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"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
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
They're actually really cool and quite unique amps, but absolutely *nothing* like your classic Vox edge-of-breakup chime. The feeling is much more a modern 2 channel high gain amp.
The clean channel is properly clean and breaks up in a more high frequency, scratchy way - it made me think a bit more of a Hiwatt. Took pedals great and very flexible tone circuit.
The distorted channel is crazy. It's possible to make it sound *fantastic*, with a really thick low mid, saturated and articulate grind that's heavily distorted yet cleans up amazingly with a half turn of the guitar's volume pot. And with preamp gain, channel volume and master volume, you can get a different feeling based on how you balance the various volumes.
On the flip side, it's possible to make the distortion channel sound terrible and fizzy. I seem to remember you had to keep the treble knob below 1/4. All the good tones were there, the range on the treble just went too far.
The effects loop is the same circuit as the old AC30cc (+4 and -10 level options), which I think is fantastic.
It doesn't burn through tubes, it's a standard push/pull class B EL34 power section with adjustable bias so you can run it as hot or cold as you like. And the bias pots are easily reachable behind a little panel that unscrews on the back, alongside terminals so you can easily read the bias current with a multi-meter. So it's actually a really well thought out amp. I found it very sensitive to preamp tubes; Quite often I find the differences are pretty much irrelevant; not so in this circuit. On this amp the stock tubes were ok on both the heads I had, but replacing some with old mullards, brimars etc really changed the midrange for the better.
I found the 100 watt version had a lot more bass than the 50, to the point I modified it to cut some of the subs down.
Pairs fantastically with Vintage 30s; speakers with nice clear upper mids but mellow above 5kHz or so.
When I had the 100-watt version alongside a Mesa Tremoverb, the AC100cph actually held its own. I was alternately plugging them into the same 2x12 V30 cab and was surprised at how close the drive channels could get, though the AC100 didn't call out for a boost pedal to get the level of saturation I like to play at. If I could have afforded to, I'd have kept the 100 watt head even though my home ground is an AC30+ pedals.
Bandcamp
Spotify, Apple et al
Although we now know who bought the one they sold .
"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
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Funny you should say that as there's actually a few of them on eBay at the moment. I liked the look of them when they first came out and the reviews were favourable.
Bandcamp
Spotify, Apple et al
Seems like used amp prices really have plummeted the last 18 months or so. I picked up a UK-made AC30 for £430 last year, and after several attempts to sell my Genz Benz Black Pearl for a silly price I decided I'd rather keep it than give it away.
Bandcamp
Spotify, Apple et al
Used it at a couple of rehearsals so far. Got a few gigs on at the weekend so should be able to use it at least one of them.
Initial thoughts
1. Its heavy. Damn heavy.
2. The clean channel is very versatile, I usually run my clean channels very clean, but with this I'm getting great sounds running it at break up. Takes pedal's beautifully, and
3. on the dirt channel. Rolling back the channel gain and not using the high gain/fat switches has brought out the best result so far. It's very responsive to the guitar volume, and again takes pedals like a brexiteer to fake news.
Tried it with a strat, tele, Yamaha Superflighter (SG) and .an ibanez roadcore so far.
cab wiise I've used it with my zilla 2x12 (v30, Gh30) and a couple of 4x12's at the rehearsal studio (cheapo marshall and laney's) and through all of them its sound splendid.
The FX loop works well, the reverb is actually very nice, and its handy to be able to switch the reverb off by footswitch.
So far I'm loving it (apart from the weight!)