reverb fan and many of the effects include it) but for the most part they did a bang-up job. By the way, 5 watts is plenty loud--it's just that the speaker can't handle it that well. I find the 1.5 watt setting (being able to pick between .5, 1.5, and 5 watts is very cool) to be a nice balance.

It looks pretty cool, too. I got the red one. I like the carrying strap a lot. My runners up were the classic (but I already have an AC30) and the pink one. Wish they had white--that's what I liked about the Microcube.

Great features for the price.

My main amp is an AC30 and Vox knows the Vox sound. It also knows what people like in Fenders, Marshalls, and Boogies, with the slight edge going to the "British" in its somewhat darker colored-ness. Is it flawless at reproducing them? No. But it gives reasonable facsimiles of them that are fun in their own right.

I don't find the amp terribly responsive to pick dynamics, nor does it have the distinctive "push-pull" sound of tube amps. But it is clear, harmonically interesting, and has a nice throaty roar to it that is Vox-y at heart. I think all the crunch and distortions are pretty nice for what they are; metal-lurgists may disagree--but then, don't buy a 6-inch speaker s.s. practice amp!

I'm impressed by the effects sounds overall; each one sounds professional. For being an inexpensive, in-one-unit group of effects, they are surprisingly versatile and adjustable. I'm not huge on effects in general but these are quite nice. I particularly like the flange and the rotary sounds, but they're all decent.

I play classic/indie rock and picked this amp as a writing tool. "Cheesy" is NOT a word I would use to describe this amplifier; the closest it gets to that adjective, I'd call "charming." It has more than enough to inspire new sounds. I think it's a fine achievement.

Seems well-built; I haven't really peeked at the guts.

I have been playing for 25 years. Guitars are Les Paul, PRS, Fender. I have had Fender, Marshall, and Boogie amps in addition to my AC30. I had a hard time choosing a practice amp, as the various competition have their advantages, in that each might do a certain sound better. Once I realized I'd be using it mainly to write at home, not to gig, I liked the portability, variety and quality of features, and looks of the DA5.

If stolen or lost, I might replace it, or I might sample the competish. Does it go with my hot pants? is really the question.

The DA5 would be a GREAT amp for a kid starting out. Man, I WISH this type of thing were around back in Ye Olde Dayes. Really quite miraculous what these whippersnappers now have available to them. To me it is fantastic as a sonic notepad that does not offend the ears at all. For what it is, it is mighty, mighty cool.

You have read it in the previous posts. For a little practice amp, a nice collection of features...

It is OUTSTANDING to be able to use this amp via battery power and play along with acoustics without drowning them out.

Cleans are GREAT. The heavy distortions, not great but useable. The crunches are nice and classic rock sounding.

Very fun to play a strat through the clean sounds with a spash of reverb (which sounds great as well!).

So far so good. Made in Vietnam. Lets see what kind of products they push out...

Have not dealt with them.

I bought this amp for my father to play around with. I have a few higher end amps that sound very good, but when I would go to Dad's house, I just loved playing through his amp.

I stopped at the music store the other day and saw a DA5 in the classic style and just said forget it and bought it.

I played it over the weekend during an acoustic jam. I played some solos on my strat through it and it sounded PERFECT. It did not overpower the acoustics (although I easily could if i turned it up more)...

When I first purchased the amp for my father I compared it to the Roland MicroCube, and it was NO COMPARISION. The roland sounded very lifeless and sterile in comparison. The VOX just seems to interact better with the guitar in a more musical way. Try it and you will see. For the money you can't beat it. You also can not beat the tiny size and the ability to run it on batteries. How damn cool is that?

This amp actually has too many features. They could take out all those high gain amp modes, they sound pretty bad. They also put in too many effects and lumped them together. You can turn parts of the effects off if you want to like turn off reverb in chorus+reverb mode by turning the effect knob down. The microcube implemented their effects better I think. Some improvements I would like would be to make the strap buttons metal(easily changed), remove that plastic grip thingy from the strap, it makes it harder to carry, Put a right angle plug on the AC adapter so if it falls backwards, it would not break the PC board. Wish they would make the cheese grater grill black not chrome. Wish they had put a 12volt SLA battery in it with a charger instead of C batteries.

The clean 2 is the best mode, I use my tubescreamer for distortion sounds as the amps modes are not very good. This has 3 power levels that you can choose from. Bad thing is if you dial in your tone at the 5 watt level, then drop to 1.5 watts your tone is gone and you have to tweek it again to get it back. This happens even more if you drop the power down to .5 watts. I leave it at 1.5 watts, dial in my tone, turn on the clean channel, add a little reverb and it does sound very good. I am running it on batteries and it still sounds good. I got this so I could move from room to room easily and not disturb others in the house. Love the small size.

No problems.

no problems.

Mine is pink, special edition and very nice gift from sweetie.
I was among the first to own the microcube, and at the time it was way incredible. Now with this Vox I really can't stand it anymore, I sold it right away.
If you like the rectum fryer sound, the microcube do it better than the Vox (but quieter of course). It is the only department in its favor.
What I like is the tweakability of effects, a huge improvement to any sound.
The power attenuator on the back is way useful too, and more so since I use the Vox hooked to an open-back 212 box in my living room.
Now sweetie has some regrets, after all it was not a so good idea for a gift...

I like clean and not to distorted sounds, and the thing sounds absolutely killer. Very natural, relaxed sounds in there.
Not too tight, so the heavy fraction should look elsewhere, but nothing unmanageable with a metal zone in front of it.
Absolutely silent, a nice point. Very good sounding effects, only the lack of compressor w/reverb combination is to object, but this applies to the whole ad series so...
One point for the lack of rectifier sound, but myself I don't care.

The open-back design lets you see the innerlife of the main board, I would have seen a better protection since we have the possibility to use this carrying space for a pedal or God knows what.
No opinion since it's new and working flawlessly.

This amp is a real one, hook it to a big box and you'll see, and a good sounding one.
It made me to buy a korg ax3g in order to have its sounds elsewhere, and I am in love with the Vox modeling thing, fresher and more natural than other stuff have/had. Such as line6(flat and lifeless, no sparkle), Fender fm25dsp (still flat and lifeless, but some sparkle and enjoyable), and Roland cube 30 (somewhat dark and flat, still lifeless, but usable nevertheless).
My atention on Vox modeling was drawn by Mr Rob Math on gearwire.com and his test of the vox ad30vt, a very precise transcription of what the Vox modeling does. And I found the same sounds in both da5 and ax3g, hats off for your honesty Rob.

This is a practice modeling amp. all solid state. can run on 'c' battries. several useful settings. Like all modeling amps, there are like three or four good settings and the others are filler. Its loud, and a very handy size.

For what it is, the prime competitor to the Roland MicroCube, its absolutly superb! really, there is no comparison.

Yes, its solid state. It either works out of the box, or it doesn't. Used by kid to good effect at outdoor recital and it was fairly loud.

n/a

I also have the AD 30. I like this better. This blows away the Roland Microcube. Considering that a bottom of the barrel practice amp is $60 but this is only $125, I'd say its a bargain. For a parent shopping for a practice amp for a kid, this solves the problem, period. Beware though, this amp can be irritatingly loud.

It's a fairly new model, which I've owned a few months. If this amp won't do it, you probably don't need it. It is super for playing around at home, low volume jams, and campfire rockouts!

I love the way this little box sounds. You should be able to find just about any sound you want in there.

Don't know.

Don't know.

I've been guilty of ranting on and on in the past, but have gotten a little tired of all the long winded reviews. So, I thought I'd keep this one short.

I've played forever, and own or have owned about anything you can name. If you play guitar, any style, you need one of these. It sounds good, can cover a lot of ground from solo practice to jamming with an electric drummer. Unless you mic it, it won't cut it for a gig - just in case you're tempted to try. And, bottom line, it's just plain cool - what more do you want for the money?

Solid state practice amp with several built in effects (reverb, auto-wah, flanger etc). 5W max output with power selector. Auxilliary in, Line in, Headphone out. Can be powered by battery as well.

This amp has settings for clean, blues, crunch, higain, and drive. All sound great.

I play mostly soft rock, a little blues. This amp does both wonderfully.

It is a practice amp. Would not gig with it.

It has never broken down yet.

Never had to deal with customer support.

I have been playing for a little under 3 years now.

I run this amp with an Ibanez AS73, and the combination sounds awesome. I have fiddled with the effects - and I mostly use reverb, and sometimes delay or flange. But that's about it. The amp is capable of a lot more, though.