Epiphone Valve Junior Combo

I'm going to move this into the Amps section, which if you search around, yo7'll find a lot of discussion already there on the VJ combo. I have one, love it and recommend it. The nice thing is, you can use the combo as a head. Simply unplug the internal speaker if you have opportunity to plug an external cab in. The internal speaker sits my needs fine, and sounds good to my ears. But this isn't a do-all amp for every situation. It's a simple one-knob amp that's a clone of an old small guitar amp from the '40s and '50s, modded to have more gain. They were designed for clean playing when nobody had any idea that anyone would want distorted guitar. The VJ is modded for modern tastes to have overdrive distortion after it hits full volume, so it hits full volume somewhere in the midrange of the volume knob and distorts after that. That means you can't have distortion at low volume unless you overdrive the first stage of the amp with an overdrive pedal. It's not a quiet little amp for bedroom practice unless you like clean sounds. And it does tend to hum. But it's a sweet little amp, and its simplicity is its soul.

Thanks alot! I do have a question though.
It's not a quiet little amp for bedroom practice unless you like clean sounds. And it does tend to hum. But it's a sweet little amp, and its simplicity is its soul.

I was under the impression that both the head and the combo are only 5W each. Right now, I have a cheap 25W solid state that I would think would be as loud if not louder than the EVJ that I have no problems cranking it up nearly full blast at home (so long as no one is home). As well, I noticed that the head is 5W but the cab is rated at over 60W or so, so will the volume level be the same as the combo or would it be 12 times louder than the combo? (Basically i'm just wondering what dictates the wattage level, the head or the cabinet). Thanks again!

Power and loudness are not linearly related. They are logarithmically related.

IF the speakers are equally efficient and all else is equal (which are seldom the case), a 50W amp will sound twice as loud as a 5W amp.

Speaker efficiencies actually vary widely. They're rated in terms of the sound pressure level in dB recorded by a calibrated microphone placed 1 meter in front of the speaker mounted in a baffle, playing a sine wave tone (usually of 400 Hz) of 1W. Watch out for manufacturers slipping in a ringer of a 2.87W signal or some such. An efficient speaker may produce 104 db at 1M with 1W. An inefficient speaker may produce 86 dB with 2.87W. A 5W amp with the efficient speaker will be WAY louder than a 100W amp with the inefficient speaker.

Tube amps are usually rated at some arbitrary power level where they produce a relatively low level of distortion, while in fact we play them at higher power levels where we like the much higher levels of distortion they produce. That doesn't work for solid state power amps. In fact there are no consistent industry-wide standards for power ratings, and it's difficult to compare amps of different sorts. But don't think a 5W amp is a quiet one. I can't hear my wife at all when she comes in to yell at me to turn down the cranked VJ. She effectively makes her wishes known, however.
:shock:

If you have some extra cash, I would recommend the valve special. Same amp, but with a gain and master volume, to let you distort at lower volumes, eq, and digital effects for about 100 dollars more.

Yeah, like I said the VJ isn't a do-all amp for everybody. In today's world it's really kind of a specialized amp. The reason modding it's become so popular is because lots of folks didn't understand that when they bought it IMO. But it's a great inexpensive "mule" to practice modding on, if that's what you want to do. IMO the one-knob simplicity of the VJ is its soul, and if that's not what you want, you should steer clear of it.

I would recommend getting the head with the new Epiphone Valve Jr cab. Why? Because you can use the head with any cab rated 4, 8, or 16 ohms. That's a really nice feature. The new cab has an Eminence speaker, I have a little cab I bought empty from Lopo Line and put an Eminence 125 speaker in there (8 ohms). It really sounds great through this Eminence, even better than through my Avatar cab with Vintage 30s.

But that is the very point, you can use the head with all sorts of cabs and speakers.

When you see a speaker rated 60 watts (or any amount of watts), that is telling you the handling power. Raw speakers are passive, they have no power of their own. But the 60 watts is telling you the amount of power this speaker can safely handle without damage. So a speaker rated 100 watts can handle a far more powerful amp than a speaker rated 30 watts.

Now, you can do some interesting things with a speaker's handling power. If you like a speaker to break up for a rough bluesy tone, you can purposely choose a speaker with low handling power like 25 watts. On the other hand, if you want a speaker that stays clean and undistorted to very high volume, then you would want a speaker with a high handling power rating.

The 5W head is really loud. I used this head at a jam with David Hodge through my Avatar cab. We had about 5 guitars, bass, keyboards, and drums on stage at once. This head had just enough volume for a small gig. If you have a super loud drummer it might not be able to produce enough volume, but close. Plus, you can get a lot more volume out of this amp if you put pedals in front of it. You can put a simple EQ pedal with the volume boosted which will make the amp much louder.

Again, get the head with the cab. It is a great sounding amp, I play mine everyday and love it. The only thing negative I can say about it is that it would be nice if it had reverb. I use a pedal for that. But it sounds great without reverb. You can not lose with this amp, one of the best deals ever.

Valve Jr Cab

Valve Jr head

Another plus is that they are matched and look great together.

Edit- if you do get the head and cab, you will need a short speaker cable (not the same as instrument cable). 2-3 feet is plenty.

16 gauge speaker cable

Thanks everyone, I haven't ordered it yet because I live in Canada and I'll be making a few calls tommorow to see how much shipping and other costs (duty and brokerage fees) will be if I get it through musiciansfriend. I know of a store around here that did sell the Epiphone Valve amp (either the one I am considering or the special) but the price was alot higher than what musiciansfriend was selling it for.

Wes, how big is the cab? In the picture it looks huge and right now I don't think i'd have room for anything much bigger than a combo amp, but I do agree that the head and combo is worth the extra money.

Steve, it's not that big at all, about the size of a 19" TV (couldn't think of anything better to compare it to). With the head on top of the speaker cab it won't even come up to waist high. Very portable, carry the head in one hand, the cab in the other.

With the combo you are stuck with one speaker. With the head you can run it into any cab. Or you can experiment with different speakers in that cab, super easy to pull one and and swap another in. Plus the cab has a 12", much better low end than the smaller speakers.

But the combo is good and gets great reviews. Either way you will be happy, this is a very nice sounding amp with great tone.

The combo has an internal speaker that plugs into a 4 ohm jack in the back. Unplug the internal speaker to plug in an external cab. I'm sure the manufacturer recommends against using any other impedance, but I've used mine with 8 ohm cabs and it works and sounds fine. Won't hurt a thing. (It distorts a bit more from the output stage.) Cranked up through an 8 ohm Fender 4x12, it'll rock and roll! The 8 ohm lead from the output transformer is there inside the chassis for anyone who wants to install a second jack for a proper 8 ohm output, or to wire a 4/8 ohm selector switch for the single jack that's there. Simple mod. Just a matter of how much gear you want to carry around. Most of the time a single 8" is OK with me and I don't want to be burdened with a cab, but the capability is nice. So a combo does it for me. If you want a bigger speaker and have access to different cabs, go for the head for sure!

Well I decided on the combo, it should arrive in a couple of weeks or so, i'm assuming. Now I think i'll go out and buy a reverb pedal, and maybe an E.Q and overdrive :D

I think you'll be happy with that. I use an overdrive pedal with the V.J. combo as a "master volume" setup with overdrive in the first preamp stage. When some crunch is desired at lower volume. You can of course buy amps already made with a gain control and master volume.
:wink:

I just picked up a EVJ last week. I use my Daddy-O overdrive and a Fab Echo with it and I'm very happy with the tone.