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AC30 Custom Classic Series Recent excerpts from the web...
Guys,
------------------------------------- I got together with a few friends and we brought together a vox cc, a valvetech hayseed 30, a copy of a trainwreck liverpool, and a /13 FTR 37 (all of which other than the CC are boutique amps of various ilks). Anyhow, everyone was impressed with how the CC not only sounded great but hung in with these more expensive boys, and the range of features of the CC (by the way the hayseed is also a great bang for buck amp). The CC sounded great to me and may even have been my favorite of the 4. This was a group of guys who have been through Matchlesses, Two Rocks, Roccafortes, Komets - you name it they've tried it. The AC30 was loved by all that heard it. The tone continues to impress the high end boutique guys.
------------------------------------- The amp is cosmetically very beautiful, perfect tolex job, all parts are really great on the cabinet, grill cloth is just right, so is all the piping, logo, control panel, Dick Denny would be thrilled ! The Blues are perfect too, so spankin' new, it's kind of funny this 'new car vibe' this amp has...even the smell ! The painted birch wood inside is really nicely done, like it's built with furniture care, everything with the cab is tightly designed and fitted, very nice how the slide out chassis is screwed down from under the wood slider board, and held with T-nuts. Everything on the back control panel is nicely laid out as you can see from the pics at Vox site. Looks like 16 gauge wire goes to the speakers- really nice, but the only negative thing I have to say about this amp, and it's just a small thing, is that you must unsolder the speakers at their terminals to completely slide out the chassis in order to change the output and rectifier tube, if only a fancy industrial plug was inside where the speaker wires go to the chassis. I bet this was designed this way for safety reasons, great soldering all around though, that I can see ! Nice heavy wires where needed. Control panel knobs and layout are great, every switch is very useful, nothing with the switch's seems to suck tone, everything is very pure to the original 1959-1964 ideal for this amps design !!! Also the circuit board does not seem to destroy any of the amps pure tone, very impressed with this ! Standby switch is great to have to take it easy on those power tubes, the two inputs for the normal and top boost channel are sooo great. The tubes delivered with the amp work fine, and don't sound bad at all, very useful, clear smooth tone, Electro Harmonix in output, could be in preamps too, I did not pull those out yet.I will soon change them too NOS Mullards for even more great tone, can't wait. I have the amps settings at vintage 22 uf for less filtering like the original JMI's, and also at the 50 ohm setting for the cathode resistor for the June of '62 and before, the original JMI setup, the AC runs really hot this way and begs you to slam the power out of it, think Brian May as far as punch and fullness goes ! The tremolo I won't use, but I tried it, it kind of sounds closer to the vibrato on the JMI's in a sense without the pitch bend they had, the tremolos on those old amps where more chorus like to me. The reverb is very nice and actually useful for the studio or rockabilly Setzer tones and style, I would only use it in the studio, very flexible too, sweet tone - nice job ! The effects loop I won't use, but it's great that it has an actual on/off switch to keep the signal pure, love it.
Now the sound, the
speakers and electronic parts will take at least 20 hours to start to
really break in, I'm judging this amp against my old '62 non-top boost
normal channel that I use to have, as well as every other great JMI I have
heard including the AC50. This new amp really beats the pants off of Mesa's best amps over the last 25 years, like the Heartbreaker, The Maverick, The Lonestar, and the Mark II, III, and IV's. Specifically when useing the top-boost channel with the custom Bruno switch on, this is the tone and feel Mesa seems they always want to achieve with their amps designs ! Vox beats them with this setting, also found on the ACHW's originally, Bruno's design. The brilliance switch for the normal channel changes this amp to a treble model and just puts the normal channel into another great feel and setting, really useful too. The top boost channel sounds just right, the custom or Bruno switch is just wonderful to use too, and the two channels linked are outrageous, a very big and hot sound. I love that input link switch, all these choices are so refreshing and useable, great simple but effective design ! The post phase inverter master volume works perfectly, it doesn't get any better then this, no need for an attenuator here, the 36 watts of power is just right for using this control, all the original JMI's should have this same ohm value and setup of this control pot installed in them, WOW ! ------------------------------------ |