NAD VHT Special 6 combo

jonnyburgo

Just drove up to Wigan and picked this little beaut up from @Lewligan nice and simple volume and tone with a push pull boost on the vol, low and high inputs

Handwired, switchable between 3 and 6 watts, standby function, very moddable due to it being a simple layout on eyelet board.

Trouble is I cant try it out until Wednesday boo hoo!

I like simple amps like this

Not the prettiest amp but I could easily make a pine cabinet for it, probably covered in tweed

Dave_Mc

Nice

New speaker might be worth considering, especially if you're upgrading the cabinet anyway.

crunchman

I have the head version.  It's the best of the modern 5 Watt amps that I've played or tried.  I did once play a late 50s champ which was rather nice though.

Exorcist

Congrats, Great little amps - I have the ultra combo, but have used the special 6 head. Took a while for that chromeback to settle down, but its quite a nice little speaker now. I'm currently running an old el84 with the adapter and some nice preamp valves and it sounds fantastic. I switch between that and a 6v6 depending on the mood. I run a bunch of pedals in front at home, and sound great at bedroom volumes. I've wound the special 6 head up to the max through a 4x12 at the studio, and it sounded huge with a les paul junior. No pedals needed, but it was definately not clean!

Jeremiah

I have the Ultra head, and I think it's an OK amp but not great and I've always wondered if the simpler Special 6 would actually have been a better option.

For one thing, I don't find myself using the ultra channel very much, it seems harsh in comparison with the clean channel (and to get any distortion you have to turn both the ultra and normal volumes up, at which point it is really loud.)

I also don't really use the depth knob, as it seems to add low-mid mud rather than useable bass, so I just leave it on the minimum setting all the time.

It is also VERY big and heavy for such a low-powered amp, and though the clean sound is fine, it's not as good IMO as my other head which is a Traynor Darkhorse, which is also much smaller and lighter. (To be fair, the Traynor did cost more than twice as much as the VHT.)

Dave_Mc

crunchman said:

It's the best of the modern 5 Watt amps that I've played or tried. 

I'd say it's possibly the best of the cheaper ones, anyway (like you, out of the ones I've tried, I haven't tried them all). It probably sounds the best out of the box. Though QC on them can be a bit spotty (my first was dodgy, eventually got a replacement), and I'd still say you can probably tell (both in terms of tone and how well it's built) that corners have been cut too compared to more expensive amps.