A funny think happened yesterday on the way to Guitar Center. I went to get a new capo (my 12 year daughter and I are having a hard time sharing one) and some strings. I came home with an amp (and the capo and strings). How does this stuff happen? :D
I've been playing with an 80's era all tube Fender Champ 12 since I started nearly four years ago. It was a gift from a friend who inspired me to learn to play. Nice amp, but no real character and it's pretty darn loud - you can barely play at 1 without everyone running for cover. Recently, I've been starting to look at upgrading. I really like the HRD, but it's just too darn big and loud so was looking to the Blues Jr - I really love the way it sounds. OTOH, I've also got the hots for the VOX AC30 classic reissue (1x12). It gets good reviews and sounds great too. As I was looking around and researching I noticed that Epiphone had put out a new series of amps. One of them caught my eye - The Valve Special. It's a 5 watt, 1x10, class A amp with cool retro styling. It is made in China, so it's not hand-wired P2P, but it is very inexpensive - $219 just about everywhere. See it here:
http://www.epiphone.com/default.asp?ProductID=255&CollectionID=13
Well, GC was having one of their green tag sales and I was wandering around the store (does anybody actually go in, buy something and just leave?) and saw that this amp had a green tag on it and was going for $179. This, I'm thinking, is a steal, assuming I like the way it sounds. The only catch was the sale was ending in about 5 hours so I had to decide quickly. I spent about 30 minutes playing the amp and thought, what the heck! I get 30 days to audition it at home with GCs 30 day guarantee. It won't be my final amp – but it will be fun for a while.
Like I said, the styling is cool - very retro. It has chicken knobs and basic controls – gain, master, treble, middle bass as well as a serviceable digital reverb. There are also 16 digital effects built in (8 delay, 4 chorus, 4 flanger), but I'm not sure how useful they will be. It even has a standby switch so the tubes can warm up a bit before you play. I spent about 4 hours playing around at home yesterday and I do like the way it sounds. It has potential. The Les Paul and the Stratocaster take on totally different characteristics with this amp versus the Champ. I think this will be a keeper, but I also think I want to play around with some upgrades. That's where I need some advice (Wes – you out there?).
1. The amp has bit of a hum. I've been told by a few people that straight class A's tend to exhibit this behavior. Is that true? Is there any way to reduce it? It is not awful, but if I can be reduced, that would be great.
2. I think the speaker needs to be replaced. It sounds a little muddy. This is something I had read about prior to and since buying the amp on both Harmony Central and the Epiphone discussion forum. I know nothing about speakers. Anyone have any particular favorites they might recommend (8 ohms)?
3. Tubes - The amp has 2 in the preamp (12AX7WA) and 1 in the amp (EL84/6BQ5). Others have said that replacing the preamp tubes can lead to a much improved clean and driven sound. Again, this is way out of my realm of knowledge. I have spent a little time reading up on tubes, but there's a lot of information and so far it's a bit confusing. Any suggestions?
I guess I'm turning this into a little project. It'll be fun and I'll learn a bunch about amps, tubes and speakers. I do want to keep this somewhat low budget as I know I could easily spend the purchase price again on tubes and a speaker – that's not my intent.
Thanks in advance for any help!
Steve
EDIT (11/17): Oops! Just realized I wrote this incorrectly - I have the Special. The Standard is their 15W amp.
I picked up a galaxie 10 for my now 10 year daughter awhile back. Did a few little mods and connected an attenuator to it to clip -4dbs off it to mellow it out. When I run a line out from my pre-amp (which is a 100watt tube power amp into a dummyload) then into the galaxie it comes to life. my daughter took it away from me cause she says I'm to hard on equipment...lol
Joe
I'm more familiar with the Valve Junior than the Valve Standard. The hum is a common complaint, I read some on the Fenderforum.com that it can be reduced with some internal wiring changes to improve the ground, you might try a search there.
Different tube brands can vary in their tendancy to hum, as well.
The JJ tubes made a big difference in the Epi Galaxi 10, and while that has a 6L6, the JJ EL-84's are supposed to be good. The JJ and EH preamp tubes are both very nice. The EH are a bit gainier, I believe. Those are in my Reverend Goblin, which is a much more civilized amp than the Epi Galaxie which showed great benefit from a switch to JJ preamp tubes to reign it in.
The effect of the preamp tubes and the power tubes is both subtle and substantial, depending on what you do or don't like about the sound. The preamp tubes have a more pronounced effect on the quality of the gain but also affect the general edgyness and harmonics. The power amp tube had a more subtle effect, but was important to the core sound and made the amp sound more musical. I wish I had better vocabulary for this. For $25, it was worth the education to try some different tubes and made the amp much more usable for me. If you go to Eurotubes, be sure to ask Bob for his recommendations.
The speaker in the Valve Junior is a Weber. This is the kind of speaker that people replace their Fender speakers with. I don't know if the same is in the Special, but if it is, you would most likely be replacing the speaker with an inferior speaker unless you paid some serious money. If you don't like the sound of the speaker, so be it, but I would go to Ted Weber's site and ask for his advice on speaker choice. Ted probably can't tell you if that's his speaker or not, but at least he could steer you toward a speaker that would sound different.
slothrob,
Thanks for the tip. I dropped a note to Bob at Eurotubes and got a quick, very thorough response. I just ordered up new tubes for the Valve and the Champ. Can't wait! I'll let you know how they sound with the new tubes.
Steve
I think you'll like the tubes, the JJ's are among the best current production tubes, and Bob at Eurotubes test them to guarantee quality and to suggest tubes that work well with the amp you own and push the sound in the direction you want.
Interestingly, the JJ's softened the harsh high end on the Galaxie 10 but can brighten the Valve Jr. Though perhaps I should add that, on the Galaxie 10, the highs were tamed in a way that now allows me to add highs back with the treble control and run the amp brighter than I could before, when I want.
The Weber speaker also have a reputation for being a bit dark, initially, but brightening after break in. Kind of the opposite of what typically happens with Jensen and Eminance speakers. You may find the tubes and a little playing time will both work in your favor with this amp.
These new Epiphone amps are unbelievable for the price. With a little work and some time getting to know how to use them well, they're worth owning just for the additional sound they add to your repertoire. This and the Champ should give you quite a few sounds to choose from.
I look forward to the review.
Ok, back with a report on the new tubes. First, thanks for the Eurotubes recommendation. Bob was very helpful. I would highly recommend anyone get in touch with him before buying new tubes. I wound up re-tubing two amps. Different, but both with good results.
First, the Valve Special. For those of you who know what this means (not me but I'm learning), I put a single JJ EL84 in a grade #35 for the amp and in the preamp a matched triode ECC83S that is between 110 to 115 in gain for the V1 tube and a standard ECC83S for the V2 preamp tube. My muddiness is gone. I guess it wasn't the speaker after all. The tubes seem have brought the life out of this little amp. I don't think I can do a good job describing it - others have referred to amps being musical and I think that's appropriate here. Also, somewhat sweet. With the gain up it takes on a nice bark, especially on my Strat's neck humbucker. The Gibson just sustains forever. All in all, I'm very happy with the amp and tubes. I'm going to leave the speaker alone for a while and let it break in. Also, the new tubes seem to have reduced the hum a bit, but it is still there. I did read about some of the wiring fixes, but right now I'm not feeling that adventurous.
The other amp is a Fender Champ 12. The tubes were all original - they all said Fender on them so I have no idea who made them. They all came out and in went a single JJ 6L6GC and two of the standard JJ ECC83S's. Again, the change was dramatic. In this case, I now believe the old tubes were starting to wear - when I turned the amp on they buzzed for a couple of seconds (like overdrive) before quieting. The amp now quietly warms up and seems to have more character. I can't really describe it any other way. Previously, the amp sounded bland, now it sounds alive. Not quite as musical as the Valve - maybe a bit more aggressive. Anyway, I wouldn't need them both if they sounded the same!
Total cost for both amps was $63 including shipping. Money well spent. If you're a tinkerer like me and have a tube amp, this is an easy way to mo your amp and play with your tone without spending a fortune. And, you can't do much damage.
Steve
Sweet.
So glad it was as good an experience for you as it was for me.
It's quite amazing how tubes, which really affect the sound in such a subtle way, can dramatically improve your appreciation of the sound you get out of the amp. I'm cautious to recommend a tube change because someone who isn't attentive might not even notice the change. To the person who is really listening it can be like night and day.
