VOX AC10C Guitar AMP | Review | Tom Quayle
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- čas přidán 9. 11. 2015
- "The AC10C1 is a great sounding little amplifier for not a lot of money"
VOX AC10C Guitar AMP Review by Guitar Interactive Magazine. Reviewed in Issue 37 of Guitar Interactive Magazine by TOM QUAYLE.
Welcome to GI 37, a very special issue as it features the amazing Albert Lee. We've been trying to catch-up with Albert since GI began but so busy is his schedule (even at 70!) that we've only just managed. Don't miss our exclusive interview or Lee Hodgson's unmatchable Albert Lee Tech Session! bit.ly/GI_37
Also in this issue is the hugely gifted Thomas Blug - not just one of the world's top Rock players but also a noted amp designer, which you have to admit is an unusual combination! Tom Quayle's delivers a truly fascinating interview with a great player. bit.ly/GI_37
With a full review line-up of guitars, amps, FX, basses, acoustics, home/project studio and live gear (not to mention the amazing Jaime Vendera teaching us all how to be the next Ian Gillan!) and tuition columns we think it's a pretty tempting package! bit.ly/GI_37
Oh, and freebies? Well how about the chance to win a superb Sennheiser wireless mic system or the brand new Red Witch Zeus FX pedal? bit.ly/GI_37
GI - still growing and still unique! bit.ly/GI_37 - Hudba
2 weeks ago i was sitting in one the biggest Music Instrument stores in Europe, in a room filled with Tone Kings, Two Rocks, Bogners, Suhrs, Bad Cats, Friedman and all those Boutique very expensive stuff...sitting in a dark Corner was this Little Vox...Long Story short: it was one of the best sounding amps in the room, if not maybe even the very best...this Thing is incredible..
Lots of praise for this amp..BUT it wont be great for much longer unless you can buy quality tubes for it...🤘
I own this and absolutely love it. Incredible sound that responds well to volume and picking style.
Just got a second hand Vox ac 10c1 it's the best sounding amp I've owed there as been a lot never parting with this piece of kit 😎
Best review I've seen in a long time mate. Thanks for that !!!!
Thanx for your reviev - cut down to the basics!!!I think I'm going to buy this amp.
PEOPLE, DO NOT PLUG ANYTHING BUT A 16 OHM CABINET INTO THE EXTERNAL SPEAKER OUT JACK! The guy made a mistake saying that you can plug anything up to a 16 ohm cabinet including an 8 ohm speaker cabinet if you want. If you plug anything below 16 ohms into the external out jack, you will damage your power tubes and possibly your output transformer.
+Randall Wetmore Yep! What Randall says!
You can plug big in small but not small in big. Very easy to remember. NEVER plug a cab in higher ohm in number than the amp.
Marc-Andre Levesque
Backwards, an 8 ohm amp is happy in a 16 ohm cab, but not the other way around.
Ridiculously Gracious If the ohms on the speaker are lower than the amp, yes, if the speaker is 8 ohms or more, happy days
The confusion might have come about because the on line spec for this amp states that the extension speaker jack lets you 'connect up to' another 16 ohm guitar cab. I take this to mean you can connect to a 16 ohm cab, not connect to (any impedance up to) 16 ohm.
man, such a good demo/review. He's just a monster player.
Been watching a lot of review / video's on the AC10 and IMHO you have the best one out there coupled with an HB outfitted guitar. Thanks for the demo.
Great review! I actually bought mine months ago, but love to check out other reviews because it's just a fabulous amp. What he said about it being LOUD is 100% true. However, there is a sweet spot where it gets just quiet enough for bedroom/basement use and can still cover the full range of gain (a lot of players probably prefer to play louder than I do anyway). Really no comparison to an AC4 - this thing has massive low end for a 10" speaker. Reverb is a bit on the touchy/splashy side, and I wish it had an FX loop. Other than that, highly recommend.
Outstanding little amp, thanks Tom !
Excellent Thank you.This guy is one of the best reviewers on CZcams.
One of the best demos on the AC10. Good no clipping recording unlike most other videos. Nice job. Thanks.
Beautiful playing..just superb!
I now own the AC15 and love it, but I did own an AC10 originally and I think it’s a great little amp for home practice along with small gigs mic’d up.
Really straight forward review !
which is quite rare in these days
GREAT review, great sound (recording, tone) and great playing...I gotta have it!
Rock on!
great review! you have some beautiful guitars
Tom, are you SURE that this amp's external can jack into an 8 ohm cabinet? Because the owner's manual says 16 ohms.
Best review I found so far on the AC 10. Thanks!
agree
Cool review :)
Great stuff
Good demo of the clean sound! Often on these demos the clean sounds are weeny feeble almost un-plugged in sounding. Good job.
Darn thing seems at least as loud as a Blues Jr. I love it. The reverb is really good sounding but does seem to kick ion quite quickly & you can get a good reasonably loud clean as he shows here sort of.
I love this amp - and I have a great collection of amps for home recording - for some tones this is just beautiful - this a fender blues jnr or Delta blues peavey and Marshall dsl 40 are each perfect for what they can deliver
This sounds like a lot of Blue Tooth/Smart Speaker tricks were used in this design.
It shouldn’t sound this good but it does.
that opening soloing was blissful and at 5:30 I'm grabbing my guitar to steal those licks!
Superb review mate. To the point, and showing the off the amp instead of showing off how good you can play.....which you certainly can :-)....
I bought my AC30 3 years ago and still love it. I swear, theres no better amp for everything non High-Gain. It's so great from the smoothiest jazz to fucked up punk and garage, not to mention Indie.
A year ago i traded in my AC15 for a Blues Jr and it's great and all but not comparable to a vox.
Really thinking bout buying a 10er.
Fender blues junior iv vs Vox ac10?
I wish that they’d build a head version with the original circuit using a EF86 and a 6u8 tube.
I've got the ac10c1 it's an excellent grab and go amp you can work with these amps and they are great for studio and practice too. There's a lot of amp snobbery, I have found it faultless and yes I have got other amps which cost a lot more money. This video gives an accurate depiction of its caperbillity. Lastly the guitar is a Music Man AXIS super sport I believe. Hope this helps
Anybody have experience with this and the ac4? I like the idea of the 12 inch speaker in the ac4.
The ac4 lacks low end and is bright. The ac10 sounds bigger, mic'd up it won't make much of a difference. The other main things are that the ac4 doesn't have much clean headroom(which is why I loved mine) and it doesn't have reverb
Thinking about this one, my line 6 hasn't been cutting it lately...
op what happened
did you get it
or are you still all gain no mids
You can plug an 8 Ohm speaker cab into it? The amp is designed for a 16 Ohm speaker - correct me if I'm wrong, but won't running an 8 Ohm speaker potentially damage the circuit?
Excellent review thank you even tho not cranked got the idea still stuttering between this and the ac15 only a £100 difference
Hi thanks for all the advice and i bought a AC10 in the end and totally love it i have put it through my 2x12 cab and it sounds huge.
Excellent as you say for taking to rehearsals very lightweight with a huge sound.
If anybody gets the strange rattle sound please try it through an extension cab the rattle disappears its just the tubes rattling due to the power of the amp in a small box.
Wow, only £100 difference in the UK? At my local music stores (in Canada) the AC10 is $600 and the AC15 is $900!
I was lucky enough to find a new AC30 for $750 (the salesman said they hadn't marked up the sale price when Vox marked up all their prices), but sadly it would have been too loud for my setting. I think I'm picking up an AC10 for myself today though, I'm excited :)
Is it the greatest amp to ever grace the earth, no, but it's still a good amp that works at bedroom volumes, takes pedals decently well, can be gigged with, and is reasonably priced, so there's not much room to complain
Hallo Tom, I would like to ask you how would it sound in your opinion this amp with a 335 style guitar. I would play mostly jazz. Would the amp be adapt for jazz sound?
7:05
I got one and there is massive gain hiss and then ever present hum :(
miniature ac30 for Brian may sound lol. iam getting an ac30 this September for university. I have a treble booster and a BMG red special too plus other guitars. it's be cool to play this though in a bm style
+Camden Boren back in the day alot of the pioneering rock guitar gods used treble booster pedals not to add treble per se, but because they invariable worked like we use tube screamers today, to push the front end of the amp and give it abit of 'hair', as most of the amps in those days were quite clean sounding... In the early days, an amp distorting was considered a 'bad' thing. Jim Marshall, along with some others, changed all that. ;0) (I totally want this amp. It sounds amazing!)
joe threlfall me too pretty cool
+Camden Boren i do have a treble booster its on my pedalboard first in line and on all the time.
cant believe hes gettin those tones straight throo the amp
fantastic bet its great with pedals but would you need them ?
Gregory Dorrell depends on what you want to do, if you want that cranked drive, but want to go back to clean without a pedal, you will need to roll down the volume on your guitar. If you don’t like that clean, then you will have to set the amp up for a clean tone, and unless you can stop time, fiddle with the knobs to get a good drive sound, restart back time again. If you can’t do that then you need an overdrive pedal to create a pseudo second channel
@@voxpathfinder15r thanks
Is this loud enough to play in a band with or do I need the 15?
Derek Daniell its loud enough!
Even better thru the Ext. jack into a Celestion Blue
i just compared this next to a carr rambler thats a 2600 dollar amp..vox was right there!!! a damn close second
I played a medium size bar with the same. Plenty of volume in good tone.
I hate Tom Quayle's demos. There absolutely zero chance I will ever get the amp to sound as good as when plays. Touch, tone, phrasing...impeccable.
Jared Burdick there is always chapman demos
yeah tom sucks ass I agree he just cant play the instrument properly
I have had an AC15H1TV for years, and it is too loud. Thinking about selling it and getting this little guy.
Harry, if you are still thinking of selling your AC15H1TV, I'm interested. Are you in the U.S.?
Ac 10 with a quality tremolo pedal or for similar overall price get an ac15??
Depends on what you're using it for I think... My AC10 is plenty if not too loud for my house, so if you're mostly playing at home, I would probably not recommend upping the wattage to 15... So yeah go with the trem pedal if that's you're situation
@@aidenmohrmann1850 I ended up going with the 15. Absolutely love it, one of my better decisions!! LoL
@@paulsmart5199 good for you man!
Thing is with Vox amps they need to be loud to get the best out of them. I had an AC-4 and that even needed to be too loud for home use.
Um, you know there are 3 wattage settings with the ac4 right? 4 watts, 1 watt and 1/10th of a watt or something like that. These are made to be cranked at home.
I had one of these beautiful little amps but couldn't find a place for It, it was too loud for home too quiet for gigs, and it hated all my drive pedals, the artist Tweed tone 20r is a much better amp for less money, is cheaper and it loves drive pedals, on the clean channel,
Yes it also has two foot switching channels, the AC 10 I would have loved to have kept in my collection
But I needed the money for a Boss katana head, a vastly superior beast for practice and gigs.
Modern classic leading the way to the new generation of players use to quiet stage performing. Nobody uses an AC30 anymore fully cranked without P/A support. Only thing they are used for is clean pedal platform for pedal guys
Oh yeah? Brain May has 6 ac30s plugged in and absolutely cranked
@@kosmicwizard Brian May is from the past - and he’s the big boss. Sound men don’t tell him what to do, he tells them what to do. And he doesn’t have 6 AC30s cranked. He uses 3 AC30’s cranked. The others are spares. And he surrounds them with plexiglass, has them turned at an angle and finally covers the top of them with a big thick blanket. All in attempt to quiet stage volume
@@voxpathfinder15r i just watched the video again, his tech says the top 3 are unplugged and he has 2 spares on the side. That leaves 3 angled and miced on the floor, and 3 facing forward. You are right, he is a dinosaur and the big boss, generally stage volumes are coming down and PA is available now, when it wasn't in the 60s. Now Covid has added another layer to the how many watts are enough debate, but for you to say "nobody uses an AC30 anymore fully cranked without PA support" just isn't true. And as you say, AC30s are a fantastic clean pedal platform! Cheers.
@@kosmicwizard well I have yet to see an AC30 fully cranked. I was at an outdoor concert with the guitarist using an AC30 and it was not being mic’d. I was standing according to google maps just over 250 feet from the amp. There was absolutely no breakup going on, and I heard it as clearly as driving around with my stereo going at a good clip! So it needed to go louder to breakup. I was already 250 feet away , and it was jukebox loud where I was standing
@@kosmicwizard btw- the three on top row aren’t amps. They are just 2x12 speaker cabinets that keep extra speakers handy. The second row or the middle row are amps, but they aren’t on, they aren’t mic’d, nothing. Just the three on the floor are on. So three speaker cabs up top, 3 spares in the middle, 2 more spares off to the side and 3 on the bottom going full blast.
Does it run pedals? like reverb hall of fame, flasback delay, big muff? thank you.
Any amp will run a HOF, Flashback, and Big muff 😅
Good amp for clean sounds. High gain is a bit harsh.
It's pretty loud, but I like it better than the AC-15. With as loud as those are, I can't imagine playing an AC-30. This Ac10 is much louder than my Marshall Dsl 40c
+Gregg Parrish I was considering the Dsl40 but got this. Im am super impressed.
Not a chance. I have an ac15 and a dsl40. The Marshall is way louder. They're both insanely loud but the Marshall is definitely louder.
How the fuck would this amp be louder than a 40 watt Marshall?
Derek Daniell I have both amps and it’s not a crazy notion. I was thinking the same thing. The DSL might project better since it has a larger speaker and cab, but the Vox is crazy efficient. Watts don’t necessarily equate with volume.
@@johnspokus I see some contradictory comments about these smaller Vox Tube amps (AC4, AC10, AC15), that they are (too) loud for home/bedroom use? What's your oppinion? Guess loudness is all subjective and depends on playing style/type of music. The master volume suggests one could set a moderate gain and low volume and achieve the desired tone....unless the volume needs to higher to get the tone?
i think the Vox AC 10 is the best sounding amp ever
Me too
@@jamesnortonofficial1566 me 3
David Goldsteen me 4
that is a SWEET looking guitar, too.
not a fan of much reverb,but not bad a little once a year or so.
Is this thing loud enough to gig with?
Yes
I do love my AC 10 but just one question .. every time I play OD fuzz or disto pedals I notice that the amp sounds " BOXY " so how can I solve that?? I'll appreciate someone reply me .. t-you =)
turn the knobs down, these low wattage amps break up MUCH faster so the settings you're used to on bigger amps will just sound compressed
What I do is put the drive part around 9, and then push the volume and tone knobs
@@GoblinWar thanks a looot for ur reply 😁
musicman? sterling or high end?
+Avisek Ganguly it a real MM. you can tell from the logo on the headstock!
and actually, just look at that fretboard maple and you just can't go wrong: it's hi-end
+fabrizio peretti yaa it does seem like the high end one
are you havin a laugh
ive never heard anything like it
amazing sound
Also forgot to mention if you want an alternate review watch VOX ac10 Rob Chapman review Andertons
can i gig with this
oh yeahhhhhhhhhhhh
@@amazingme1408 yesss
Tlk
Sounds great, and thanks for the review, but I have one question.... why, again, you can't crank it?? A) Have you ever heard of earplugs? and, B) What on Gods green earth are you using for a mic if a 10 watt Vox will 'clip the front end' of it?? It looks for all the world like an SM57, which I have used on completely cranked 100w Marshall half-stacks with no trouble whatsoever! Seems a bit of a cop-out in what is meant to be a "professional review" to say "Trust me, it sounds great cranked." I know it DOES as I've done it at the music store...but I'll guarantee you it will NOT clip the front end of any decent instrument mic.
Vox AC amps are pretty bright amps... that'll clip an SM57 easy. I know of a few other youtube videos where other low wattage amps, when adjusted to be brighter, started clipping the mic (Randall RD5 demo by Ola Englund comes to mind). Maybe your Marshall had a bass-mids heavy tone?
Tom could literally plug a guitar into a turd and it still sound beautiful. .brown sound
+Brian J "Literally". You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I agree....he LITERALLY does not know what it means.
all this for 500 bucks?? wow noice
lose the weird guitar an get a strat
Awesome guitar
Tubes are all made in China though
This is not a review,it's a commercial and a demo.
I concede these sound pretty good and it looks good,it's also very portable...but one look at the construction was a big fat let down.thin MDF cabinet(sawdust and glue),chintzy looking transformers and pcb -yuck,built like a Crate.
Who cares? It's like 400 dollars. You expect it to have a birch cabinet, spring reverb, and a tube rectifier? It sounds good just as it is.
Isn’t everything pcb and MDF nowadays? Even the blues jr and black star and the like I believe? Cheap tubes and speakers too. But at least it sounds good and can be afforded! A lot of the less expensive valve amps could benefit from some basic mods. But sound pretty dang good stock.
bootlegapples welcome to every “review” of guitar gear on the internet.
Basically, 99.9% of guitars that aren't Fenders or Gibsons are BLOODY UGLY. See above.
Basically, 99.9% of posts from ComboverSoul tig are BLOODY STUPID. See above. 🤷♂️
Where is the Bass? So thin...
10 Watts kill ears..yeah, if you are a scary child . Better you play without an amp, better for your ears😂😂😂
@@farstox1875 I'm not the guy who wrote the orig comment that you replied to but 10 watts is not loud unless it's in a small room. I've been in a music store with an AC30 with two 12 inch speakers built in, cranked to 10 and none of us had ear protection. Now that was called loud. But still not loud enough to cause ear damage.
A Vox AC with a gain knob and no EF86 is not much of a Vox AC.