My search for tone has led me to the Epi Valve Junior combo. Who likes them? Do they sound right? I love vintage tube tone, as well as old-school crunch. And it looks cool :wink:
Ewan McGregor: I said, "Eve, I want you to look after my wedding ring while I'm away," and she started to cry and I said, "Eve. Eve, I can't wear my ring or I won't get laid on the trip!"
Well, considering I payed less than $200 canadian for mine, I am quite happy with it, it has a really nice clean tone. The only issue is whether or not you want a cheap, basic tube amp or if you want something more versatile: the EVJ doesn't have an effects loop or reverb, two things that I think would be quite nice to have. That being said, I just bought a electro-harmonix holy grail reverb pedal and a Ibanez Artcore along with it, which gives me such an amazing tone (in my opinion). Even my cheap $200 strat-copy (that I modified with 'hot' SRV type pickups) give me such a great tone.
If I had to rate it from 1 - 10 I would give it an 8 because it's not the same as a Fender Deluxe Reverb or another $1000 amp, but I think it's by far the best amp in it's price range and it's apparently very easy to modify to sound even better, but I think it is really good the way it is.
Steve-0
I own the EVJ head, and use it with a 1 X 12 with an Eminence 125 speaker, I also use it with a 2 X 12 with Vintage 30's. So I can't completely comment on the combo, I don't have any experience with that cab and speaker.
But the amp itself is great, I love the tone of my EVJ. It sounds neither Fender or Marshall, has a distinct tone all it's own.
These amps are much louder than you might realize. Cranked up they can just compete with a loud drummer. So they can easily play an Open Mic or even be used for gigging if the rest of the band doesn't use excessive volume. But to get the great overdrive this amp is known for you have to turn the amp up around 2 o'clock position or more. This will be very loud, too loud if you live in an apartment for example. I actually use a Weber attenuator with mine to crank it up and keep the volume down.
I too wish this amp had reverb, and tone controls would be nice too. I use a reverb and EQ pedal with mine.
But it really is a great sounding amp with warm, thick tube tone. Sounds good clean too and with effects pedals run into it. For the money it is a real bargain.
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
I got one, run it into 2x12" Jensen speakers. I like it, espescially for the price. I prefer AmpliTube more though, which goes to show that opinions are quite pointless when it comes to this, many different roads to the same place. :)
I have the combo and I'm happy with it. I use it with a Danelectro Daddy-O overdrive and a Fab Echo. The Daddy-O has treble, mid and bass controls, so it helps tweak the tone a little. I also use an Ibanez Sonic Distortion with it when I need to get more distortion.
The only thing I would say negative about it is that I haven't been able to tame the feedback when I plug in my Green Bullet and blow harp through it.
I have an Epi Valve head I run through an old 12" combo speaker (Jenson). I run it through a Dano EQ, Tubulator, and a Dig. reverb. It really rocks. best $100 I have spent next to my Squier 51 :D I made an attenuator from a Radio Shack wall volume controll. Tone to the bone :twisted:
Smokingdog - can you explain how the attenuator was made? How well does it work?
I've got mine right here, with my lap steel. Fact is, I originally bought it to be a lap steel amp, noting its close similarity to the small lap steel amps that were so common in the '40s and '50s. Only difference is it's been balanced with an excess of drive from the first to the second stage of the preamp so that it hits full volume somewhere in the middle of the knob's travel and overdrives after that.
I've stayed away from modding mine. Only thing I've done to it is an easily reversible mod (detailed on the site http://valvejunior.com/ ) to rectify the heater current to somewhat reduce the excessive hum mine came with, due to an unfortunate poor design choice on the early production models to place the grid trace to the second stage of the 12AX7 immediately adjacent to a main heater trace on the printed circuit board. Rather than modding the amp, for occasional special purposes I use pedals for things like boosting gain at low volume, distortion if such is wanted, compression (a VERY useful effect playing clean with steel), reverb...
Mostly I'm a straight into the amp sort of player and appreciate the VJ's single knob simplicity. This is an old school amp. This is the way they used to be.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Smokingdog - can you explain how the attenuator was made? How well does it work?
Follow this thread at the Valve Jr. forum :D
http://vj.minuteboard.com/m/b/f/showtopic.html?topicid=631&nr=30
Thanks!
