A Short History of VOX

Jennings Musical Instruments (JMI), headed by Tom Jennings and Dick Denney, was started in 1958. Within a couple of years of their initial introduction of the AC-15, VOX was well on its way to being the most influential musical instrument manufacturer of the day. By the mid sixties, VOX had climbed the ladder of success to become one of the worlds largest musical instrument manufacturers and distributors. With most of the major 1960's British rock groups featuring VOX amplifiers in their back-line, VOX had to do little to encourage musicians that VOX was the equipment choice of the day.

During the mid sixties JMI began designing solid state amplifiers. Their tube amplifiers while great sounding, were expensive to produce, very heavy (weight wise) and could be difficult to maintain. Converting the JMI amplifiers to solid state was a monumental task that would soon elude VOX. Because of the onslaught of the British invasion, VOX was constantly running up against an inability to produce products in sufficient quantities to satisfy customer demand. About this time, Tom Jennings struck a business deal with Thomas Organ in the USA and and soon after was bought out by Rose-Morris. These two incidents were among the main reasons for VOX's original demise.

Thomas Organ initially imported amplifiers directly from JMI, but because of JMI's inability to supply amplifiers in great quantity, they soon started to design and manufacture their own models and soon abandoned the English amplifiers altogether. This fateful departure from Jennings designed amplifiers soon led to wide spread customer disappointment. This disappointment was fueled by the fact that the Thomas amplifiers didn't sound anything like the British amplifiers and had an even worse reputation for poor reliability. By the early 70's, VOX had fallen out of favor. The company had been sold a number of times by the early 1970's, and Tom Jennings and Dick Denney who had master minded the VOX empire, were no longer participating with VOX products.

From 1995 through 2004, VOX tube amplifiers (AC 15 and AC30 models) were manufactured, to the original specifications, in England by Marshall Amplification.

The AC-30 Twin

The AC-30 is the amplifier that became forever linked with The Beatles and the British Invasion. While The Beatles for the most part only utilized this amplifier during 1963 and 1964, its legend looms large among Beatle fans and purveyors of Beatle and VOX folk lure. The AC-30 also holds the distinction of having the most configurations of any VOX model. Along with the usual brown/black fret cloth, red/grey control panel color and vynide variations, the AC-30 had no fewer than six officially produced variations.

The Beatles, as well as other major bands of the day, signed exclusive use contracts with VOX. This contract precluded The Beatles from utilizing any other amplifier on stage, although they were free to use other manufactures' amplifiers while in the recording studio. It seems apparent that the AC-30 was all but eliminated from Beatle recording and stage work by late 1964 in favor of VOX's newly released AC-50's and AC-100 MKI amplifiers.

The holy grail among VOX collectors today is the AC-30 Top Boosted Twin. While The Beatles most likely utilized all the AC-30's configurations, the most sought after "Beatle" VOX is a AC-30 factory added Top Boost model with a candy apple red control panel, two blue VOX Celestion Alnico 12" speakers (which were specially designed Celestion G12M's) and brown fret cloth. VOX originally introduced the AC-30 without the extra Top Boost feature and later added this feature as a "return to the factory" upgrade. These AC-30 models have the extra bass and treble controls added to the rear panel. Later models were modified to include the Top Boost feature in the control panel proper. The Top Boost feature was an "upgrade" feature for most of the AC-30's production during JMI's tenure whether as a "return to the factory" upgrade or as an "in the control panel" addition.

The officially released models are as follows: AC-30/4 Twin, AC-30/6 Twin, AC-30/6 TB Twin, AC-30/6 Twin Bass (2x15" speakers), AC-30/6 TB Super Twin, AC-30 Super Twin Reverb as well as colored versions of the twin models.