Vox AC30CC2 212 Combo

Features as stock, has some nice tones I play in a pro gigging band and play everything from classic soul through to new wave and even a bit of Rock 'n' Roll. I bought the Vox as a backup to my trusty ageing Marshall TSl 100 head and 4x12 and as a lighter option to practise with, although it weighs a ton!!
Main complaint with the controls is why no channel switching, I ended up buying a ABY switcher.

This amp has some nice tones. Having played through both the blues and the Wharfs I would say the blues sound better but wheither there ?300's worth better is up for discussion. To my ears it has the classic AC30 sound but I'm no expert on Vox so I'll leave that to the experts. The amp is good for your classic new wave/blues sounds but it don't do metal.

This is where it all goes 'tits up'. I spent ages making my buying decision, read the reviews some good and some bad. I thought they would have ironed out the reliability problems by now and I would be safe. How wrong can you be!

First one (AC30CC) played up after 3 weeks with horrible tube rattle, took it back to Sound Control, Brum and they were as good as gold changed it. The second one I decided to upgrade to the CCX paid the extra ?300 bought it home and within a week the reverb stopped working. As mentioned above I thought the blues were OK but not worth the extra ?300 smackers so I took it back (third round trip of 80 miles) and went for another AC30 CC(wharfs) this one sounded great. I checked the serial number and noticed it was a lot more recent, longer speaker leads etc. Three weeks later and the normal channel packed in. I lost patience and took it back to SC and changed it for a Marshall DSL50.

A great pity as I liked the AC30. It felt solid, it weighed a ton but its obviously built like Sh*te!!

No comment on Vox UK service although I believe the warranty is 12 months. Interestingly its 3 years with Marshall.

I've been playing for 30 years and have owned and blown up a many boogies, marshalls and fenders. I wouldnt rule out buying an AC30 in the future, however it wont be a chinese made one.

This one has the Wharfdale speakers, the standard features the top boost channel, the normal channel, the blend (which is what I always use so far everytime), reverb, tremelo (both of which I almost never use anyways) the master volume in addition to the two individual volumes for both the normal and top boost channel (in my opinion one of the best features of this amp), and the treble and bass eq on the top boost channel and the cut (sort of a contour controller) on the master volume section. The effects loop in the back looks great, but I don't use much effects so I really cant comment on it. If your looking into this amp, I recommend going up to GC or anywhere that carries it when its dead and you can get some good playing time on it. Bring several guitars and try different combinations. After about an hour I had dialed in the tone that I use 90 percent of the time. After all is said and done it's simple to use once your familar and it achieves everything and more than I though it would.

Awesome. Just beautiful. I was looking for a second amp with that clean but slightly dirty sound and thats all I was expecting to get from this. I run it ab'd with a Mesa Boogie Duel Rec solo head and 4X12 cab and the two amps together sound wild. But, I was hugely impressed with the heavy sound that this amp can get as well as that Petty/Beatles type thing. What I usualy do live is to role off the volumes a bit to get a cleaner sound if I need it for a particular song, but 90% of the time I keep the volumes set at 60% for both top boost and normal channel blend with the master bout a quarter of the way up and it gets a nice articulate but dirty sound which is just awesome. It's unmatchable. I do like to have the boogie going with it because I'm a tone nut, so when I have both amps going at the same time the boogie covers a little more of the low end, but if it's a small gig and I'm bringing just one amp I'd op for the vox because I just enjoy playing it more and it is super versatile.

I plan on caring for this really really well. I have had my boogie for about 4 years now. No road case, banging it around. Thank God it's ok. With this Vox I just got a nice road case from North Coast Music for pretty cheap, bout 250.00. Nice foam inside etc. I've read reviews and just from my observation of how the viynl rips easy, this amp would not be a good choice for me to beat up without a case and just not care for. This amp seems like it would like to be babied a bit. At 1000 bucks I recommend spending an extra 250 to get a road case from northcoast if you plan on touring alot which I'm regularly away from 2-6 weeks at a time. The construction seems fine though, but it doesn't look like it will take a beating like a Marshall 4x12 or my boogie cab. I bring it gigs often as my only amp for the smaller shows, and I dont worry at all about it.

Havent dealt but the warrenty seems standard and I also bought the GC warrenty.

I've been playing for 13 years. I am a full-time touring musician and part-time private instructor (whenever I'm not playing). I own a 68 reissue strat which I swapped out the bridge pickup with a jb junior and an american standard tele. Mesa Boogie duel rec solo head and 4X12 and this vox as well as various pedals etc. I compared this product with Hot Rod series Fender amps which I always liked trying to get that slightly dirty clean sound, but I liked the Vox far more. If I was made of money I'd definitly have a small Fender, prob a Blues Junior, I love those little things. Just to pump up in my house. But, nothing compared to the vox for price and sound for that driven hot articulate sound that the company is known for. It's just really fantastic and I look forward to every rehearsal and gig specifically to play this amp. I was so impressed I almost sold my boogie to get another to run as my main driven amp with a rat mod in front of it or something, but I do like the Mesa blended with the vox, creates a really sonically full sound. If it was stolen I'd be pissed. Really really pissed because all I do is show off this amp all proud and silly so I'd be angry and have to suck it up and buy another eventually. Time will tell how long the construction lasts, but I think with regular maitenance and keeping it in the road case it'l handle touring fine.

Ya'll know 'em. Just make 'em footswitchable and I'd give it a ten. Why is everyone scared of footswitching? If you don't want to switch channels, leave the footswitch at home. I probably would leave it at home myself, but I'm just annoyed that the option isn't there.

I've had this amp for about 9 months now (ordered it from Northcoatmusic.com). I've used it quite a bit (three days out of the week, sometimes more) in a variety of bands. I spent some time building a pedal board around the sound of the vox and have a set-up that I'm completely satisfied with: '62 RI CIJ Tele into TU2, Barber LTD, Barber Direct Drive, Visual Sound H20, EH Small Stone Phaser all into the front end of the amp. I also throw in an epi Les Paul when humbuckers are called for, but I think my Tele is far superior. This set-up shows off what I've found the Vox to be really good at . . . Rocking out with an articulate and sophisticated yet straightforward sound that is somewhere between the sound I associate with Vox and the sound I associate with older marshalls. The clean(ish) sounds are great. I love the slight breakup/compression that the class A circuit can provide. Top Boost is awesome, but when the channels are blended it's old school marshall territory blended with a little vox, which is a great sound, really. Not tradition, but it rocks. It also cuts through the mix beautifully. The mids are accentuated like you'd expect. I play in a band where the other guitarist uses a JCM 800 and I find that the 2x12 combo version of the vox might not have the low end of the JCM 800, but it still cuts better and is overall a sweeter sounding amp. Plus, 30 watts is plenty to hang with the 50 watt marshall beast. Now, I use the adjective "sweeter" to mean that the harmonics are richer and the overall sound is a little more rounded. I also play in a band where the other guitarist uses the usual mesa stuff and i much prefer the vox overdrive to the boogie overdrive. And, the vox hangs with the boogie when I blast the front in with my direct drive. In fact, the boogie is definitely more american with that scooped sound, but the vox compliments it wonderfully with the brit mids commanding attention. When I recorded an album with the same band, we had access to many different amps. While I occaisionally opted for a JCM 800 or a mesa formula/simulcast 90 rig for some parts, I almost always found the tone I wanted with the vox. I ALWAYS used the vox for lead lines because it was so much smoother, sweeter, and distinctive. It sat perfectly in the mix and, even with the channel blend cranked, never got lost in the chaos of the wall-of-distortion rhythm parts recorded with the mesa stuff. Overall, it's just a great, versatile amp that looks good, sounds better, and is just a joy to play. I love it. No tens, though, as I'm sure there are actually better amps out there. But I have very limited funds, I saved up for a long time for this amp, my guitar, and my pedal board and I couldn't be happier with the results. So, unless you can find me a better amp for less than a grand, I'll contend that the cc2 is the single best amp in its price range.

Great so far. Nine month of regular use and going strong. northcoastmusic makes sure you don't get lemons, though. They also switch out the pre-amp valves, which helps. It's about time to get rid of the EH tubes and throw in some new JJ's . . . I like to change tubes once a year so I don't have to worry. I can't afford a quality back-up amp so I really hope it doesn't fail me, but its a tube amp so ya never know. Plus, it gets hot as hell (I use it on the modern setting and the 33 watt mode because I feel like the amp has more cut. In the studio I'll switch settings around, but this setting works really well for live use). If it dies, it's my sans amp tri ac pedal straight into the board (shiver), which just doesn't compare with having my ac30 cranked. Hopefully that will never happen.

No clue how vox is. Northcoast is the bomb.

It looks great, sounds great . . . wait, I already said that. This is a really good amp. If you try it and like it, buy it. The only real complaint I have is that it doesn't take to some overdrive pedals very well, even good od's. I personally don't like the way ts-808's sounded on it because they push too many mids. The Fulltone Fulldrive is a great pedal, but it's already supposed to be voiced similarly to a vox and when you have the fulldrive compression plus the slight mid boost in front of an amp that does the exact same thing, it gets a little too sweet and you don't get a very aggressive sound. On the other end of the spectrum, my old RAT was way too harsh for the amp. Just be aware that if you buy this amp, you may need to rethink your pedal board. The barber stuff worked for me because I found the direct drive to be marshall-esque enough to compliment the cc2's marshall leanings without over-accentuating the voxlike characteristics . . . but to each his own.

I bought this amp new in April 06, from what I've read here, it must be fairly new, it has plugs and jacks for the speaker connections making it easy (er) to remove the chasis from the cab. In a month's time, I've played three seven-nighters and an outdoor gig. No problems so far. The two channel set-up is only used by me as tone tweaking. I'll explain further in the "sounds" box. The Classic and Modern switching and the power switch modes are great, but once I found the sound, they've remained stationary. This is a very simple layout with so many sounds available to the player, it's hard to comprehend!

Guitars I have used in battle: Fender Tele Am. Std., Fender Strat 50th Anniv., and Les Paul Deluxe, mini hums. I have read many of the reviews located at this site, so I had to get my licks in on the broad palette of sounds available. First, I've never run it all the way up...it's just too damn loud! I have Marshalls, and a B 52 to destroy hearing adults! I laughed at the store when I saw a treble and bass control, "cut" knob, and a brilliant switch! That's All this amp needs with the correct blending of the two channels. I'm learning new tricks everyday! I thought the Fenders were a little to "bitey" with this amp until I found that I run the normal channel up and blend in the top boost, with the cut at 1/2 or less, run the pre-amp hotter and the master down-FAT. Just the oposite with the humbuckers or mini hums, start with the top boost, then blend in the norm to fatten. All of these controls radically change the sound. It's like having Linux instead of Windows. You have to "write" your own programs instead of having a factory-rat decide what you can and cannot have. This is a treat for a guy who's first amp was a Fender Super Reverb, when it first came out. It's like the old days, tone-wise. Play with these controls and you will find a rainbow of sounds in this amp...it's just not with tone controls. For you guys keeping score, I played drums for the first six years, so the Super was just for practice and I think that was '64.

I never gig without two backups. That's how I make my living, so I'm prepared at all times. In a month of use (almost constant) I've had no problems. Still, it's tubes,circuit boards, and today's economy that dictate-so I'm sure it will fail much sooner than the old ones did. It's already lasted longer than three Fender Mexican solid states lasted!!!I have a Fender solid state graveyard in my garage!
BOTTOM LINE: The sound is worth whatever trouble I might have and considering today's "throw-away" standards...I would probably just buy another.

If I couldn't repair it myself, I would buy a new one, once out of warranty. I don't have a large selection of PC boards in my toolbox!
I used to repair Hammond organs and Wurlitzer pianos, but you could do it with a tube-checker, a soldering gun, and a schematic. I figure it's paid for itself in less than a month...and it's tax deductable if I buy a new one.

Playing pro for 45 years. I own Marshalls, Fenders, Peaveys, Behringers, Galien Kruger, B 52, Tube Works, and whatever guitars I've saved up in that time. (I do regret selling the '59 Tele and the '64 Strat but I had to pay the taxman somehow)
I love the sounds that I can acheive, I HATE the 70 lbs. I wish it had an affordable roadie attached, but then my grocery bill would shoot up. I think that this amp has the "sound" I've been looking for, for 30 yrs. I never owned one of the originals, but I had an Ampeg VT 22 that served me well until tubes went away in the '70's. (7027A's)I've owned several Twins over the years but never got the ballsy sound I was looking for..it was a great sound, but not what I wanted.
I was skeptical with no midrange control, but this amp doesn't need one, just run the treb and bass further down and mids increase like the old Bandmaster, then throw varying degrees of normal channel in and voila...it's in there, you just have to find it.

Made in 3/06. Versatile in terms of having reverb and tremolo circuits in addition to the much loved Top Boost channel. No remote channel switching or headphone jack, but you don't need either of them on a remake of a vintage classic amp. I do wish, however, that it had less features. For example: no effects loop (I never needed one), no master volume, power level or filter cap flush-mount selection switches (just more stuff and circuit complexity that can go bad some day), just one control pot for reverb (same reason- needless complexity with diminishing returns) Amp is used mostly at home in my basement, but sometimes at a friend's house/3-car garage or backyard patio for parties and poolside fun. 30 Watts of output power is plenty for my uses. A note about channel switching: I use my Fulltone Fulldrive 2, OCD, or Analogman KOT as a "second channel". With 100s of excellent high quality fuzz/distortion/OD pedals with true bypass or sonic armagedon at the tap of a foot available today, I don't need no stinking multi channel amp.

I use either my Fender Custom Shop '69 Strat or my black-n-gold beauty Heritage H-550 hollowbody custom built with Bigsby tremolo and TV Jones pickups. (Gretch-eat your heart out.) I play mostly a personal mixture of Spanish classical/middle eastern/Indian/blues style that I dig, but I am also a great fan of Jimi, SRV, EJ, Radiohead, Stanley Jordan, and Sonic Youth. I can't play as well as these artists, but I don't let that stop me from ever trying. I also love a lot of piano works from Beethoven, Chopin, and Eric Satie... the relatively simple stuff that can be played by ear on any instrument. The amp is a little noisy at "bedroom levels". The noise is mostly 60Hz type hum that I attribute to poor wire routing and circuit grounding practices. But I just turn it up a little and play louder until my ears don't care anymore. As for tone and overall sound - I love it! What a great tone you get from cathode biased EL84s. The amp reacts (compresses, swells, and blooms) very well to sharp pick attacks and soft Jazz type thumb strumming in the style of Wes Montgomery. The amp does favor the TV Jones loaded H-550s better than the single coils in the Strat however. As for amp overdrive and distortion: this has to be tested at max volumes on both guitar and amp. I don't play that loudly. Wish I could. So I rely on my pedals and low amp/guitar volume for OD/fuzz/dist tone. Tremolo is great and as good as my Fender blackface '65 Super Reverb amp. THE ONE BAD FEATURE IS REVERB!!! Whoa, what a shitty sound!!! Why did VOX use a 3-spring tank??? You get a shallow reverb even at maximum setting with the switch on "Hard Drive" but this horrible long trailing decay that is totally useless in any playing style. Just crap... I'm really hoping the new Accutronics tank (4EB3C1B) I ordered will fix the reverb problem. Otherwise I might just return the amp. NEW MAN LAW: Every amp with reverb must sound as good as a Fender blackface if not deeper and richer.

No tube issues (came with Tung-Sol 12AX7s and Electro Harmonics EL84s)or circuit issues so far. We'll see about the long run.

N/A

My amp has the Celestion Blues in it. The speakers are fantastic! Tolex, cabinet, circuit design, layout, and build quality are very good. It is very apparent that a lot of love was put into the design and construction of this amp. The AC30 is a hallmark of amp design and VOX knew it had to do it right. It shows. They only thing they fucked up was the reverb. Oh well. Hope VOX reads this and fixes the reverb on future AC30s some day.

This is actually a pretty cool amp. It has a lot of features that would make it a reall awesome amp. Have two individual channels or you can combine the two. You can change the bias and impedence and other things like that. So, all in all, the features would make it a cool amp that's worth owning.

I have tried every type of guitar through this amp. Strats and teles, Les Pauls, Paul Reed Smiths, Gretsch, Rickenbacker. They all sound great. You can get some pretty good clean tones, but it will break up a little bit because the tubes run really hot. Class A amps aren't really known for their amazing clean sounds. Anyhow, once you start to crank the volume on the normal or Top Boost channels, you can get some really nice dirty tones. Not the best, but it will definitely sound like a Vox. When you combine the two channels, you can get it to break up beautifully. It seriously sounded good with just about every guitar I played through it.

If I was just going by the way these things sound, I would buy one in a heartbeat, but there are some other problems that I think everyone should be aware of.

This is where the problems arise. Like I said, if I were just going by the features, I would buy one right now. But, I used to sell these things. Every one that I sold, I had to replace. There was always something that woulnd go wrong. I had more than a few come back because the reverb did not work at all. And every single amp that we had in the store had the grille cloth falling off. Within days of coming out of the box, the grille will start to fall off. It was not because we had a lot of people playing on them, either. They would go untouched for the first few days and it would come off just sitting there.

These amps have a lot of problems that need to be fixed and Korg will do nothing to fix them. I talked to my sales reps, my district managers, the guitar buyers, and no one wanted to do anything about them. I probably sold more of those amps than anyone while I worked there, and I replaced all but one. And that would probably be about one out of fifteen. The only amp in this Custom Classic series that didn't fall apart was the AC15. I really liked the AC15 because it had a nice tone, but it didn't fall apart at all.

I just think that if you are going to pay a thousand dollars (or 1600 for the model with Celestions) you should be able to get an amp that won't fall apart within days of opening it. You should be able to have an amp you can trust on stage that you would never hesitate to take to a gig. Be warned.

Like I said, they don't want to even try fixing this problem.

These amps were a great idea. They have a great tone that anyone could fall in love with. The tone is good for just about any kind of music you want to play. They don't break up enough to do any kind of hard rock, but with a good pedal in front of it, they sound sweet. A TS9 will do the trick. But, I would not buy one, and have not bought one, because of all these design flaws. I was seriously considering buying one until I found all the problems. In fact, one of the amps damn near blew up within an hour of me opening it. It had this terrible squeal and hiss and I turned it off before anything else happened.

So consider yourselves warned.

Purchased from Musicians Friend 6-1-05. Mine has the blue spkrs.Iplay ES-335,Strat and Tele.I play Blues/ rock. I immediately had trouble with Chinese tubes(especially thw 5ar4). Replaced all tubes with Sovteks and Tung-sols, lengthened spkr wires and installed spade connectors on spkr connections.Still have problems with tube rattle. Have tried adjusting retaining springs.No luck. This doesn't bother me in live situations, but will not cut it in the studio.I love the tone and the responsiveness. My other guitarist runs a Mesa and a Les Paul. He has a whole rack full of stomp boxes. I run a Tube Screamer and thats it! I run the Vox at half power and crank it up.Still have to drag my Blues Jr. around just in case I fry a rectifier tube, but if you want the Vox sound, you have to put up with some hassles. I would buy one again, but will be purchasing a Cornell next.

Not very at first, but with mods, seems to be OK

I purchased Ac30 cc2x with blue speakers.Features well covered in previous posts.Reverb is totally useless.I Love the sound of the AC30.I needed a working amp to take on the road,instead of my Jmi Head and Cab mid sixties Ac30,which although sounds amazing,wasn t reliable.

Personnally i like the sound .I use both tele and strat,although it can tend to be a little too bright.i never use top boost channel alone.It comes fairly close (but not quite)to my JMI

Is a bit noisy even compared to vintage ac30amp and fender twin re-issue

Terrible.Had faulty El84s two weeks after purchase.Reverb ,although useless,clapped out after 6 weeks.9 months later power supply to rectifier valve packed in during a show.Disaster.I am a professional player and this amp let me down badly.although amp is still under warranty,having bought it thro Thomann it was too much hassle to return product to germany.Vox.co.uk was a waste of time.

I had repair work carried out by Local repair man .

Replace all valves immediately.I changed pre amp tubes to jj s.Difference was very obvious.

Other posts cover poor construction issues.

Cant gig without back up.

Non existence for those of us on the western edge of Europe.

Been Playing 20 years and am professional session player.Would love to recommend this amp, but cant.If you must, get a more recent one and demand replacement valves and speaker cable extension before you purchase.

2005 model, made early before longer speaker with disconnects used.
2 channels: top boost and normal.
Reverb and Tremolo are global.

Just enough control, especially reverb controls, but not Starship Enterprise.

Settings that aren't used ferquently are located on back of amp.

I am playing a strat and tele in the top boost channel, tone controls are active dosen't take long to find the sweet spot for either guitar.
I am playing acoustic Fender DG10CE with pickup in the normal channel, with very little feedback problems only at high volume levels.

With the strat in top boost channel, running pre-volume wide open with master volume turned down gives usable distortion, but not super mega deth style. More blusey than hard rock, but with a tubescreamer it zings OK.

Sounds like what a Vox AC30 should sound like. (they all sound a bit different)

Plywood case seems strong enough for pretty rough use. Two types of screws are used on back panel - don't mix them up, some are threaded some are wood screw type. All of these screws will strip at the head with too big or too small screwdriver is used, also they are made from alum alloy, so be very careful.

Chassis and pcb feature pretty standard modern methods of construction, not hand wired like first JMI but better than 70's and 80's pcb experiments.

If you find no-name china 12ax7's in the preamp replace them immediately with your favorite brand (I used Groove Tubes, but JJ and Mesa seen fine.

Mine came from North Coast, Gary is very helpful. They go the extra mile.

Haven't had to deal with Korg.

I've had mine about 8 mounths and pushed it pretty hard with no problems.
I don't expect any more problems with the Vox tube amp than other simular tube amps. Changing tubes is a little more difficult on the AC30 than many Fender amps, but it's always been this way. Don't wait until a tube dies to figure out how to remove chassis - practice at least once.

I own Vox and Fender Amps, and like both. They are different in a good way.

If my AC30CC was stolen, I would order a replacement immediately!

This is a follow-up to a previous post.

1: As the Wharfdales began breaking in I began to notice a really unpleasant upper range 'buzz' in the tone - thought it was just the rooms until a show was recorded and it was worse on tape than live. Horrible, horrible...couldn't dial it out. Simply bad speaker design.

Pulled the stock Wharfdales, dropped in several different pairs of Celestions & Webers and settled on a V30/G12H30 combo.

I know the stock Wharfdales are a similar design to the Celestion G12H30, but they really went south tonally after a month or so.

2: The stock tubes were horrible. Pulled them immediately and the tone improved dramatically (until the stock speakers started to break in).

3: The long trail of the stock reverb tank makes the reverb unusable. Haven't a clue why KORG went with that really poor reverb tray or the long trail design. Accutronics has a direct replacement medium trail/decay (think typical Fender reverb) available:

Part#: 9EB2C1B

Won't increase the 'gain' of the reverb but will definately allow you to use the nice tone shaping features of the amp and put a little verb in your mix.

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To find the real potential of the amp, you will probably need to yank and replace the 2 main tone factors - stock tubes and stock speakers.

Post tweaks, it's a truely wonderful sounding amp (lots of comments from other players, FOH guys, studio folks). It's a keeper unless issues develop w/the circuit board components/design. Prefer point-to-point amps for reliability and ease of repair.

Initially, horrible...tubes failed, speakers failed, screws stripped, switches were bad.

Post tweaks (new tubes, new speakers, new reverb tank, replaced the power and standby switches with better/heavier duty components, redid the speaker leads and replaced all the chassis/cabinet screws w/steel screws) it's doing really well.

Amp is really overpriced for the build quality and stock components shipped. Should have a retail of around $700 stock. Expect poor resale value unless modified or KORG upgrades the components.

Buy used and spend the difference on component upgrades (you'll need to do them even if you buy one new).

Great amp once the budget-cut components and poor mfg issues are resolved.

Overall Rating:
Stock: Rates 1
Mod'd: Rates 8-9