Vox AC30CC2 212 Combo

You know the features. Usable Reverb and Trem. Two chanels without foot switch (the two chanels are more like a single chanel with a boost option, I never use the normal chanel alone). Treble and Low EQ for top boost, brilliance swithc for normal chanel, master volume and GSH12-30 speakers.

I consider this amp to be more an studio amp than a gig amp (the foot swith thing is really an issue on stage)

I use it with a Gibson Les Paul Standard, Les Paul Menace and Fender Telecaster Baja Player. To get more a distorted sound I use a Tube Screamer (the perfect match).

First of all, this thing can get pretty LOUD... Is not a Line 6 practice amp (really it is not). It also do not has a brutal distortion or something like that. It is a kinda british style mid gain amp... THAT REALLY ROCKS!!!!

The richness of the sound is great, full of harmonics balanced sound. However, I think it needs more attack in the low range. You can get a really really nice distortion at reasonable volume level (but it sounds way better LOUD!!!). If you combine it with a high out put guitar and a tube screamer, the amp becames a monster.

Even with the lack of features and the GSH12-30 speakers, this has been my favorite amp for the las 10 months.

Ok, so here is where my experience is pretty different.

This amp has traveled more than 5,000 miles in 10 months. Airplanes, trucks, cars. It traveled once for 5 hours upside down. I have also used it ungrounded (ungrounded and with a single coil guitar... forget it, unusable), and in places where the electrical current varies ALOT.

It hasn't failed so far.

have never used it

10 months with it. If stolen I would buy another one for sure, but I wouldn't be the first amp I would buy.
I love the sound, I hate the foot switch thing (2 chanels without a foot switch??? ridiculous).

got this amp summer 2006, you buy it for the tone not the effects. but it does have a channel blender between the top boost and normal. it has spring reverb which is probably a more "tasteful" subtle reverb than what you would find on a fender, you also have a vib effect which i don't really use as i never can find a use for it. It of course is a valve amp. i play blues rock, rory gallagher style things and this sounds great, i use a schaller treble/bass booster to gain that extra crunch. it also has an external speaker output, effects bypass, and you can choose between "vintage" and "modern" sounds by playing around at the back of it. all very easy to use

i'm using a fender stratocaster and it sounds amazing, blues rock tones come freely and all you need to do to get classic tones is use your volume control on the guitar with the amp up loud. definately loud enough for drums. i use this linked up with a 59bassman reissue and the sound between them is absolutely formidably briliant!

mm reliability.. it went through a stage of not switching on just after i got it, and i sent it off it came back within 3 weeks and has been great ever since.

i had the 4 output valves changed recently in a service and there's no other complaints

absolutely great the 1st time i sent it off. korg are very friendly from my experience.

from memory the warranty is about 3 years? not sure though?

been playing a good few years now. as previously mentioned i use it with a 59bassman. the pedals i have are a dunlop wah, an ibanez tube screamer, schaller treble bass booster, dallas arbiter fuzz face. only "complaint" if at all would be the lack of a channel switcher, i guess the idea of it is to just turn it up loud and crank the over drive out of it yourself! i'm of the opinion that the wharfedale speakers are every bit as good as the alnico blues just without the huge speaker associated brand name.
if it was stolen i'd replace it without a doubt

I bought this amp some half a year ago and I have to say that this was a very good investment. I was inspired by Greenwood/Yorke tone. So I decided to buy this big and heavy beauty. The combo features 2 input channels, Normal and Top Boost. They are blendable and in this mode the amp produces very full sounding tone with a lot of bass thanks to normal channel and a nice shimmering treble boost thanks to well adjustable Bass-Treble controls on the second channel. The tremolo is a great vintage sounding but the maximum rate is a bit slow, I prefer to have it a little faster. Reverb is far behind the Fender quality but still very good sounding. Thanks to these features the amp is very versatile.

I have changed the ****** Tung-Sol preamp ECC83 valves and put in good and very old UK-made Mullards. This was a big step forward because with a little less gain the sound became more open and much cleaner with phenomenal dynamics. My stratocaster sings on this amp.

It is a bit sad to read that some of us who own this series VOX AC30 have a broken and not functioning parts in it. My never ever had a single problem. The quality of building electronics certainly went down almost everywhere and certainly in the tube amp technology too. I can not blame the chinese factory because mine works perfect.

With no problems with my amp I can not answer what quality is the customer support.

Really a great amp, I would recommend it to every musician. The VOX tone is a legend!

I am a repair tech and I have seen too many of these.
They are unrepairable.Full of custom plastic parts unavailable from
China or anywhere else.Two of them have had power transformer failures
and went up in smoke.They are 40% solid state.The hardware is so cheap
you can't all ways get them apart just to see what went wrong.the screws
just spin but don't come out.This amp can sound great(if you've never heard a real AC 30)but are going to be the greatest joke in the industry very fast.A true "Bic lighter".These days you have to use the 10% rule:
If dealer cost is $750.00,then it cost $75.00 for a twelve year old to make it in China.Sorry if you've been taken in.No offense or racism intended.

average.

poor.

none

see above.

The date on the amp is December 2006, twelve months before I bought it. Unfortunately I can't use a footswitch to switch channels. The amp has several switches on the back for things like vintage or modern, warm or hot, etc. The normal channel only has a volume control and brilliance switch, but it doesn't need much else. The top boost channel has volume, bass, treble and a custom/standard switch.

The sound is amazing. So warm, classic. This amp is incredibly versatile. It can play anything except heavy metal. Blues, jazz, classic rock, british invasion, grunge. I use a MIM fender strat with humbucker in bridge. The humbucker I believe has too much output for this and I will be replacing it with a single coil soon. Having said that, single coils are quite noisy through this amp. Alot of my music is like Jeff Buckley's style, and this amp is perfect for it.

I've only had it a week, no horror stories yet.

If this amp were stolen from me, I would cry. I also have a Marshall JCM 900 head w/ a Marshall 1960 212 and I think this Vox pwns the Marshall. This amp is fairly heavy but luckily I have a roadie. The one thing I really wish it had was footswitchable channels. But man, for this price its worth it.

This is a new 2007 amp. This is about the most versatile amp I have ever played. 2 channels which can be bridged but not switched separately. Its a bummer but I knew it going in and its not a deal breaker for me. The reverb is ok, not great but usable. The tremelo is sucks and should just be taken out of the amp. 30W driven by a quad of EL84's is actually a little too much for me because I like the sound of the amp cranked and soundmen get a little spooked. The warm hot/vintage-modern switches in back make a lot of crappy noise in my amp. If it weren't for this and the tremelo I would rate FEATURES a 10. Its a shame everything does not work.

The sound is amazing. I wont waste time trying to describe it but the top boost is everything from The Clash to The Who to The Stones to the Stooges. Normal channel works for everything from hard rock to traditional country. Seriously this thing is great at EVERYTHING! Super responsive to playing styles and different guitars. I am playing a Gibson LP JR with a Lollar p-90 and a custom made Tele with HD P-U's. Everything is great. Now the problem: Weird random whining and rattling noises in certain settings. The 22 power setting and the "warm" cap setting seem to be the worst. I just changed the preamp tubes to Harma 12AX7 Cryos (from the original mismatched Sovtek and Tung Sol Russian made tunes that were inside) and the problem persists. I will now contact Vox and see what happens. The sound is still great and even better with the Harma's and I would have rated it a 12 if it weren't for the *$%$#@# noises!!!

The noise started one week after I got it. This seems to be a chronic problem and they MUST address it! This is not acceptable for an otherwise wonderful piece of equipment. Korg are just committing commercial suicide! I only hope that A) I can solve the problem and B) this is all I will have to solve.

I will update later after I contact them.

I have been playing for 25 years and I am a working musician. I not only would replace it but I am spending good money just to get it to work in the first place. I still think it is worth it. I would like to update some things I have read on past reviews. You still need to remove the chassis to change tubes but its deadly easy. They have added some plugs for the speakers so you DO NOT have to unsolder them, bravo! The screws and other materials, while not extravagant, are adequate enough and don't seem to be a problem for me. The preamp tubes in my amp were NOT Chinese but rather Russian. The EL84s are still EH. I REALLY REALLY want to rate this amp a 10 but with the stupid issues I am dealing with I just can't. HEY VOX, I can see that you are trying and you have the best sounding amp around, but now just get the issues sorted out and VOX will remain the iconic status that it truly deserves. Please!!!!

This amp was made in (grumble) China. A haven of mass-produced factory items and under age workers, I was a bit hesitant when I found this out.. But I went ahead and got it. I was orginally into the Indie-Rock scene, but I have since realised great music and I'm now a blues player. Can't get enough of it. This amp is able to deliver a really lovely unique tone - although it would be nice if this amp DIDN'T have the Tremolo channel. Don't use it. I use this amp in my house mostly, but on occasions take it to halls for jams with my friends. Bloody hell when you crank this up it goes loud. For 30 watts it wipes the floor with a Marshall MG100DFX (some guy was trying to contend with me in the store)

It's currently running on 2 Vox "Wharfedale" custom speakers, and they're alright!

Oh the clean. Wonderful. Such a great clean tone. Pushing the break up a bit, it sounds fantastic and jangly with minimal break up, but it does begin to sound a bit buzzy and flappy when you drive it at lower volumes. Having said that, crank the master and you get seriously mintin' tones :).

The tremolo channel is awful, no-one ever uses that. In the instruction manual they even say that the tremolo channel isn't as good as the others!

Top boost channel is by far the best. Can't fault that.

I run an American Reissue Strat (1994) through a Toadworks American Overdrive boutique pedal (??80) and it has wonderful tone.

I've had it for a year now (gigged a few times) and it's still holdin' up, same as when I bought it! Just make sure you keep it clean otherwise you can tell the difference with lots of dust logged in places! The footswitch supplied is great too. SMELLS GREAT!

Meh. Nothin' yet.

Yeah I like it. Got what I need, when I need it. CUTS THROUGH THE MIX BRILLIANTLY. I'd probably go for a fender amp (57 twin amp) if I lost it, simply because I love trying out different things, and I'm not entirely sure I've found my desired tone yet. One thing I must say is, IT'S SO UNBELIEVABLY HEAVY. Two people struggle with this beast and one person is sure to get a hernia. Don't take it up stairs, it hurts :(

I loved the features in this amp. I question how long they will last after reading such awful reviews however. I especially like the ability to change the Ohms. I set mine to 8ohms and crank it. It sounds pretty good.

I was impressed with this sound from a combo. I didn't like the break up time when I pushed it hard though. I like it to just crakle when cranked.

I had it in the shop 2 months after I purchased it. The toggle switchs went bad. It costs an arm and a leg to get that thing worked on. The tubes (and everything else) get way to hot way to quick. Everything in this amp just plain gets to hot. I really think this is this amps biggest problem. Cheap solder coupled with little ventilation takes a toll on this amp. Let me tell you what I did to fix this problem. First of all, I took this amp apart (I know, it was scary for me too). Yes, the skrews are cheap (I replaced them), The speaker wires were soldered (I replaced them with slide ons). After removing the circutry (which just slides right out in one piece, I took the skill saw to it. I cut out a rectangle the length of the tubes. Oh yeah, I REPLACED THE CHEAP SOV-TEKS. I then, placed an EQ grill over the opening (I even installed a black light in the amp for effect). Now with the removal of 2 skrews I can get to the tubes with no problem. When I put the board back in, I used four 3 inch strong skrews. This way the skrew heads stick far enough down that I can removed the board easily. Finally I mounted a fan in the amp. Now air is constantly circulating the tubes and board. I have had NO more problems with this amp and I give it hell 3 days a week. Surely the reverb or somethig will give me problems in the future. As for now I keep a tricked out peavy classic 30 with me at every show just in case. Try this.

It's a good combo. It has its share of problems, but when it is working correctly it is great for the money.

These are the features as listed on the official Vox website (www.voxamps.co.uk):

Front panel controls: Inputs x 2 (Top Boost & Normal);
Input Link Switch for blending channels;
Normal Volume;
Brilliance Switch;
Top Boost Volume;
Treble;
EQ Standard/Custom Switch;
Bass; Reverb Controls (Tone, Mix, Dwell Switch);
Tremolo Speed & Depth;
Tone Cut;
Master Volume;
Standby Switch;
Power Switch
Rear panel controls
Loudspeaker output jack x 2 (Extension & External);
Output (O/P) Impedance Select (8 or 16 Ohm);
Output Bias (82 "Warm" or 50 "Hot");
Smoothing (22uF "Vintage" or 44uF "Modern");
FX Loop (Send, Return and Bypass Switch);
Footswitch Jack (Tremolo and Reverb);
HT Fuse;
Mains Input;
Mains Fuse;
Valve/Tube Complement:
4 x EL84/6BQ5 --- 3 x 12AX7/ECC83 --- 1 x GZ34

I'm rating a 7 here only because the amp is not as versatile as others out there. You get a very specific sound straight from the amp. Effects do not color the amp; the amp is always in control. This is actually what I like about it though, because i love the way that it sounds. But my more objective side says that a 7 will suffice.

This is the set up:
Gibson SG standard or Fender Highway 1 Telecaster > Marshall ED 1 compressor > Boss RV 3 digital delay / reverb > Vox Cooltron dual overdrive > The best sounding amp on the planet

I'd like to rate this an 11 or 12. This amp sounds amazing. 30 watts is enough power for most applications. And if you find yourself in a situation where this thing can't hang, you better hope there's a good PA in the place! I guess this is true with many tube amps: it only sounds nicer the louder it gets. I bought mine used. Before i actually played through it, i was expecting that I would want to upgrade to the blue backs or red fangs, but the factory (Wharfdale) speakers sound great. The tremelo, while somewhat impractical, sounds nice and warm, and sometimes, I just have to switch it on. The reverb, however, is weak. I was told by a friend that Vox is "a classier company so that's why it's more subtle than a Fender or something". Ha. I just think it's weak and useless. I like a way more obvious reverb sound (Pink Floyd anybody?) I play mainly indie rock with soft compression and a nice edged overdrive. The sound seems to just roll off of it. I read in another review that this amp "makes you a better player just by plugging in" So True. i wonder how this baby would sound if I did upgrade the speakers and relplace the tubes. . .

Both guitars sounds so different that it's hard to say which is better suited for this amp. I guess it's a matter of taste and use. Both guitars sound beautiful through it though. I prefer the Fender for clean, as the humbuckers on the Gibson don't have that shimmer. Distortion rocks with either guitar, but that Gibson is liable to get the cops called on you (in a good way?). The amp adds an organic quality to playing- it just feels like a more natural connection with the notes you play. Seriously, WOW!

Hmm. . . As I said, I bought mine used from a dealer in town. I don't kow what this amp has seen in the past, but I'm sure it will withstand most things.

I trust it.

This is a great amp. I paid 725 bucks for mine, and I can't think of a better investment I've made recently. The sound of this amp is what fueled much of the British invasion as well as countless other artists throughout the history of the electric guitar. Like I mentioned earlier, it does have a very specific sound. But it sounds exactly the way I like it. The day I got it, i brought to a friend's house. He plays bass, and at one point, we stopped for a second. And with this enormous grin he said "This thing is even making my amp sound better!" It's official: I am a proud papa now.

The features are pretty good for a Vox. Mine has Wharfs. Will probably change them out sometime. Didn't see the point of cashing out for the Greens when you can buy better for cheaper and install yourself. Tubes are a pain in the arse to get to cos of the speaker wire needing to be desoldered/resoldered. Put removable terminal spades in the first time and you'll cut your next tube replacement times by 5. Reverb tank was garbage. Long, no definition, weak. Replace that. The tremolo, while nice I don't use. Some circuit must be running through this cos some noise comes with activating this. I use an Ultrem for tremolo. Analog tap tempo. Get the trem's straight on time. There's a input for a switch to activate reverb and tremolo but none for changing between the two channels. You need and AB to running to the two inputs if you want go clean to overdriven on the amp. Why Vox wouldn't have a input for channel switching on these new AC30's is beyond me. Otherwise the amp is amazing and still worth the price despite these quirks. Read the manual for all the good things. I'm just listing the bad.

It sounds awesome. Just awesome. Clean's are nice, the overdrive is to die for. if you want distortion, get a pedal or two cos this only does nice breaks and the awesome crunchiness Vox is known for. Trem and reverb are... whatever. If you want great reverb, get a Twin Reverb or something. If you want an amazing overdriven sound, this is what you want.

I gig and practice with it regularly. had it for about a year now. Haven't had any problems with it. When I switched out the reverb tank about, oh a day after i got it cos the reverb sounded awful i found that 2 of the three springs were broken. Which could be why it sounded crap. Still, i didn't like the long tail of the stock tank.
I replaced most the screws on it too cos they were crap. I never gig with a backup and have never had a problem. It's heavy as hell especially in an ATA case, so I'm not gonna throw my back out carrying multiple amps around everywhere. If it breaks down, borrow someone elses amp, right?

despite the quirks of the amp, i will probably never play a gig without an AC30 again. maybe I'll add some other amps to my live setup if it gets to that point, but how an AC30 breaks up is just part of my sound. and I'm somewhat of a Vox fanatic. and they just look cool. anyway, the main guitars i use through the AC30 are a Vox Phantom, a Gretsch Streamliner and a Jazzmaster. I really think the Vox likes the Gretsch, or hollowbodies the most. If you like nice sounding feedback, go hollowbody. Overdrive doesn't seem to like the Phantom or Jazzmaster as much for crunch. They still sound good, its just that they get more of a trebley, boosted type sound going. really cuts through. overall, great amp.