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Bought a Victory V40 , returned it the next day.

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TelejesterTelejester Frets: 743
edited July 2017 in Amps
Did loads of research and the V40 with el34s sounded like the perfect head for me. Ordered one and couldnt wait to give it a go when it arrived.

Hooked it up and set all eq controls to 12 o clock and was all set to be thrilled. Strummed one chord on my US tele and got the most wallowy, overly bassy  and uninspiring tone you can imagine. Huh, something must be wrong. Checked all cables and went for it again. Same big farty bass heavy tone, set it to voice 2 and nothing to write home about there either. Changed eq settings drastically and couldnt get a sound i liked no matter what.

Pretty much every tone comprised of a big flubby low end, smooth treble and a big hole in the middle, an amp should not be such hard work and after less than 1 hour it was back in its box and ready to be returned. I know plenty of guys  here didnt like the v40 and i gotta say with hindsight i agree with many of the opinions raised.
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Comments

  • shaunmshaunm Frets: 1591
    Sorry to hear about your woe. You're not the first to do this though. 

    Try a Fender supersonic. Loads of head room and takes pedals like a champ 
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  • benmurray85benmurray85 Frets: 1395
    Sounds like you had a very similar experience to me!

    http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/66067/nad-victory-v40/p1
    How very rock and roll
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  • TelejesterTelejester Frets: 743
    edited July 2017
    Sounds like you had a very similar experience to me!

    http://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/66067/nad-victory-v40/p1
    Yep i had read your experiences ben, seems we both had a less than yay i got a new amp time with the v40, if i lived near the seller  id have brought my v40 back in less than 1 hr.
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  • ecc83ecc83 Frets: 1591

    Oooo!  They are a grand a pop! I thought they might be some kind of bargain basement amp, then I was going to say the flubby bass could probably be fixed by a change of coupling caps and a bit of response tweaking?

    But no, for £1000 you expect better and right!

    Dave.

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  • beerbeer Frets: 24
    Boss Katana.......
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  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Frets: 13929
    I had a V40 for a year or so and had the same reaction initially. It is a darker sounding amp than some, and the low end can get a bit congested. I found it to be voiced to sound at it's best with the master volume quite loud and turning the bass low or even off would be required at low volume. A good drive pedal where you can add bite with the pedal's tone control worked well. I used a JRAD Archer more as a boost to hit the front end very successfully to get great drive tones.

    With the master volume over half way and a good pedal it sounded great but was just too loud for me to use much that way so I sold it any now have a Morgan PR12 which has more treble on tap and is lower power so I can get the tone I want at lower volumes.

    Sometimes miss the grunt of the V40 though as there's no pre-amp volume on the PR12 so any natural amp distortion only happens when it's loud. 


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  • stratman3142stratman3142 Frets: 2177
    edited July 2017
    I had a V40 (EL34 version) for a while. I demoed it with one of my 1x12 closed back Celestion V30 loaded cabs at Andertons and thought it sounded way better than when I compared it with the recommended open back cab matching cab which I didn't like. 

    I suppose the V30 speaker tightened the bottom end and gave it more mid with a more open cutting sound. Eventually I swapped to V type Celestion speakers because the V30 speaker was too 'hard rock' for the band I was in at the time.

    Maybe speaker choice (and cab) is a big factor. It was OK as an amp and seemed to sound better in a live situation when it had been on for a while. I found it better at higher gig volumes with the master volume on a high setting.

    I've since replaced it with a Blues Cube Artist 1x12 combo which I prefer.

    It's not a competition.
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  • Musicman20Musicman20 Frets: 2296

    Shame, but I'm glad you could return. I really wanted to support Victory as UK builder offering almost boutique level amps.

    For me this sounds like I should steer clear. Not the first V40 I've heard about that didn't satisfy.

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  • TelejesterTelejester Frets: 743

    Shame, but I'm glad you could return. I really wanted to support Victory as UK builder offering almost boutique level amps.

    For me this sounds like I should steer clear. Not the first V40 I've heard about that didn't satisfy.

    Wedge a thick mattress tight in front of your amp speaker and play, thats the v40 tones i got.
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  • skunkwerxskunkwerx Frets: 6838
    Different kettle of fish, but last year I picked up a blackstar ht-1 metal... it went back the next day. 

    Basically the same reasons, just sounded muddy and way too bassy. Maybe if I cranked it it would have sounded alright, but even 1 watt turned up is too loud for what I needed it for! 
    The only easy day, was yesterday...
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  • Arktik83Arktik83 Frets: 431
    skunkwerx said:
     Maybe if I cranked it it would have sounded alright, but even 1 watt turned up is too loud for what I needed it for! 
    See I find that any speaker smaller than 12", when you turn them up they just get more shouty rather than fill out so if it was a HT Metal combo I doubt it would have sounded alright, just hurt your ears more ;)
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71960
    Thread resurrection!

    I just tried one of these for the first time.

    Cabinet - Marshall TSL 2x12" with a 'Heritage' and 'Vintage' speaker pair, 16 ohms.


    Horrible.

    Similar experience to Telejester - it has no top-end, clarity or sparkle *at all*. None. Even on the brighter voicing, with the treble maxed, the middle low and the bass just under halfway - the closest I could get to a good sound - it's still too dark and dull. I wouldn't quite describe the low-end as flubby, but it was certainly too thick and woolly - and I *like* bass in my guitar sound. The problem is that I also like there to be at least some treble…

    It was also very tight and unresponsive to dynamics - not obviously compressed-sounding, but with no 'bounce' or life to it.

    It did get very marginally better with the loop (and reverb, even with the knob on zero) turned on, after I was initially baffled as to why the reverb wasn't working! And slightly better on the high-power setting than the low power. But not a lot.

    I honestly have no idea what type of sound they're aiming for with it - really smooth muffled blues-rock?

    The owner of it loves it...

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • Modulus_AmpsModulus_Amps Frets: 2569
    tFB Trader
    watching the Andertons demo of it and neither of them seem thrilled with it, @ICBM did you get a look inside? bet with a few mods it could come to life
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71960

    @ICBM did you get a look inside? bet with a few mods it could come to life
    Yes - it's high-quality PCB-built. It's hard to tell how easy it would be to mod - my guess from the sound is that there's a lot of frequency shaping done at different points in the amp, rather than one single thing that could be changed to open it up… it doesn't sound like just one cap across the MV pot, if you see what I mean ;).

    In fact, it sounds to me like an amp that's been carefully and deliberately designed to sound like that - much like both Cornford and Blackstar, which have definite 'company sounds', and both of which I detest :). So it may not be easy to fix.

    As opposed to a 5F1 circuit which has virtually no tone shaping at all and just naturally sounds great...

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • TelejesterTelejester Frets: 743
    edited November 2017
    ICBM said:

    @ICBM did you get a look inside? bet with a few mods it could come to life
    Yes - it's high-quality PCB-built. It's hard to tell how easy it would be to mod - my guess from the sound is that there's a lot of frequency shaping done at different points in the amp, rather than one single thing that could be changed to open it up… it doesn't sound like just one cap across the MV pot, if you see what I mean .

    In fact, it sounds to me like an amp that's been carefully and deliberately designed to sound like that - much like both Cornford and Blackstar, which have definite 'company sounds', and both of which I detest . So it may not be easy to fix.

    As opposed to a 5F1 circuit which has virtually no tone shaping at all and just naturally sounds great...
    ICBM glad to read that your ears heard what i heard mate, i was nearly strapping the v40 to my back and swimming across the irish sea back to andertons to get shod of it quicker, to say i found it total shit is understatement of 2017
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  • exocetexocet Frets: 1948
    ICBM said:

    @ICBM did you get a look inside? bet with a few mods it could come to life
    Yes - it's high-quality PCB-built. It's hard to tell how easy it would be to mod - my guess from the sound is that there's a lot of frequency shaping done at different points in the amp, rather than one single thing that could be changed to open it up… it doesn't sound like just one cap across the MV pot, if you see what I mean .

    In fact, it sounds to me like an amp that's been carefully and deliberately designed to sound like that - much like both Cornford and Blackstar, which have definite 'company sounds', and both of which I detest . So it may not be easy to fix.

    As opposed to a 5F1 circuit which has virtually no tone shaping at all and just naturally sounds great...
    ICBM glad to read that your ears heard what i heard mate, i was nearly strapping the v40 to my back and swimming across the irish sea back to andertons to get shod of it quicker, to say i found it total shit is understatement of 2017
    Sounds like it's the perfect amp to get a nice drive tone out of a Strat bridge pickup without futzing around with the tone pot? I guess that a Strat neck pickup would sound shite? Does it "open up" when cranked? 
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  • exocet said:
    ICBM said:

    @ICBM did you get a look inside? bet with a few mods it could come to life
    Yes - it's high-quality PCB-built. It's hard to tell how easy it would be to mod - my guess from the sound is that there's a lot of frequency shaping done at different points in the amp, rather than one single thing that could be changed to open it up… it doesn't sound like just one cap across the MV pot, if you see what I mean .

    In fact, it sounds to me like an amp that's been carefully and deliberately designed to sound like that - much like both Cornford and Blackstar, which have definite 'company sounds', and both of which I detest . So it may not be easy to fix.

    As opposed to a 5F1 circuit which has virtually no tone shaping at all and just naturally sounds great...
    ICBM glad to read that your ears heard what i heard mate, i was nearly strapping the v40 to my back and swimming across the irish sea back to andertons to get shod of it quicker, to say i found it total shit is understatement of 2017
    Sounds like it's the perfect amp to get a nice drive tone out of a Strat bridge pickup without futzing around with the tone pot? I guess that a Strat neck pickup would sound shite? Does it "open up" when cranked? 
    I played my ash US tele thru the v40, read my opening post in this thread. 

    ps. it sounded atrocious.
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71960
    exocet said:

    Sounds like it's the perfect amp to get a nice drive tone out of a Strat bridge pickup without futzing around with the tone pot? I guess that a Strat neck pickup would sound shite? Does it "open up" when cranked? 
    Not from what I heard. I didn't turn it up full, but I had it up fairly high.

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • I had one and it needed a drive or boost in front of it, sounded good then but did need the master volume up to get it breathing,


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  • CollingsCollings Frets: 411
    I did read an interview with Martin Kidd where he did say there was a very specific Victory signature voicing to all his amps to ensure they perform in a band situation.
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