Vox DA5 Digital Amplifier

...see other reviews for features. considering the price and size, i couldn't ask for more. the tap tempo makes this a "ten".

i also like that you can attach a guitar strap, for carrying over your shoulder.

...practically the only setting i use is the first "clean" setting, with the gain maxed and the tone control around 12:00 o'clock. add a touch of reverb, and i'm "in the tone zone". i am constantly amazed at how well this "digital" amp responds to picking dynamics and changes in guitar volume.

i use mainly single-coil strats and teles. at 58, i'm a roots and traditional player, but with a major weakness for modern hard rock and metal.

the effects range from good to very good, but i especially like the reverb, delay and flanger. i have yet to attempt to edit them.

the only weakness this amp has is the digital distortions, but they are still usable in this context, ie tiny practise amp.

in spite of that, this is the single most inspiring piece of equipment i've ever owned, so for that vs the price, i have to give it a nine.

...there's an annoying digital "scratch" when you turn the unit on, so i'll deduct a point for that, but i'm being picky.

i've only had it for six months, with no problems thus far.

...this was a gift, but purchased from a local store (steve's music store in toronto). i have little doubt that they would look after me if there was a problem. i'm confident that erickson/coast music in montreal, the canadian distributor, would also step up to the plate, if necessary.

...again, i have to give this product a solid ten.

i have been playing it for two hours every night for the past six months, and STILL can't wait to plug in every night. all my other combo amps sit idle, including a vox pathfinder 15r, vintage supro, vintage gibson and traynor ycv40wr (stage amp).

i plan to buy two more of these amps to keep at other locations.

New 2006. Really versatile for rock, folk, blues, jazz, all of which I fake sort of okay.

I use all types of guitars, bass, electric Ukulele and electric violin with this. It is a gas. Been playing for 35 years and this is one of the most fun gadgets ever!

(Effect, reviewer, thinking about your mod of a Jensen speaker... does the amp have the same volume with the addition of the 4 Ohm inductor?)

Second day I've had it, and have already logged 20 hours of flight time! Seems reliable, though, I did get a replacement warranty just in case.

Didn't need to contact them as of this point.

I wish it had a tuner and a footswitch to cycle through functions, but it does cram a lot of cool stuff into a tiny practice amp. I might even use it to play small parties, or plug directly into a PA on stage. I love how great an acoustic electric sounds through it. I love my SRV sound through it, and the delay games you can play can get very out there.
I would definitely replace it. It actually is a replacement for my old portable battery Mouse amp from the 80's, whose battery finally died from neglect. The DA5 is far superior to that one!

For a 5 watt practice/travel amp it a well worth the money. The effects on it are good. My only complaint is that you can't get delay and reverb together, nor is compression coupled with any other effects, I'm over it.

To me the greatest feature is that you can change the wattage. You can push a half watt, one and a half watts, or five watts. It's perfect if you play at many different venues of different sizes. I use it for acoustic coffee house gigs when I add a slight electric guitar atop the rest of the band and I use one and a half watts, not through the PA. If I am jamming with the guys 5 watts pushed at around 8 keeps up with it fine.

IF YOU ARE A COLLEGE STUDENT OR LIVE IN AN APARTMENT, THIS IS THE AMP FOR YOU. You can hit the sweet spot of the amp at a low volume. That's the glorious thing about a half watt.

My other complaint about this is that there is is no outboard foot control panel. This is good if you are a lead guitar player, not carrying the ryhthm but rather adding sparkles on top of songs. If you have your hands free you can get all different sounds by changing the settings with your hands. If you don't always have time for it you are in a bit of a pickle.

Ridiculously versatile if used right. If you don't actually spend some time tweaking it you will get frustrated and give up and probably write a lame, ball busted review. If you are using an american fat strat you can get a very broad range of voicings if you use crunch two with the gain at 7.5 and some reverb. Use your volume knob on your strat to gate the gain. If you are a blues player, the blues settings are good enough to jam. If you are a metal guitar player, this may not be your best choice. Go with crate, it make me cringe to say that. Not a great metal sounding guitar amp. Great for practice amps.

very reliable. I have been on 3 tours since I bought this, and this was my only piece of gear. Very easy to travel with. I left a roomfull or cabs, pedals, and heads at home and just took this. Sounds good miked with a sm57 (remove the metal grill and properly position the mic.

best practice amp, IMHO

Very good amp modeling. Some of the effects are fun to play with but the ones I use the most are reverb and delay+reverb and some of the compression effects for when I want sustain.

Sounds like a little tube amp on some settings. You can overdrive the clean for a nice blues sound. The output power settings .5, 1.5 and 5 watt really work. You can set it to .5 and crank the master and gain and overdrive the amp by turning the volume on the guitar up. Turn it down and it cleans up. The distortion amp models are decent for grunge and low octane metal. The speaker is not too bad either. You can get a decent enough bottom end out of it. I was going to get an Epiphone litte 5 watt tube amp but this is better for practicing and you don't need an effects processor. It won't disturb anyone in the next room when your playing. It gives you all the tone without the loud volume.

Have had it for a week. But seems to be solidly built.

Comes with a 1 year warranty

I've been playing on and off for 30 years. I have had other practice amps in the 15 watt range with 8 inch speakers. Behringer GM108 and Fender Frontman 15R and my main amp is a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. This litte VOX DA5 is probably better than 99% of the 15 watt 8inch speaker practice amps past or present. This thing is amazing. The sounds you can get from such a small amp. It is everything you could want in a practice amp. Portable and powerful enough to play at the backyard shindig.

All the features have been explained in other reviews.
This amp is as versitile as anyone could want. You can cover every style.

I use a Strat with Fat 50's and a Les Paul with 57 Classic pickups.
This amp has noise reduction, but it's really quiet. I haven't had to engage it.
I bought a Roland Micro Cube a couple of months ago after some friends recommended it. I didn't like it. The clean sounds were not good. Plus, the speaker farted out very easily, especially with the clean sounds. All tones from the Micro Cube have a very heavy "processed" sound to them. I hate that.
The DA5 sound very analog and natural. The clean sounds are awesome, as are all that are available. There is no farting out at any volume, and it gets much louder than the micro cube.

I'm guessing this amp will be very reliable. It's solid as a rock.

Haven't, and probably won't have the opportunity.

I've been playing for 36 years. This is a great product, obviously made with quality and players needs in mind.

I think it makes the Micro Cube sound like a toy for kids. It so cute that it comes in red, too. Awww.

My review is basically a comparison of the Vox to the Roland Microcube. It has a nice range of amplifiers. The quantity of effects is good. I really like the tap tempo, but one thing is a deal breaker for me...you can only get delay by itself or with one of the choruses. I like delay. Sometimes I want it with effects, sometimes without. If the delay/reverb was separate, this amp would be serious competition for the Microcube. The other thing is C-size batteries.....C-size??? Not the most common. The Microcube will go at least 20 hours on 6 AAs. That seems plenty.

The sounds from the unit was really good. It has more of a British flavor (duh!) than the Microcube. It all depends on your taste. The cleans were fine, with the blues stuff and with the lead sounds, there are darker to brighter models. There is definitely something in there for you. What I like about this amp is the speaker size. The main problem with the Microcube is the "farting out" on all but the quietest settings. This amp does not have that problem.

I'm not rough on gear, so I rarely have problems. This amp seems to be well built. I would not expect problems.

The are a quality company with a huge reputation. I have never called them.

I've been playing since the 70's. I play live every weekend and practice about an hour/day and teach. I'm holding off on buying this one due to the delay being combined with the other effects. Otherwise, I'd get it. And in case you're wondering.....yes, I played it. I had carte blanche to try it out unfettered for about an hour in a quiet store, then I jammed with some players (no drummer) for about an hour. I use one of the Line6 products to play live. I really like these new small, low powered amps like this. I just want to see some improvements before I get this one. I have the Microcube which my youngest son has latched onto. I want one more for me, but I'm going to wait for now.

**** UPDATE ****
you can read about what I said about this amp earlier... I replaced the VOX speaker with a Jensen Mod 6" (put a 4 ohm inductor inline with the + speaker cable... also upgraded with some rockford fosgate speaker cable i had lying around. BOTH HIGHLY RECOMMENDED... mabye not rockford cable but any decent speaker cable)

from the vox speaker i got a brittle hollow sort of sound, the mod 6 is much rounder, the bottom end is not as sloppy and has a nice punch while the highs retain a bit of that british sound. it already sounded decent before and i personally thought it was pretty much a tie between the roland micro cube and the little vox, now after the speaker and speaker cable upgrade... VOX ALL THE WAY. the blues and clean amp models seem to be made for this speaker, the high gain amp models also greatly benefit. For the cost of the amp, ($120 i think) and the speaker ($26 on ebay shipped to my door the next day) it outclasses everything in its price range and +$100 above as far as tone goes.

Got a good look at the guts of this sucker (VERY easy to disassemble btw... good job guys!) and i didnt think an amp needed such a big heat sink, but seeing it only reassured me of its reliability, everything was nice and neat, well soldered.

never dealt with them

read my other review

If this amp was food, I'd say it was delicous! Its got a great clean tone and can give you some great blues tones. On crunch, I can play hendrix stuff and when you go on the HiGain/Drive (if you play metal or hard rock at all), you will be amazed with the sounds you can get. You don't even have to change the tone or anything to get them, you just select them. (all the way from Clean 1- Drive). Oh by the way there are 11 of them. Then there is also effects!

This amp is great with my Ibanez Artcore Afs75. I can go with blues, rock, hard rock, clean stuff, whatever.

Very dependable

THe only thing I'd change it for is a Vox Valvetronix Ad50vt which is pretty much just a louder version of this.

see above
it is not possible to save presets. when changing the soundsetting, ampmodel etc and switching back, the settings are gone. that isn't good and vox didn't answer to my question.

it sounds great! much better than the microcube. more punch, more bass. you can play this amp in overdrive mode with real smooth feedback. the cleansound is glasklar! ok there is no acoustic simulator, like the microcube. i have tested both directly in the shop befor buying. the vox is more real! very good: the separate input for a mic. the effectswitch and parameters are much better than microcube, because of variety. ok , it does not sound like a valvetronix, so my rating is for a battery amp, just what it is.

The best battery amp I've heard ever!

Bought in 2005 (today actually)
has like 11 things with some other things that do stuff... strap buttons.. just read the other reviews if you want to know its features... or check their website

I play a 1998 Gibson Les Paul Double Cut, rock to blues and some jazz and funk... I can get a workable sound for all my different musical styles with this little amp. the clean channels are by far my fav on this amp... it breaks up a little (in a good way... like slightly overdriven fuzz) when I have my volume all the way up on my guitar, roll it back and I can make a nice glassy tone. The DSP effects are pretty good though I probably wont use half of them. The cabinet modeling (style knob) is pretty sweet, i can get a nice glassy clean to a dual rectifier sort of sound from a quick turn of the knob. overall the sound isnt outstanding but for a practice amp, it is definately no slouch. I think if I can find a suitable replacement speaker, this amp would sound gorgeous

just got it today so i dont know... looks sturdy enough...

never dealt with them

if it were lost or stolen, Id probably get another one or a Roland Micro Cube.